EXEC SUMMARY: Hello from LAX, taking a redeye back to NYC, I'll see you on "New Day" in the morning... Scroll down for our media week ahead calendar, fallout at Fox News, Elizabeth Warren versus Facebook, and much more...
The seeds of hate
Call someone an "enemy" over and over again, and you have some responsibility for what happens to them.
President Trump is responsible for a climate that is so hateful, so hostile toward journalists that it spawns videos like this one.
"A video depicting a macabre scene of a fake President Trump shooting, stabbing and brutally assaulting members of the news media and his political opponents was shown at a conference for his supporters at his Miami resort last week," the NYT's Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman reported Sunday night.
The "meme" is despicable, and the people who saw it at Doral hopefully know that. The hosts of the conference, American Priority, say they reject "all political violence," and "this matter is under review."
But this is about so much more than a single video. It is about what happens when you plant seeds of hatred and division. It is about what happens when you give your supporters permission to hate and dehumanize people the president views as opponents.
| | This isn't the first, and won't be the last
ABC's Jonathan Karl, the president of the White House Correspondents' Association, called the video "Vile. And dangerous."
He issued the following statement: "The WHCA is horrified by a video reportedly shown over the weekend at a political conference organized by the President's supporters at the Trump National Doral in Miami. All Americans should condemn this depiction of violence directed toward journalists and the President's political opponents. We have previously told the President his rhetoric could incite violence. Now we call on him and everybody associated with this conference to denounce this video and affirm that violence has no place in our society."
Yes, but... As The Daily Beast's Kelly Weill noted on Twitter, "the thing about the video is that clips from that genre are common as hell/have already saturated pro-trump spaces online. so for all the rightfully angry mainstream coverage it'll get now, it's a 'yeah, no s***' deal from most trump types who are already inured to all this."
Indeed, this rhetorical targeting has been going on for years. Sunday's NYT story is just a shocking reminder.
"Some of the targets in this video were sent bombs by a Trump superfan last year and the president responded by attacking the press," NBC's Benjy Sarlin wrote. "Saudi Arabia killed a Washington Post columnist and the W.H. stuck by their side. His backers get the text and subtext perfectly clearly."
CNN says Trump needs to denounce the video 'immediately'
"Sadly, this is not the first time that supporters of the president have promoted violence against the media in a video they apparently find entertaining -- but it is by far and away the worst," CNN said in a Sunday night statement.
"The images depicted are vile and horrific," CNN said. "The president and his family, the White House, and the Trump campaign need to denounce it immediately in the strongest possible terms. Anything less equates to a tacit endorsement of violence and should not be tolerated by anyone."
I asked W.H. press secretary Stephanie Grisham for comment at 10pm ET, and did not hear back as of 11:45pm.
But the Trump campaign did tell the NYT that the video "was not produced by the campaign, and we do not condone violence."
"I'm so sad for all of us"
NYMag's Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi tweeted: "How disconnected from humanity must you be to find humor in a depiction of a mass shooting of journalists inside a church — knowing, surely, that Americans have been slaughtered in churches & newsrooms, that it's not a fantasy for the families that those shootings made incomplete?"
There was a shooting at a church in New Hampshire on Saturday.
"I'm so sad for all of us," Nuzzi added. "For the people who think it's a joke. For the people who have been and will be hurt by those who think it's a joke. For the people who will be hurt indirectly, just by living in an increasingly polarized and hateful country."
"Blood on the floor"
Flashback to what the NYT's Bret Stephens wrote last year: "We are approaching a day when blood on the newsroom floor will be blood on the president's hands."
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Dan Balz with the big picture: "Along the political spectrum, there is a shared sense that the country has entered into a new and more worrisome phase of Trump's presidency..." (WaPo)
-- "Five years ago, in Iraq, we discovered this hesitant, frightened, woman. We did not imagine her scarf concealed not only her identity but also a fierce invincibility which would lead her, four years after our interview, to the highest honor the world has to give." This "60 Minutes" segment about Nobel Peace Prize recipient Nadia Murad brought viewers to tears on Sunday night... (CBS)
-- You're hearing it here first: Caroline Haskins -- a staff writer from Vice's Motherboard -- will join the BuzzFeed News Tech and Business desk in NYC as a reporter next week...
