| | | | | Trump. Phoenix. Prime time. | | Was all the talk about Donald Trump softening his immigration proposals really just meant to stir up interest in tonight's big prime time speech? Or is tonight's speech proof of the tug-of-war happening inside Trumpworld? One thing is for sure, this Phoenix speech — which is still going on while I hit "send" — is cable news catnip. And it will drive the news cycle tomorrow.
Insta-reactions: Karen Tumulty: "Today, Trump's super ego went to Mexico, and Trump's id went to Phoenix…" Robert Costa: Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon "crafted this hard-line speech…" James Poniewozik: "Maybe Trump's campaign now is an Apprentice challenge where Team Bannon and Team Conway take turns running him, and later he fires one…" Maeve Reston: "I've literally never heard Trump cite as many stats in a speech as he is tonight..." Matthew Dowd: "Key indicator for Trump speech: if Ann Coulter loves it, then it isn't a speech to a majority of America…" | | Scrutiny of Trump's promises about "the wall" and deportations can be seized upon as anti-Trump media bias. At the same time, some reporters and commentators today said they thought Trump is benefiting from low expectations on the part of the media. Politico's Glenn Thrush this afternoon: "Never seen a politician graded on such a curve as Trump is with Mexican trip/speech. Not being jerk/flip-flopping = Presidential. Nuts."
What do you think? Do you see Trump being "graded on a curve?" Email your POV to reliablesources@cnn.com... It will help inform this Sunday's show... | | A very worrisome precedent: Trump left his traveling press pack in the states when he flew to Mexico this afternoon. News outlets scrambled to get reporters on the ground in Mexico City for Trump's press conference with the Mexican president -- "and then Trump took just two questions from the press," Dylan Byers reports.
Here's what happened: Trump refused to arrange for his press charter to join him in Mexico (they were routed to Phoenix, instead). That forced media outlets to rush other reporters to Mexico, and left many of the reporters who normally travel with Trump seething. Read Dylan's full story here...
-- Text from a reporter in Phoenix: "The press call this morning was crazy... Heated... We have to take a stand on this... This has gone on for too long..." | | | Remember, "SNL" got there first... | | | Here's the "Mexican president" presenting "Trump" with a check for the wall last fall... | | | Scarborough makes music video mocking Trump | | Joe Scarborough intensifying his trolling of Trump: This afternoon the MSNBC host posted a music video titled "Amnesty Don" to Facebook, promoting the Trump nickname that he coined back on Monday.
The song, which Scarborough wrote after his show on Monday, calls Trump a "soft and flaccid man" with "tiny little hands" who "said he'd build a wall for us," but lost his courage after the primaries. Notably, MSNBC's official social media accounts for "Morning Joe" didn't share Scarborough's latest creation. An MSNBC spokesman declined to comment on it. Here's my story...
-- BTW: No word on whether Trump has seen the video yet... Keep an eye on @realDonaldTrump... | | | Tom Kludt interviews Alex Marlow | | Meet the 30 year old running Breitbart News: Tom Kludt interviewed the site's first hire, Alex Marlow, who's now the editor-in-chief. Marlow in his own words:
-- On last week's condemnation of Breitbart by Hillary Clinton, a defining moment for the site: "In a way, I'm surprised it took this long. I think what Breitbart is doing is incredible, and we've never gotten the attention we deserve."
-- Marlow denies being at odds with Steve Bannon: "He's one of the true visionaries of conservative media."
-- "I deny categorically that we're Trump's Pravda. But I do believe that CNN is working as hard to elect Hillary Clinton as any conservative outlet is working to elect Donald Trump at this current time. You guys have perfected these tactics. You guys build an incredible audience and you change the narrative. Breitbart at least admits what we're doing."
-- How Andrew Breitbart would feel if he were still alive today: "I'm sure he would have had issues with Trump along the way, but for the most part, Andrew would like the fact that Trump has put the mainstream media on notice. That was Andrew's top enemy."
Read Tom's full profile of Marlow here... It includes the fact that his mom is a copy editor for the site! | | "I will no longer speak to the press ever again after today."
--Paul LePage, Maine's embattled governor, speaking with a group of reporters earlier today. Details via the NYT... | | | Update on Gabriel Sherman's story | | Gabriel Sherman and NYMag's fact-checkers are hard at work on the forthcoming story that attracted so much attention from Roger Ailes' lawyers yesterday... There's no word yet on when the story will be posted online... I'm guessing sometime Friday, but it's really just a guess.
