| | | | | The 'GOP Civil War' is now official | | A Trump tweet that matters... | | The GOP "Civil War" the media always talks about is now very much official, thanks to this salvo from President Trump:
"The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!"
This is the president of the United States threatening to politically imperil members of his own party if they don't get into line. The conventional wisdom in Washington says Trump needs either the Freedom Caucus or moderate Democrats to pass major legislation, so why is he antagonizing both?
Thought experiment: Would Trump have fired this shot at the Freedom Caucus if he didn't have Twitter? And how much different would DC be right now if that were the case?
This is Dylan Byers in for Brian Stelter...
The Washington Post calls Trump's threat "an extraordinary move."
Freedom Caucus Rep. Justin Amash responds: "Most people don't take well to being bullied... It's constructive in the 5th grade. It may allow a child to get his way but that's now how our government works."
Laura Ingraham, conservative radio host, on Fox News: "It's really really unhelpful to Donald Trump's ultimate agenda to slam the very people who are going to be propping up his border wall, all the things he wants to do on immigration, on trade––I don't know where he thinks he's gonna get his friends on those issues, unless he completely flips to become more of a Democrat."
Good questions from Business Insider's Oliver Darcy: "Will the pro-Trump faction of conservative media side with the HFC and continue to praise the group for refusing to compromise their principles? Or will these pundits turn on the group for threatening Trump's agenda?
"So far, the Trump boosters in conservative media have largely stayed on the sidelines, refusing to enter the fray." | | | Trump vs. the Times, again | | A Trump tweet that doesn't matter... | | "The failing @nytimes has disgraced the media world. Gotten me wrong for two solid years. Change libel laws?"
Tom Kludt offers some much-needed perspective on why this is bluster without much chance of force: "Trump said multiple times on the campaign trail last year that he would be in favor of changes to libel laws... But it wouldn't be easy for Trump to 'change' or 'open up' the laws. For one thing, there is no single law that could be changed, other than the First Amendment and the protections it gives. Libel laws vary by state; there is no federal libel law."
And, again: The New York Times isn't failing. Shares of New York Times Co (NYT) are still up 30% since Trump was elected president. Trump's Gallup approval, meanwhile, is down 7 points from when he took office. | | From Thursday's White House press briefing, following the Times' report that two White House officials played a role in providing House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes with the intelligence he received at the White House last week...
ABC's Cecilia Vega: "Why not just be more forthcoming about this entire process of who let Nunes in? ... Doesn't the American public have a right to know more?"
Press Secretary Sean Spicer: "Yes, they do... We're going through a process. ... I don't get the same thing when I see [your] unpublished stories with anonymous sources. You don't ever tell me who your sources were... When you write a story, and you call and say, I have four anonymous sources that say whatever, and I say, okay, well, who are the sources and where are they coming -- you go, sorry, I'm not revealing anything to you...."
A few observations...
1. The difference between reporters and government officials is that government officials are public servants. They work for us. We, the public, seek information from them. Not the other way around.
2. Spicer has a habit of defending the administration by complaining about double standards between the White House and the media. It's a poor defense. The "you did it too!" argument doesn't work when you lead the free world.
3. Spicer acts like the media wants details about Nunes' sources because it cares about process more than substance. But in this case, the process is the substance. If White House officials sought to influence the Intelligence Committee, that's material.
4. The White House's complaints about anonymous sources get more ironic by the day. | | | Reminder: Secrets come out | | Wolf Blitzer to Nunes, Monday: "Eventually, these records, you know how it works. They're going to come out anyhow."
Glenn Thrush, today: "Did the White House really think they could keep Nunes' sources secret? They could have gotten this info out days ago, without being accused of cover-up." | | New from Bloomberg's Eli Lake: "This week, [Nunes] told me that his source for that information was an intelligence official, not a White House staffer. It turns out, he misled me...
"The fact that a serious investigation is being undermined by Nunes's ever-changing story is a tragedy... Sadly, the merits of this case are undermined by how the White House and Nunes have made it. ... By misrepresenting how he obtained information worthy of investigation he has handed his opposition the means to discredit it." | | | Reliable Sources Livecast | | Brian emails from the desert...
This week's Reliable Sources Livecast is a continuation of last Sunday's conversation with Pod Save America co-host Jon Lovett. In the span of this 17-minute podcast, we talk about Lovett's work in the Obama administration, Hollywood's reactions to Trump, the ambitions of Crooked Media, and the relative value of "preaching to the choir." Download/stream it here! | | | Why Alex Jones apologized | | Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist and proprietor of the right-wing website Infowars, offered a rare apology last week for his role in promoting the Pizzagate conspiracy that a child sex ring was being run out of Washington, D.C. pizzeria.
Tom Kludt now reports that he may have done so because he was "facing the specter of a potential lawsuit." And even with the apology, a lawyer for the pizzeria's owner, James Alefantis, tells Tom that all legal options are "still on the table."
