EXEC SUMMARY: Here are first looks at The Nation's special issue, Dylan Howard's new book, Universal's film about WeWork, Disney's new "Star Wars" ride, and much more...
Choosing Trump over the truth
"Defend POTUS at all costs, even if it costs you your very soul. That's the GOP approach to this impeachment," Chris Cuomo said on CNN Monday night.
Cuomo used his "closing argument" segment to make a point about Senator John Kennedy and other GOP lawmakers. So many of the political arguments in the coming days are fundamentally about this: "Every intel agency we have found conclusively [that] Russia hacked the 2016 election. The question isn't WHO, the question is how to DO something about it. It's not about Ukraine. But in Trump land, all that matters is what helps him. That put Kennedy in a bad position, and he, like the rest of his party, chose Trump over the truth." Watch the rest here... | |
Fox or RT?
Last week Fox's Tucker Carlson said "why do I care? Why do I care what's going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia? -- And I'm serious. Like, why do I care? And why shouldn't I root for Russia? Which I am." Of course, at the end of the hour, he said he was joking -- "I'm only rooting for America."
But on Monday night he was at it again. He played and ridiculed a series of clips from MSNBC and then said that those Russia critics on cable news "hate America" more than Russian leader Vladimir Putin does. "Putin, for all his faults, does not hate America is much as many of these people do," Carlson said. "They REALLY dislike our country. And they call OTHER people traitors? Cuz they're 'mouthing the talking points of Putin!' These are people who don't know anything about Russia, who don't speak Russian! Who couldn't identify three cities in Russia!"
--> Carlson's final point: "Russia is not America's main enemy, obviously. No sane person thinks it is. Our main enemy, of course, is China. And the U.S. ought to be in a relationship with Russia aligned against China, to the extent that we can."
--> Former Bush 43 aide Tony Fratto tweeted in response to this clip: "Tucker Carlson is dangerous..."
Strangest story of the day?
The Daily Beast's Andrew Kirell writes: "Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Monday seemingly threatened to sue Fox News host Steve Hilton for branding him as part of 'the swamp.'"
--> Richard Painter tweeted: "Rudy versus Fox News libel case? Can't wait for a trial on that one. Will they sell tickets?"
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- The title of Monday's Daily DC podcast: "The impeachment inquiry is America's Rorschach test..." (CNN)
-- Split reality: This NYT headline says "Democrats ready impeachment report as Republicans argue Trump did nothing wrong..." (NYT)
-- WaPo's newest scoop: "Attorney General William P. Barr has told associates he disagrees with the Justice Department's inspector general on one of the key findings in an upcoming report — that the FBI had enough information in July 2016 to justify launching an investigation into members of the Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter..." (WaPo)
-- Dan Rather tweeted: "What hangs in the balance in the impeachment process isn't only the fate of President Trump, it's the very notion of objective truth and whether our nation's health and security will succumb to a global campaign, fanned by the Kremlin, to subvert reality..." (Twitter)
Napolitano's latest
"The Democrats are not doing anything that the Democrats did not do to Nixon or the Republicans didn't do to Bill Clinton," Fox's senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said on Neil Cavuto's show Monday afternoon. "But I think he makes a mistake when he refuses to participate. It is a valid vote by the House of Representatives that authorized this... He also loses the argument that it's unfair if he doesn't take the opportunity to participate himself." More via Mediaite here...
-- Napolitano also talked about Lisa Page, saying from personal experience that "it's a little surreal when the president tweets about you..."
-- Per Fox PR, Napolitano will be contributing to Wednesday's judiciary committee hearing coverage... This is notable because he was not a part of the intel committee hearing coverage...
