| | | | Good morning from Newark... en route to St. Louis for the debate...
Was Friday the turning point in the presidential election? Or are media types once again overreacting to a Trump controversy?
Those are two of the questions I have after yesterday's two shocking Trump tapes -- first the "Access Hollywood" raw footage and then the GOP nominee's late night apology video. This is a special Saturday morning edition of the newsletter... Because last night's news left me with no time to write... Let's begin with 12 more big questions:
-- Who leaked the NBC tape to David Fahrenthold? Why?
-- Why was Trump's initial half-apology so weak?
-- What exactly happened inside Trump Tower between 4pm and 12am?
-- Was Trump's late night video apology enough? Will he say anything else between now and the debate?
-- What advice, if any, is Roger AIles giving Trump right now?
-- Will GOP politicians run from, or run toward, TV cameras today and tomorrow?
-- How are Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz adjusting the plan for tomorrow's debate?
-- Will Billy Bush be back on the "Today" show on Monday?
-- Is Bush permanently damaged by this?
-- Will Nancy O'Dell comment? Last night she and "ET" declined...
-- As Victor Blackwell asked on "New Day" this morning: "I wonder if we will hear from Melania Trump between now and the debate. Or between now and the election?"
-- What is Ivanka Trump thinking and doing? | | "Access" producers and reporters have interviewed Trump hundreds of times. So I asked a senior NBC source if the newsmag has more damaging video. "Not that I know of," the source said, adding, "Ask Mark Burnett." Meaning: What does Burnett's production company have from Trump's many years taping "The Apprentice..."
-- Donna Brazile tweeted this morning: "Release the tapes..."
-- Katy Tur on the "Today" show: Last night "I was speaking with somebody who's known Trump for a long time, and they told me that he has said much worse..." | | | What people are saying this morning... | | | David Fahrenthold on Michael Smerconish's show: On the tape, Trump is "actually describing his own behavior, that's what surprised me the most" ... Chuck Todd: "This is unrecoverable" ... Bob Beckel: "This race is over" ... Liz Meriwether: "Can you imagine if a tape came out of Hillary talking about wanting to f--- a married man and how much she likes grabbing dicks?" ... Bill Simmons: "But seriously - why did it take today for people to turn on Trump? He's been horrible this whole time" ... Daniel Nichanian: "What Republican opposition researchers were doing from June 2015 to March 2016 will forever remain a mystery" ... Jessica Valenti: "If this is how unrepentant Trump seems in a taped statement, imagine what he's going to sound like on Sunday night. Can't wait" ... Jay Rosen: "This is also a story about NBC: what it knew and what it did with that knowledge" ... | | | Brian Lowry emails: The hot-mic revelation is really a testament to the power of audio and video. It's hard to imagine, given what's known about him, the stories that have already come out and his Howard Stern appearances, that anyone would be fully surprised that Trump would have spoken this way. But actually hearing it -- and seeing the video played over and over, as it surely will be -- is a different experience... | | | Fighting video with video | | | That's what Trump did by releasing a late-night statement -- it was the TV version of "fighting fire with fire." But did it work? NYT's Maggie Haberman has the backstory: Trump's top aides were "at first stunned and then nearly paralyzed by the revelation of the tape, which they worried would be fatal to his White House hopes…" Advisors "cautioned against holding a news conference, something that had been discussed, because it could become unwieldy and spin out of his control. They realized they needed to address the issue quickly," so they made the video… | | | WWRD -- What Would Roger Do? | | | I don't think Roger Ailes would have advised Trump to bring a video crew into Trump Tower to tape an awkward, badly-lit, TelePrompTer-driven statement. Ailes is better than that… | | | Here's how this all started... | | | Monday's AP story was the trigger | | On Monday, according to an NBC source, one of the "Access Hollywood" producers remembered the 2005 tape. Why? Well, Trump's offensive comments about Alicia Machado were still making waves. But it was really this Associated Press story that caught the producer's eye. Garance Burke interviewed "more than 20 people" who said Trump "was lewd and sexist" while taping the reality show. Some of these staffers spoke on the record. "Eight former crew members recalled that he repeatedly made lewd comments about a camerawoman he said had a nice rear, comparing her beauty to that of his daughter, Ivanka... Several cast members said Trump had one female contestant twirl before him so he could ogle her figure..."