Today James Warren talked with Lloyd Grove, the recipient of Ailes' lawyers' broadsides against Sherman. Grove says he was surprised by Susan Estrich's "pure ad hominem attack" and shocked by "Marc Mukasey's over-the-top, dehumanizing demonization of Sherman..." | | | Scrutinizing Vice's treatment of freelancers | | | Yardena Schwartz, writing for CJR, has this distressing and very detailed story about Vice's poor treatment of freelancers. "Journalists who have worked for Vice tell CJR that the company published their work without paying them for it, promised them assignments which were later rescinded, and asked reporters for their help with documentaries that covered issues they had written about without any plans to pay them for their work. There's also the usual freelance complaint: late payments. As a freelance journalist, I've been through some of this with Vice myself." And "Vice is aware that its treatment of freelance journalists has become a problem." Read more... | | -- Miami Herald reporter Jim Wyss was briefly detained in Venezuela today, the Herald reports. Then he was expelled from the country... (Miami Herald)
-- Reported.ly shut down tonight... I will miss it... (Reported.ly)
-- Chris Mortensen's throat cancer has been "virtually reduced to zero detection of the disease," and now he's focusing on recovery... He anticipates being able to participate in ESPN's NFL coverage "on a limited basis" as the season starts... (ESPN)
-- NYMag's Brian Feldman asserts that "Facebook's Fake News Problem and Its Conservative News Problem Are the Same Thing" (NYMag) | | | Netflix adding Bill Nye talk show | | | Brainy move by Netflix. Sandra Gonzalez reports that Netflix is adding a talk show hosted by famed scientist and author Bill Nye. The show, "Bill Nye Saves the World," will debut in spring 2017. It is the streaming service's second talk show... after Chelsea Handler's show... | | Chloe Melas emails: Netflix renewed "Stranger Things" for a second season today. Twin brothers Matt and Ross Duffer -- professionally known as the Duffer Brothers -- will continue to serve as writers and EPs along with Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen...
-- Levy makes an important point in this THR interview: "In the same way that we always talked season one as an eight-hour movie, we view season two really, less as season two and more as Stranger Things 2. We really view it as a sequel..."
-- Fodder for Labor Day weekend debate: Silvia Killingsworth says "Most Television Shows Should Only Be One Season..." | | -- Charter is joining the S&P 500... (Benzinga)
-- BuzzFeed is "relaunching" its live interview series, BuzzFeed Brews, in a partnership with the Newseum... (Washingtonian)
-- Nats and Dodgers fan Chuck Todd will be a guest panelist for the hour on MLB Network's 4pm show "MLB Now" Thursday...
-- Judge Judy is developing a scripted series for CBS "inspired by her life..." (Variety) | | | Tim Kaine on the morning show circuit | | | Tim Kaine will be on CNN, MSNBC, and the broadcast network morning shows in the A.M. I'm especially interested in his via-satellite visit to Univision's "Despierta America." Kaine will have a chance to react to Trump's visit to Mexico on America's main Spanish-language morning show... | | Conservative media friendships and alliances are breaking apart as Trump roils the GOP. My story, here, is a followup to what I wrote in last night's newsletter. Today Glenn Beck responded to Sean Hannity's claim that Beck and other Trump opponents "own Hillary Clinton."
Beck said he agrees that Clinton "is a disaster." The key quote: "All of us feel like we're trapped in a barn fire, so we don't know what to do." Read more...
-- More: Bruce Bartlett tweets: "The right-wing media are irrelevant, politically, because they only preach to the right-wing choir. Not one is aimed at non-right wingers..." | | | Brian Lowry emails: This is an interesting column from the LATimes' Doyle McManus, counseling people to tune out the presidential race and turn off cable news from now until the debates. I'm inclined to agree with him, although as a relatively new CNN employee, it occurs to me that this attitude won't help put shoes on my kids. But he does make a good point on the potentially misleading sense of movement regarding the campaign -- as noted in the "forest and trees" David Plouffe tweet he quotes -- for someone hanging on every new poll and wrinkle... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- My wife will be happy to read this: AMC is moving toward "reserved seating" at all its theaters in Manhattan... (Deadline)
-- Chloe Melas sends this update on Chris Brown: Early this morning, he was released on $250,000 bail. His court date is on 9/20...
-- Lisa France notes that this latest arrest adds to Brown's already troubled history...
-- Also via Lisa: What do Justin Bieber, The Weeknd and the late David Bowie have in common? They've all broken records and are included in the latest edition of Guinness World Records... | | | What do you like about today's newsletter -- and what do you think we should improve? Email your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. We'll be back tomorrow... | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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