"The president's propaganda morning show"
Monday's "Fox & Friends" chastised Molly Jong-Fast for an alleged lack of follow-up questions in her exclusive interview with Lisa Page. So this was Jong-Fast's reaction in a Monday night conversation with CNN's Erin Burnett: "To have my journalistic ethics questioned by the president's propaganda morning show is pretty amazing... It's a show for an audience of one... And the idea that I should ask her about these conspiracy theories that we know from Fiona Hill have been completely debunked, but that the Republican party has continued to use as talking points, is just really silly. I mean, I'm honored that they read so much of it..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- S.V. Date's lead: "As the House gears up to consider formal articles of impeachment, President Donald Trump appears to have shifted to a new strategy: pretending it's not even happening." (HuffPost)
-- Becket Adams says that "claiming Trump is a cult leader is the latest newsroom fad..." (Examiner)
-- Last month I wrote about the third grader who, at the urging of his father, wrote to one of the leaders of the Clinton impeachment process and asked, "If you cannot believe the president, who can you believe?" Lynn Sweet followed up with the father, William Summers, who's now a professor who "teaches courses on American government and world politics." He says that "one of the assignments I still have my students do is to write letters to politicians..." (Chicago Sun-Times)
FIRST LOOK
The Nation's special issue about abortion
"The New Politics of Abortion" is the subject of this double issue of The Nation. It will be online Tuesday morning at this link. Here's the cover: | | A spokesperson for the magazine tells me that "an all-female line-up of leading journalists and prominent voices — Ilyse Hogue, Joan Walsh, Katha Pollitt, Dani McClain, Amy Littlefield, Zoë Carpenter, Cynthia Greenlee, Moira Donegan, and Emily Douglas — take a measure of this split reality: the mortal threat to Roe unfolding in states like Alabama, Georgia, and Ohio, and the furious backlash on the left, which has given rise to hundreds of local and regional efforts to support those who need abortion care."
Elon's defamation trial begins Tuesday
Kerry Flynn writes: Elon Musk is going to court for tweeting "pedo guy." I'll be in the courtroom tomorrow when Musk is expected to testify in the defamation suit, brought against him by Thai cave rescuer Vernon Unsworth. I put together a timeline of how we got here and went through the details of the case in this story...
National Enquirer editor coming out with Epstein book
American Media exec Dylan Howard, who's been running the National Enquirer for years, is dropping a new book on Tuesday. The title is "Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales" and Skyhorse is the publisher. Howard's co-authors are Melissa Cronin and James Robertson. Drudge promoted the book on Monday night... Let's see if this book makes a splash or not...
TUESDAY PLANNER
POTUS is in London for the NATO summit...
Joe Biden hits the halfway point of his bus tour...
"Free, Melania" by Kate Bennett hits bookshelves...
And so does "Supreme Ambition" by WaPo's Ruth Marcus...
#GivingTuesday
Many nonprofit news organizations are leaning into #GivingTuesday by encouraging donations and other forms of support for their newsrooms. Some are calling it #GivingNewsDay: "No matter what issue you care about, no matter where you live, nonprofit newsrooms are working for you and the stories they are covering can't wait. Neither should you," Josh Stearns wrote here. "Donate today to have your gift matched by NewsMatch."
--> Quoting Jim Friedlich, the CEO of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, which owns The Philadelphia Inquirer, in a recent column: "The First Amendment was ratified here in Philadelphia 230 years ago. But history has taught us that the First Amendment in no way guarantees that an independent press has the resources it needs to support the freedoms for which we are all so very thankful. That's up to the rest of us."
