| | | | Donald Trump has reached the 50-day mark of his presidency. I'm a journalist, which means I love round numbers and anniversary stories, so let's take stock... | | -- The WH's press release is all about "keeping his promise," a message that his media allies continue to echo...
-- WashPost's Glenn Kessler: "We've counted 219 false or misleading claims..."
-- More than 260 tweets since January 20... "an average of 36 tweets per week..." NBC News produced this analysis...
-- Trump's poisonous media-is-the-enemy rhetoric has had an impact... it's showing up in polling...
-- The view from Infowars: These achievements would be "phenomenal" for any president, but "Trump has accomplished it all even in the face of total resistance, sabotage and dirty tricks from the left and the establishment media..."
-- CNN's Greg Krieg: "Trump's administration has unfolded much like his campaign -- an unbroken assault on the institutional norms and niceties that have governed government for the better part of a century..."
-- John Dickerson on CBS: Trump "has done a lot of the things that a president can do" with executive action, but now "he has to market a piece of legislation..."
-- Check out Dan Diamond's comparison of Obama and Trump's WhiteHouse.govs at the 50-day mark...
-- Ana Navarro tweets: "OMG. You mean it's only been 50 days? This Trump thing is gonna be like dog years, y'all. Each day feels like 7." | | One of the departures is the high-profile US attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, "according to a Justice Department official." Remember, Bharara met with Trump in November "and told reporters that Trump had asked him to stay on, and that he agreed to do so." Apparently that's changed.
>> Gabriel Sherman tweets: "Bharara is investigating Fox News... Will Trump-appointed attorney continue? Hmm..." | | | Trump ducks reporter Q's again | | Tom Kludt emails: A year ago this week, Trump celebrated another night of primary victories with a celebratory presser. For almost an hour and a half! Those pressers became a staple of his unconventional campaign. But it's been a while since we've seen that Trump.
Friday provided another reminder of his sudden shyness around the press. At the conclusion of a late morning appearance, where he reiterated his support for the House GOP's effort to replace Obamacare, Trump once again ignored questions that were shouted at him from reporters. He hasn't answered Q's in more than a week.
The press was then interrupted by Keith Schiller, Trump's former private security chief who now serves as "director of Oval Office operations," who entered the room and began directing reporters ("loudly," according to the pool report) to exit the room... Read more... | | | Secretary of State has been "shockingly inaccessible" | | Tillerson never granted Steve Coll an interview while Coll was writing "Private Empire," the definitive book about ExxonMobil. Now, as secretary of state, Tillerson seems to be taking the same approach. No interviews.
"It's such a departure in the life of the State Department," Coll told me Friday. "The secretary of state is the most important voice, after the president, representing the United States." More: "Kerry, Clinton, Rice, Powell, Albright -- all very formidable public figures -- gained influence inside the administration by taking advantage of their own bully pulpit..." | | | "They can't even lie well" | | At Friday's W.H. briefing, Sean Spicer claimed that Tillerson was looking to save money by taking a smaller plane without room for reporters. However, news outlets normally pay for their reporters' seats, compensating the government for the expenses.
Dylan Byers emails: I reached out to a former Obama admin official to confirm that Secretaries Clinton, Kerry and their predecessors had taken reporters on their planes on foreign trips. He confirmed... and when he heard Spicer's excuse, he replied, "Give me a f***in break. They can't even lie well." | | | Sunday on "Reliable Sources" | | Reuters EIC Stephen J. Adler, Chicago Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet, the BBC's Kim Ghattas, former State Department official Moira Whelan, Baltimore Sun media critic David Zurawik, and media literacy educator Michelle Ciulla Lipkin... Join us, Sunday, 11am ET, CNN... | | -- "Charlie Rose will return to 'CBS This Morning' on Monday after heart valve replacement..." (LAT)
-- Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding will be back in the news next week... Here's how PBS execs are preparing to fight $$ cuts... (WSJ)
-- Simon & Schuster will publish John Kerry's next book... (Boston Herald) | | "Don't make me make the podium move," Spicer said at one point during Friday's briefing, which reminded me that "SNL" is new again this weekend... Scarlett Johansson is the host... we'll see if Melissa McCarthy or Alec Baldwin make another appearance... | | | Note to all my fellow Sunday morning hosts | | | We "spring forward" and lose an hour at 2am Sunday... | | | Pallotta's dispatch from Austin | | Frank Pallotta emails:
The first major speaker at SXSW on Friday was Cory Booker. Before being interviewed on stage, he spoke directly to the audience: "We need each other. We need to make an unusual and extraordinary commitment to each other."
My favorite session of the day was Ana Marie Cox's great talk with Jake Tapper... the pair had a wide-ranging discussion about politics and media...from covering Trump to Beck Bennett's portrayal of Tapper on "SNL" (Tapper likes it!) to the impact of his interviews.
"I never think any of this is going to have an effect. I just need to look my kids in the eye," Tapper said. "I've got two kids. They're going to someday read back about this period in our history, and I want them to be proud of me." | | "I often feel like we're not really changing anybody's mind... The people whose beliefs are being challenged, who think something is really true, and we're saying it's false, they'll just say [Snopes] isn't credible or it's biased or it's not qualified. Yeah, it's kind of disconcerting at times."