Media week ahead calendar
Monday: Congress returns from a two-week break...
Monday evening: Nicholas Kristof is interviewing Adam Schiff on stage at 92Y...
Tuesday: Ronan Farrow's "Catch and Kill" hits bookshelves... So does Elton John's autobiography...
Tuesday morning: Google's big hardware event...
Tuesday night: CNN and the NYT hold the fourth #DemDebate of the season...
Wednesday after the bell: Netflix earnings...
Thursday: Ambassador Gordon Sondland testifies under subpoena...
Thursday night: Trump rallies in Dallas...
A REMINDER...
Trump spread false info about American troops in Syria
Last Thursday, Trump said "we have no soldiers in Syria." In fact, the United States has about 1,000 soldiers in Syria. Now those forces are reportedly being withdrawn from northern Syria. Even if Trump simply misspoke on Thursday, it is problematic to say the least...
The TV Guide president
Imagine the president as an embittered TV critic for a moment. He loves certain shows. He implores you to watch them. He hates other shows -- and you know it because he mocks the stars and creators by name.
It's harmless, until you remember that he's charged with making life-and-death decisions and upholding the Constitution and representing America on the world stage.
Now imagine that all of these shows are ABOUT him. That's where this gets really funky really fast.
But that's where we are – through the looking glass – where Trump tries to tell his fans which TV shows to watch, which shows to boycott, and sometimes even gives them an exclusive sneak peek, TV Guide style...
Trump promotes Mark Levin
The TV Guide in action: On Sunday evening Trump advised his followers to check out Steve Hilton's 9pm Fox News show about the "Crooked Bidens" and Mark Levin's "big show" at 10 about the "Democrat's Impeachment Scam." Later he tweeted out a quote from a promo of Levin's pre-taped episode. Levin's claim: "Serial killers get more Due Process than the Democrats give to the president." Trump is hearing this stuff day in, day out, and it is clearly affecting his mood...
Trump targets Chris Wallace
Trump apparently didn't like what he watched on "Fox News Sunday." After a round of golf on Sunday, he tweeted, "Somebody please explain to Chris Wallace of Fox, who will never be his father (and my friend), Mike Wallace, that the Phone Conversation I had with the President of Ukraine was a congenial & good one. It was only Schiff's made up version of that conversation that was bad!"
Yashar Ali: "Way to bring in someone's dead father into the mix."
Katie Rogers: "Almost like he thinks he can go after Fox journalists one by one."
And that brings us to Shep Smith...
Fox News staffers are seriously worried
Journalists at Fox are "depressed" and "shocked" by Shep's sudden departure, former Fox commentator Julie Roginsky told me on "Reliable Sources." Staffers "feel like the management is not really managing," she said.
Roginsky and two former Fox correspondents, Conor Powell and Carl Cameron, joined me for a unique look inside the network. Powell called Smith "the directional compass" for other journalists at the network. Watch part one and part two of our discussion here...
Here's what I'm hearing from sources
Their big question is: What will Fox's news operation look like without Shep? Among rank and file staffers and even some of the network's anchors, there is deep concern that the news side of Fox will be further squeezed by the opinion shows that Trump and his supporters prefer. Yes, Smith had his detractors, but he provided a kind of moral leadership that went well beyond his 3pm time slot.
He was a role model for other journalists at the network, and that's why the loss is "heartbreaking," in the words of one of a dozen sources for my story over the weekend. "His departure comes at a tough time for this country," one of the staffers said. "We're going into an election that promises to be the most chaotic one we've ever seen. The President himself is on the verge of being impeached. We're heading into some uncharted territory here and without Shep to help reign in the chaos, I fear things are going to get much, much worse."