Report for America's huge expansion
As previewed in yesterday's newsletter... Now here are the details:
"Report for America, an organization that places emerging journalists into local newsrooms, said Monday that it's on pace to place 250 journalists in 164 local newsrooms in 2020," Axios' Sara Fischer writes. "This commitment is more than four times the size of its 2019 class... Many of the journalists will be assigned to beats that have withered with the local news crisis, like local government, veterans issues, military bases and housing..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Shares in Roku closed down 15% Monday "after Morgan Stanley cut its rating on the stock and warned clients that revenue and gross profit growth may 'slow meaningfully' next year..." (Bloomberg)
-- "After 18 years at NBC News, it's time for a change," Ryan Osborn wrote in an internal memo on Monday. "I'll be starting at the Washington Post as part of the team behind Arc in January..." (Twitter)
-- Brian Steinberg reports: Former CNN correspondent Laurie Segall "is launching her own production company, Dot Dot Dot, with colleague Derek Dodge, a media executive who has held roles at MTV, Discovery and CNN, among other places." The first product is a podcast, "First Contact," which is being distributed by iHeartMedia... (Variety)
Trump campaign bans Bloomberg News
Oliver Darcy emails: The Trump campaign on Monday protested Bloomberg News' controversial 2020 election policy and said it will no longer credential the outlet's reporters for its events. Brad Parscale said in a statement announcing the ban that the double standard of continuing to investigate the Trump administration while holding back on Dem candidates was "troubling and wrong." Parscale said the ban would remain in place "until Bloomberg News publicly rescinds its decision." It's still, however, unclear what the Trump campaign will do if a Bloomberg News reporter traveling on Air Force One with Trump arrives at a rally. A Trump campaign spox said that will be cleared up shortly. My full story here... Micklethwait says...
Darcy continues: In a statement, Bloomberg EIC John Micklethwait said the accusation of bias from the Trump campaign "couldn't be further from the truth." Micklethwait said the outlet has "covered Donald Trump fairly and in an unbiased way since he became a candidate in 2015 and will continue to do so despite the restrictions imposed by the Trump campaign."
In a statement to Politico, NYT exec editor Dean Baquet supported Micklethwait and went after the Trump campaign for blacklisting Bloomberg. "We condemn any action that keeps quality news media from reporting fairly and accurately on the presidency and the leadership of the country," Baquet told the outlet. Trump, in turn, attacked both outlets... Tale of two billionaires
One more point from Darcy: It's worth pointing out this controversy really underscores the different approaches two notable billionaires have taken with their media companies. Jeff Bezos has permitted WaPo to investigate his company, Amazon, and publish stories about his personal life.
Bloomberg, on the other hand, has restricted his newsroom from covering him — even as he runs for president, and even as his mandate puts his reporters in a deeply uncomfortable position...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
By Kerry Flynn:
-- Kate Knibbs has a fascinating deep dive into a botched drugged trafficking attempt led by former Vice Canada editor Yaroslav Pastukhov... (The Ringer)
-- Anna Merlan reports on Monday's memo from Hearst president Troy Young and a new website discouraging the union effort. Editorial employees announced their intention to unionize last month... (Vice)
-- Max Willens reports that Stat News, a trade pub focused on health and science, has surpassed 10,000 subscribers and has been diversifying its revenue this year with research reports, documentaries and events... (Digiday)
The Gateway Pundit's sick story
Oliver Darcy emails: The Gateway Pundit, a far-right website strongly supportive of Trump, published a story on Monday which suggested hanging Democrats who are moving to impeach Trump. The story was headline, "Four Were Hanged In 1865 Democrat Coup Involving Lincoln's Assassination – None from 2016 Democrat Coup to Take Out Trump."
The article said, "It's time that we Americans stand and call this what it is. This is another Democrat attempt to remove a President through any means necessary. It is seditious and treasonous." It went on to say those involved in the "coup" to assassinate Lincoln were hung. The story declared, "We are entering a new phase when it's time to hold all seditious and treasonous Democrats who actively act to remove President Trump from office to the same fate!"
It's worth keeping in mind that this incendiary rhetoric is coming from a website promoted by Trump and Republicans. Trump has retweeted The Gateway Pundit and its founder, Jim Hoft. Republicans in Congress have also promoted the website. Hoft was even invited by Republicans to testify on supposed social media bias before Congress in September 2018...
"That's not democracy, that's you profiting off propaganda"
Sacha Baron Cohen's newest retort to Mark Zuckerberg, who told Gayle King that the political ad issue is "very complex:"
"No, Mark, it's not that 'complex.' Let me simplify (again): you and Facebook take money from politicians and run their ads — even if they're not true — without fact-checking them. That's not democracy, that's you profiting off propaganda," Cohen tweeted...