If you haven't read the AP story yet, click here... | | | "Access" was working on a story... | | With that AP story in mind, a producer dug up the tape. By mid-week, executive producer Rob Silverstein and his producing team had taken a look at its contents. "We were debating what to do" with it, an NBC source told me.
By Friday morning, Silverstein had decided to broadcast it, and a script had been written. But the story wasn't going to run until Monday at the earliest -- i.e. after the next debate. NBC News knew the "Access" story was in the works, but that it "wasn't quite finalized," according to another source. That's when David Fahrenthold contacted NBC... | | The 2005 video was accessible through NBC's internal video server. So did an NBC staffer leak the tape to Fahrenthold to ensure that it wouldn't get covered up? And/or to ensure that it was seen before Sunday's debate? That's part of the mystery... Fahrenthold understandably declined to comment... But it's worth noting that this was an unsolicited tip.
Paul Farhi reports that "Fahrenthold got a phone call around 11 a.m. Friday from a source with a tip... The source asked: Would Fahrenthold be interested in seeing some previously unaired video of Trump?" | | | Fahrenthold first contacted the Trump campaign at 1:29pm. First he shared the transcript of the tape, then the actual video. He published a story at 4pm. NBC News followed with its own story a few minutes later. At one point Friday evening, "more than 100,000 people simultaneously" read the Post story, a record for the web site. It "briefly crashed the servers of the newspaper's internal tracking system..." | | He was faster to fully apologize than Trump was: "It's no excuse, but this happened eleven years ago -- I was younger, less mature, and acted foolishly in playing along. I'm very sorry."
This morning angry comments are still piling up on Bush's Facebook page -- and on the "Today" show's page. Some viewers say they want Bush to be suspended or fired. NBC News is not commenting. My impression is that, for now, Bush is not being disciplined. He's slated to be back on "Today" on Monday. But is that really tenable? How can he sit around the table on Monday morning, hours after the debate? Here's my full story about Bush...
-- More: A "Today" show source called the situation "brutal..." | | | Remember, Billy is a cousin of George W. and Jeb Bush. "Imagine if Billy Bush had remembered his talk with Donald Trump in time to help cousin Jeb," The Wrap opined last night. I'd flip that around and ask this: Did Bush ever forget about this talk? Was he hoping like hell that this tape would never be found? I still have more reporting to do about the various corporate interests at play here... | | | Just in from a regular newsletter reader: "What do the ultimate NBC bosses at Comcast think of one piece of their empire humiliating a valuable 'Today' talent?" | | | Yuuuge cable news ratings... | | | Emailing with former Breitbart News spokesman Kurt Bardella early this morning, I asked for his thoughts about the coverage:
"Fox's treatment of the story tonight was media malpractice. We're talking about the top story in the country involving the highest office in the land and they became The Weather Channel..."
It is true that Fox focused intensely on Hurricane Matthew after Sean Hannity's 10pm show. Meantime, CNN and MSNBC stayed on the Trump story throughout the night. Brian Williams even popped up on MSNBC at 1 in the morning. Just wait til you see the ratings... | | | Heated exchange on "CNN Tonight" | | Back to Fox for a moment. The framing this morning is that there are "scandals" on both sides today -- the Trump tape, which is being portrayed as disgusting but unsurprising, and the Wikileaks release of thousands of hacked emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. "Fair and balanced" or "false equivalence" at its finest? | | | Dan Rather's cautionary note | | On Facebook, Dan Rather commented, "There are few times in my career when I have been more at a loss for what I could expect for the future of my country."
He wrote, "In any other election, with any other candidate, this might well have been the equivalent of a spontaneous combustion. And it might be for Donald Trump, but I have thought that many times before."
I'm trying to keep the same thing in mind. Media types have counted Trump out so many times that I've lost count... | | | Surprising? Trump is still attending the debate | | | Did you wonder if Trump might try to back out of the debate? I did. But he ended his late night statement by saying "See you at the debate on Sunday." Remember, the only big network not showing the debate is… NBC. Go figure. The network has "Sunday Night Football…" | | | The final word on all this... | | The mic is always hot.