>> On the one hand: The departures of Bill O'Reilly, Megyn Kelly, and other major stars have shown that Fox chugs along no matter what. From that POV, everyone is replaceable, including Smith...
>> On the other hand: His exit is a definite blow to morale for the network's journalists. "Shep had power that almost none of us had," a veteran staffer said, asserting that Smith could fact-check deceptive politicians and call out indecency much more strongly than other anchors and reporters. That description only applies to a small number of others at Fox, most notably the aforementioned Chris Wallace...
NYT story recounts Trump's "lengthy" call to Fox News CEO
"Fed up with the coverage on his favorite cable news station" in the late summer, Trump called up Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott "and let loose," the NYT's Michael M. Grynbaum and Maggie Haberman report. "In a lengthy conversation, Mr. Trump complained that Fox News was not covering him fairly, according to three people with knowledge of the call." She "responded by urging Mr. Trump to sit for an interview with Bret Baier, the channel's chief political anchor, the people said..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Jonathan Swan's latest: "Trump had been calling Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan's bluff for more than 2 years, and some senior administration officials thought ErdoÄŸan would never actually go through with his long-threatened Syria invasion, according to 6 sources with direct knowledge of the situation..." (Axios)
-- Another NYT must-read: "Inside Trump's Botched Attempt to Hire Trey Gowdy..." (NYT)
Who's taking over for Shep?
 On Monday Trace Gallagher will anchor the 3pm hour on Fox... Gallagher, who is surely on the short list for Smith's anchor seat, is the first in a series of rotating anchors... Other likely names include Ed Henry, Jon Scott, Bill Hemmer...
Zurawik: This is a 'severe blow' to Fox's credibility
On Sunday's "Reliable," David Zurawik argued that "Fox management getting into bed with Trump hurts the network long-term." Losing Smith is a "severe blow" to the network's credibility, he said...
Marcotte: 'They prefer Donald Trump and his lies'
Salon politics writer Amanda Marcotte asserted that many right-wing voters "don't want to hear" news from the likes of Shep. She said they are "rejecting the truth for ideological reasons: They prefer Donald Trump and his lies" and "they like Fox News best when it is echoing Donald Trump and his dishonesty."
Donaldson: Don't mistake Trump's base for all of America
"When Nixon resigned, 24 percent of the American public said they still liked him," Sam Donaldson said on "Reliable." He wanted to make the point that there's always been a strain in American life like this. "But they don't represent the country," he said, imploring people to remember that if Trump's "strong" base makes up about 30 percent of the country, "the other 70 percent are out there..."
Brinkley: Keep trying to get Republicans on the record
"The press has been amazing this week," Douglas Brinkley said. Many GOP lawmakers are in "hiding mode" right now, but it's critical for journalists to "keep pushing Republicans to go on the record now, just like they did during the Watergate era."
Wehner: Trump is 'not well'
Peter Wehner, a lifelong Republican who worked in the Bush and Reagan admins, has been trying to sound the alarm about Trump's well-being for a while now. On Sunday's "Reliable," he said Trump supporters are almost in a "hermetically sealed" world: "They feel like the enemies of Trump are their enemies... Now it's not just a defense of Trump, it's a defense of their defense of Trump. To indict him would be to indict themselves."
Carmon and Zurawik react to 'Catch and Kill' revelations | | Irin Carmon and David Zurawik joined me to assess what we've learned so far from Ronan Farrow's book. One of Carmon's points: "There was never an independent investigation at NBC, in contrast to CBS." Here's the full segment... And I'll have more in Monday night's newsletter...
How to catch up on Sunday's show
Listen to the podcast through your preferred app... Watch the video clips on CNN.com... Or catch the entire episode via CNNgo or VOD...