NYT's story about "open-source journalism"
Quoting from Marc Tracy's new look at "open-source journalism:"
"Internet sleuths who piece together stories from available data, a practice known as open-source journalism, have helped identify the white nationalists who assaulted counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va.; unmask the Russian intelligence officers who the British government said tried to kill a fellow Russian spy and his daughter in Salisbury, England; and show that the suspects in the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul included associates of Saudi Arabia's crown prince. With its emphasis on raw facts, open-source journalism has an immediacy that is effective at a time when readers all along the ideological spectrum have become skeptical of the news media." Read on...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- I'm glad that Joshua Benton is calling this out: "An old FCC rule is being used to justify shrinking the Dayton 'Daily' News to three days a week..." (NiemanLab)
-- Ben Smith's piece about Zhao Lijian: "Meet the Chinese diplomat who got promoted for trolling the US on Twitter..." (BuzzFeed News)
-- "In a pre-holiday message to consumers, an FBI field office is warning that 'smart TVs' -- televisions equipped with internet streaming and facial recognition capabilities -- may be vulnerable to intrusion," Josh Campbell reports... (CNN)
Charles Randolph is writing a WeWork drama
"Universal and Jason Blum's Blumhouse Productions have fast-tracked a film" about WeWork and Adam Neumann, THR's Mia Galuppo reports.
"Oscar winner Charles Randolph, who also wrote the upcoming Fox News drama 'Bombshell,' will pen the drama about the embattled startup commercial real estate company... Randolph will be adapting the extensive reporting from Katrina Brooker, senior contributing writer for Fast Company, as well as her upcoming book, to be published by W.W. Norton..."
| | Gabrielle Union v. NBC
"The controversy surrounding Gabrielle Union's departure from 'America's Got Talent' continues," Marianne Garvey writes. "NBC said in a statement to CNN on Monday they are working with Union to 'hear more about her concerns.'"
Background: "Variety published a report alleging Union had been let go after urging the show's producers to report an incident involving a racist joke to human resources and after producers told her multiple times that her hairstyles on the show were 'too black.' A separate report by Vulture pointed to workplace tension between Union and Simon Cowell, a judge and an executive producer on the series, in part, over Cowell's habit of smoking on set, which is illegal in California. CNN has not independently confirmed these allegations." Read on...
--> "Union retained muscular Hollywood attorney Bryan Freedman last week as news of her departure became public," Deadline's Dominic Patten reports. "Having represented Megyn Kelly last year in her successful and ultimately lucrative exit from NBC News, the Freedman + Taitelman LLP partner is no stranger to playing hardball if required with the network..."
--> "The leader of the anti-harassment group Time's Up is taking aim at the network, NBC, for 'protecting the careers of powerful men at the expense of women who speak out,'" the NYT's Cara Buckley adds...
FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX
By Lisa Respers France:
-- Robert De Niro is defending Anna Paquin's role in "The Irishman" in which she only speaks seven words...
-- Speaking of "The Irishman," never rat on your friends and always keep watching mob movies...
-- Billy Dee Williams is being praised for using gender-fluid pronouns. The 82-year-old actor self-identifies as "himself" and "herself..."
AND LAST BUT NOT DEFINITELY NOT LEAST...
Inside "Rise of the Resistance"
CNN Business boss Jason Farkas with the exclusive on the 18-minute new attraction "Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance" at Walt Disney World:
"Disney's new massive and innovative ride acts as the centerpiece of the company's $1 billion park expansion, Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge." On Thursday "Rise" will open at Walt Disney World, and on January 17 it will open at Disneyland. "The stakes are high for this expensive gamble to succeed," Farkas writes. Read on... | | | Thank you for reading! Email your feedback here. We will be back around this time tomorrow... ⏰ | | | |
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