That is all. | | | Sunday on "Reliable Sources" | | | Live in St. Louis, I'll be joined by debate commission co-chairs Frank Fahrenkopf and Mike McCurry… former town hall moderator Carole Simpson… and a band of expert political and media commentators. Join us at 11am ET… | | | About the town hall format | | | Dylan Byers reports: With Sunday being a town hall format, half the questions will come from uncommitted voters in the debate hall, while the other half will be influenced by voters' concerns on social media. The town-hall participants were selected and screened by Gallup, the research and polling organization, but it's the moderators who will choose which of those participants get to ask their questions. Details... | | | Reed Hastings says "it's so bad for America" if Trump wins | | | CNNMoney's Seth Fiegerman reports: "During an interview at The New Yorker TechFest on Friday, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was asked if he thought Donald Trump would be good for the economy if he became president. Hastings did not mince words. 'It's so bad for America if he wins, it's secondary on the economy,' Hastings said..." Of course, Hastings is just one of many tech CEOs who's supporting and raising $$$ for Clinton... | | | CBS's Sopan Deb tweets: "It's been 73 days since Trump held a presser. He took questions from a limited group 29 days ago. Clinton has taken Qs 9 times in 3 weeks." That was Friday, so now it's been 74 days... | | -- James Wolcott's latest: "Trump has totally upended conservative media, and it's beautiful..." (VF)
-- Gizmodo's J.K. Trotter says Peter Thiel's lawyer Charles Harder is continuing to demand retractions... Read more here... (Gizmodo)
-- Comedy Central renews Chris Hardwick's "@midnight" show... (Variety)
-- Ben Mullin's latest: "With Daybreak, Bloomberg is trying to catch its busiest readers early..." (Poynter) | | | Fox's 20th anniversary celebration was subdued... On Friday, the network showed TV clips from its archives and changed its logo to say "20th." Rupert Murdoch sent a memo: "I look back at what we have accomplished and I couldn't be more proud. We have changed the face of television news and the industry at large." Here's my full story... | | | New co-presidents vow to improve internal communication | | There were some interesting tidbits out of Bill Shine and Jack Abernethy's address to staffers on Friday morning. They spoke inside a brand-new $30 million studio that will officially open on election night.
-- Shine: "Today is about looking back at 20 news-packed years and then looking ahead to doing even more journalism..."
-- Shine acknowledged some longstanding complaints from staffers about what he called "a lack of communication from the top." "Jack and I are set to fix that," he said...
-- The execs recognize an urgent need to expand Fox's digital footprint. While Roger Ailes was a masterful TV producer, he had little interest in FoxNews.com and social media. Abernethy told staffers that "we have a plan in place to upgrade FoxNews.com and our other digital ventures..." | | Just how serious is this NFL ratings dip? WSJ's Joe Flint reports: "The NFL has sent a memo to team owners seeking to ease concerns about the ratings decline that has hit football this fall. Through the first four weeks of the season, NFL viewership has declined 11%, and among the crucial adults 18-49 demographic that advertisers covet, ratings are down 12%. 'While our partners, like us, would have liked to see higher ratings, they remain confident in the NFL and unconcerned about a long-term issue,' the letter from NFL senior executives Brian Rolapp and Howard Katz said...The league said the large drop in ratings for prime-time games on ESPN, CBS and NBC is likely because of 'unprecedented interest in the Presidential election.'"
So... Do you buy that explanation? | | | Set your DVR for these... | | | Brian Lowry emails: There are a few other TV highlights Sunday other than the debate, including the premiere of two HBO comedies, "Divorce" and "Insecure." What's interesting, though, is the two are a virtual primer in how big names don't necessarily mean success -- a lesson HBO also learned with "Vinyl" -- as the former, marking Sarah Jessica Parker's return, eclipsed by Issa Rae's series, which she co-created with Larry Wilmore. Read Brian's full column here... | | Tell us what you think... | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. We appreciate every email. We'll be back Sunday night... | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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