Tom emails: "The prepared statement that Jones posted on his website Infowars last Friday was a mulligan of sorts, coming weeks after he published a meandering, hour-long video in which he made a half-hearted retraction of his Pizzagate coverage...
"So what happened between the first video and the second video? What prompted Jones to go from giving a half-hearted retraction to one that was fairly unequivocal?
His apology on Friday came just under a month after he received Alefantis' letter, and the timing could be huge for Jones. Under state law in Texas, where Jones is based, a harmed party must give someone 30 days to retract in order for punitive damages to be available in a defamation suit.
"In other words: Jones' apology came in just under the wire." | | | Matt Drudge-Rand Paul bromance | | Matt Drudge, the right-wing provocateur behind Drudge Report, had lunch with libertarian Sen. Rand Paul today, and both men left the meeting singing each other's praises...
"Intriguing lunch in hill office of America's best senator, Rand Paul," Drudge tweeted. "He's bold, brave and has somehow kept his heart in such a corrupt city."
"Matt Drudge has a phenomenal take on the news and is a leader who others in the business can only hope to emulate," Paul spokesperson Sergio Gor said in a statement. "We enjoyed visiting with him, and we share a strong mutual admiration!"
Gor declined to share the details of the two men's conversation. | | -- Fox News is dealing with too much bad press. (Wemple)
-- This year's White House Correspondents Dinner may truly be about the correspondents. (Calderone)
-- Tomi Lahren was made for the Trump era. (Heffernan) | | Gizmodo's Ashley Feinberg believes she's found FBI Director James Comey's Twitter account... If so, it's @ProjectExile7:
"Digital security and its discontents...is one of the chief concerns of the contemporary FBI. So it makes sense that the bureau's director, James Comey, would dip his toe into the digital torrent with a Twitter account. It also makes sense, given Comey's high profile, that he would want that Twitter account to be a secret from the world, lest his follows and favs be scrubbed for clues about what the feds are up to...
"What is somewhat surprising, however, is that it only took me about four hours of sleuthing to find Comey's account, which is not protected. ... [N]one of this is definitive proof @projectexile7 is FBI Director James Comey, but it would take a nearly impossible confluence of coincidences for it to be anyone else. Take what you will from the fact that the director of the FBI appears to have liked a tweet from the New York Times about Mike Flynn and Jared Kushner meeting a Russian envoy in December."
FBI: "We don't have any comment."
Post-script: In the wake of Feinberg's story, the @ProjectExile7 account rocketed to more than 8,000 followers before being locked to new followers.
It also posted a tweet: An image of Will Ferrell in "Anchorman" saying, "Actually I'm not even mad. That's amazing" -- apparently in praise of Feinberg's efforts -- with a link to the FBI's jobs site. | | | Ex-Observer editor takes on Kushner | | Elizabeth Spiers, who served for a year-and-a-half as editor-in-chief of Jared Kushner's New York Observer, says he's "the wrong businessman to reinvent government":
"I worked for Kushner for 18 months as he tried to infuse a much smaller institution than the U.S. government with cost-cutting impulses from the commercial real estate world. And my experience doesn't bode well for the Office of American Innovation. Not everything that works in the private sector is transferrable to the public sector — and even if it were, Kushner isn't the best person to transfer it." | | -- IJR hires Mediaite's controversial managing editor 'Jon Nicosia.' (Politico)
-- BuzzFeed News expands to Mexico and Germany. (Bloomberg)
-- Arianna Huffington expands her lifestyle and wellness brand. (Poynter) | | | Hollywood's writers mull strike | | From Sandra Gonzalez and Brian Lowry on the Entertainment desk...
"There's seemingly more opportunities than ever for writers in Hollywood, between movies, TV and new digital services. But if the Writers Guild of America is not able to agree to a new contract before May, it all could come to a screeching halt...
"At issue: The WGA's three-year-contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) is about to expire. Among the Guild's requests are higher pay for TV writers and more funding toward healthcare.
"As has historically been the case in these labor disputes, the catalyst can be traced to new technologies that have created uncertainty about the industry's business model." | | | Four days to Opening Day... | | The New York Times profiles Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Jaime Jarrin, the longest-serving broadcaster in baseball, ahead of Monday's MLB opening day...
"In 1955, when Jarrin left Ecuador for Los Angeles at age 19, he had never seen a game. The Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, but Jarrin noticed the local fans' passion for the sport. ... [In] 1959.. he came to feel a powerful bond as the conduit from the team to Latinos. ...
His teacher and mentor, he said, was Vin Scully, who had joined the Dodgers' broadcast team in Brooklyn in 1950. ... Jarrin says his style is somewhat like Scully's — calm and impartial, not a screamer, with plenty of stories and anecdotes, often culled from conversations with Spanish-speaking players."
Calm and impartial, not a screamer. Could use a few folks like that in Washington. | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. We appreciate every email. | |  | | 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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