The local news "paradox"
The Boston Globe's Zoe Greenberg with the lead of the weekend, writing about the shuttering of a daily paper in Maine:
"The mayor worries for his city because the local newspaper, the Journal Tribune, ended its 135-year run Saturday. The superintendent of the schools isn't sure how he will tell the community what's happening inside its classrooms. The head of the local food pantry is in mourning; he turned to the paper when his organization was about to be kicked out of its building. The three city leaders are distressed. That said, none of them was subscribing to the paper when it published its last issue. That paradox is at the heart of the Journal Tribune's closure, and it also helps to illustrate the troubles that have beset the nearly 2,000 papers nationwide that have closed in the past 15 years." Definitely read the rest of Greenberg's story here...
Facebook v. Elizabeth Warren
Donie O'Sullivan writes: Facebook is hitting back at Elizabeth Warren in a way I've never seen the company push back on a politician. It started a few weeks ago when FB confirmed it will allow campaigns to run ads that contain false information. As you probably know, the Trump campaign started running an ad full of false claims about the Bidens and Ukraine. The Biden campaign complained, and Facebook responded by saying Trump was allowed to run the ad.
Then Warren weighed in — and started running her own false ad, saying (falsely) that Facebook had endorsed Trump, to prove a point that she could run false ads. Facebook hit back in a Saturday night tweet suggesting its policy merely matches FCC broadcast TV rules.
Katie Pellico adds: Facebook replied to Warren in a tweet Saturday night showing Ad Analytics data to prove that broadcast stations had also aired the ad. Warren RTed, replying, "You're making my point here. It's up to you whether you take money to promote lies."
>> Here, Donie broke down how FB's refusal to fact check Trump could be its defining decision of 2020...
About FB's policy...
"Under the policy," Brian Fung writes, "Facebook exempts ads by politicians from third-party fact-checking — a loophole, Warren says, that allows Zuckerberg to continue taking 'gobs of money' from Trump's campaign despite Trump's ads telling untruths about Biden and his son." Read on...
Fortnite fans flip after game reduced to "black hole" | | Katie Pellico writes: At the end of Fortnite's season 10 "The End" event on Sunday, the game appeared to well, end. Fans described a series of intergalactic explosions and implosions until, Forbes' Paul Tassi reports, users were "flung not just in the air, but completely off the map." Players were "sucked into the vortex, map included, and then the entire game blinked out of existence." A black hole was left behind, which displayed a cryptic series of numbers. Polygon's Patricia Hernandez presents one theory on those...
Tassi predicts Epic Games' well-planned "gag" is a "precursor to server downtime... paving the way for the debut of the new Fortnite map that has been rumored and leaked for ages now." Playstation even tweeted out a reassurance that users' "inventory items and V-Bucks are secure."
In any case, as CNET's Oscar Gonzalez wrote, "this is an unprecedented move for a game this popular." (Back in March, Epic announced there were over 250 million registered Fortnite users.)
Here is CNN's latest...
| | The "Succession" season finale is here
Brian Lowry emails: No spoilers! But the "Succession" season finale was on Sunday night. It's been gratifying for those of us who championed the show from the get-go to see the swelling buzz surrounding it. That has also, alas, produced a lot of the breathless coverage — see The Hollywood Reporter asking sociologists why people like watching despicable characters, hardly a new phenomenon — that goes with it...
>> Lowry's review of the finale is up on CNN.com now...
LA Times package about the streaming wars
Brian Lowry writes: There was a solid package of stories in Sunday's Los Angeles Times about the streaming wars, but I wish there had been some follow-up to Ted Sarandos' quote that filmmakers just want their work to be seen — and not incidentally, financed. For a select few, the accolades/awards associated with that are also a big part of the process, and Netflix has yet to fully demonstrate on the movie front that it can clear that hurdle, in part because of the qualms about its release strategy...
>> Check out all 12 LA Times stories here...
"SNL" spoofs CNN town hall | | "SNL" opened Saturday's show by spoofing CNN's Equality in America town hall, and brought in some special guests to help out... The complete nine-minute clip is on Hulu... Read Frank Pallotta's recap here...
| | | Thanks for reading! Send me your feedback via email or connect with me on Twitter. See you tomorrow... | | | |
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