--David Mikkelson, co-founder of Snopes, quoted in this terrific profile by CNN's Doug Criss... | | | Fox hasn't let Megyn Kelly out of her contract yet | | Megyn Kelly hosted her final Fox News show more than two months ago, but she remains on the "bench." Page Six's Carlos Greer and Emily Smith have this update:
"Kelly is still under contract with Fox News until July 1, which means she can't be in production meetings. NBC News president Noah Oppenheim is tasked with finding her an executive producer, and has been interviewing candidates repped by CAA, which is packaging Kelly's show. We're told NBC is trying to persuade Fox News to release her early."
The plan calls for a September debut "at either 9 or 10 a.m. in front of a live studio audience..." Plus a Sunday evening show, although the NFL schedule makes the timing more complicated... | | | Gateway Pundit at the W.H. press briefing | | Fox News Radio correspondent Jon Decker confronted Gateway Pundit's Lucian Wintrich in the W.H. briefing room Friday afternoon. According to BuzzFeed's Adrian Carrasquillo, Decker commented to other reporters that Gateway Pundit writers "hate blacks, Jews, Hispanics." Per Politico's Hadas Gold, "Decker also sent an email to the entire White House reporter email listserv, noting that the White House 'has admitted Gateway Pundit into today's White House Press Briefing.'"
Gateway Pundit is a right-wing blog that dabbles in conspiracy theories. Just this week it revived "birtherism." Decker was publicly voicing some of the private concerns about Wintrich receiving a credential. According to Gold's story, "several reporters shook Decker's hands as he walked back to the Fox News Radio booth."
Right afterward, Wintrich alleged that Decker assaulted and harassed him. "Decker and Fox News deny that any sort of assault occurred..." | | | "They may have been phony in the past, but it's very real now." | | | Talking Wikileaks on the "Reliable" livecast | | -- Dr. Jon LaPook will host "CBS Sunday Morning" for the first time this weekend... It's for a special edition titled "Beyond Cancer..."
-- Hulu "will carry six cable channels from A+E Networks... and has decided not to offer networks from Viacom..." (Bloomberg)
-- NYT's Sopan Deb asked readers for suggestions for casting HBO's miniseries about the election. Here are the results... | | Lowry reviews "American Crime" and "Shots Fired" | | "American Crime" launches its third edition on Sunday, holding up the banner for the major networks in terms of ambitious, cable-like dramas. But the show's success (creatively, not commercially) is more striking when juxtaposed with another show that similarly seeks to tackle hot-button issues, Fox's "Shots Fired," which premieres later this month. The latter also wears the mantle of "serious drama" -- featuring events set in motion by an African-American cop fatally shooting a white college student -- without rivaling the ABC program's heft... | | | "American Crime" garnering comparisons to "The Wire" | | Two other reviews of "American Crime" that I bet show creator John Ridley will notice: Variety's Sonia Saraiya described the show as "a modern, broadcast version of 'The Wire,'" and Alan Sepinwall said something similar in his review for Uproxx: "In its sprawl, in its empathy for characters from all social spheres, and in its political fury, the new season may be the closest thing I've seen to 'The Wire.'" | | Megan Thomas emails: "Keeping up with the Kardashians" returns Sunday after a long hiatus. For the family that made oversharing TMI the norm, it'll be interesting to see how the show handles Kim's robbery and Kanye's recent hospitalization. Some observers say this season will either mark a new beginning/approach to reality life for the K-Klan or the last chapter of an impressive 10-plus year run in front of the cameras... VF has a preview here... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Sandra Gonzalez emails: Friday was a HUGE DAY for TV nerds: the 20th anniversary of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer!" Don't laugh. All of the cast members took to social media to mark the occasion, but Sarah Michelle Gellar's was the best...
-- Chloe Melas emails: Miley Cyrus married? Billy Ray Cyrus sent fans into a frenzy by posting a picture of Cyrus in a white dress with a coy caption. Check it out here...
-- More from Chloe: Rachel Bilson has been cast as a series regular on "Nashville..." | | Brian Lowry emails: FX's "Feud: Bette and Joan" delivered a solid audience -- but perhaps not surprisingly, an older one.
According to the network, the total 5.2 million viewers for the historical Hollywood drama on a live-plus-3-day basis (including two repeats) represented its biggest total-viewer tally since "The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story," topping the recent premieres "Legion" and "Taboo."
The show lagged behind, however, in terms of younger demographics, for whom a drama about Bette Davis and Joan Crawford was apparently less of a draw... | | | Weekend box office preview | | IndieWire tweets: "If you see #GetOut this weekend, you'll help it cross the $100 million mark opposite a $4.5 million budget." Jamie and I saw it... even though she's wary of scary movies... and we both thought it was fantastic.
As for the rest of this weekend's box office: "With $88 million last weekend, 'Logan' (20th Century Fox) made the case for a March box office rebound. 'Kong: Skull Island' (Universal) should maintain that momentum, though not at quite the same level." Read more... | | Anna Sarkissian tweets: "At this point the question is not 'have you watched the video' but 'how many times?'"
"BBC Man," a/k/a Professor Robert Kelly, lit up the airwaves and the web on Friday. Kelly "is also a contributor to CNN, though to our knowledge our airwaves have not been blessed by his little entourage." Check out the backstory here... | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. We appreciate every email. See you Sunday... | |  | | We'd love to share our other newsletters with you. Check out Five Things for Your New Day, CNN's morning newsletter. Give us five minutes, and we'll brief you on all the news and buzz people will be talking about. | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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