| | | | "You're gonna need Congressional approval and..." | | CNN.com's headline right now: "THEY DON'T HAVE THE VOTES."
Sens. Jerry Moran of Kansas and Mike Lee of Utah announced their defections at the exact same time on Monday night, lest either of them be blamed personally for the collapse of the GOP health care overhaul.
Moran and Lee tweeted at precisely 8:30pm ET. By 9pm, the significance of the news had set in. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell "officially does not have the votes to even begin debate on his legislation to overhaul the Affordable Care Act," CNN's story says...
(You may recall this turn of phrase from "Hamilton:" "You're gonna need congressional approval and you don't have the votes...") | | | Here's the blunt NYT news alert: | | New GOP slogan: "Inaction is not an option" | | | President Trump tweeted it at 10:17pm: "Republicans should just REPEAL failing ObamaCare now & work on a new Healthcare Plan that will start from a clean slate. Dems will join in!" Then McConnell supported a repeal-first, replace-later plan. And VP Mike Pence backed them up at 11:07: "Repeal now and replace later. Inaction is not an option." | | | I don't know what the print headline is yet, but the NYT's home page headline is "New Defections Signal End for Health Bill." And from the AP: "2 MORE GOP SENATORS OPPOSE HEALTH BILL, KILLING IT FOR NOW." That's what folks will be seeing when they wake up... | | Dylan Byers emails: Here's a question: If a news network ignores major breaking news out of DC, can it still claim to be the nation's "most trusted" news source? At 9pm, as the other news networks were covering the death of the GOP health care bill, Fox's "The Five" led its show with a segment about O.J. Simpson's upcoming parole hearing -- which is three days away. Half an hour later, the roundtable was discussing whether or not Caitlyn Jenner might run for Senate.
Apparently, being "most trusted" doesn't entail being trusted to actually deliver the news. But this is tough for Fox: If you're in the tank for a president who is unable to push through major legislation, what are you supposed to cover? | | "I know the president is frustrated" | | "The Five" eventually reported the news around 9:38pm. "Another big setback to the Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare," Dana Perino said. After a report from Ed Henry, KImberly Guilfoyle said "I think it's really frustrating. I know the president is frustrated with the situation. A lot has been promised to him, and not much delivered. I think this is, you know, a failure on the part of the leadership, to be quite honest..."
-- More: Sean Hannity's show was on tape at 10pm, so it made no mention of the breaking news... Except for a news cut-in at 10:30...
-- Re: Hannity, NYT's Jonathan Martin tweeted: "Here's part of reason why Hill Rs not spooked into ACA repeal: righty media more focused on anti-anti-Trump..." | | -- IJR's Haley Byrd: "A Republican Senate aide responding to Lee/Moran news quips: "When you oppose Obamacare so much that you preserve it in its entirety.""
-- BuzzFeed's Matthew Zeitlin: "Yes, not repealing Obamacare is a 'broken promise,' but passing this bill would have broken nearly every other health care promise they made"
-- WashPost's Robert Costa: "An ideologically-driven GOP leadership is confronting the reality of a law that now has roots in states, fading as rally cry for base." | | | President Trump speaking at his "Made in America" event at 4pm Monday: "We're going to get that done," THAT being the health care overhaul, "and I think we're going to surprise a lot of people." | | | This photo was taken on May 4 in the Rose Garden: | | | This was the day the House passed its version of health care legislation. "This is a great plan," Trump said. "I actually think it will get even better." Weeks later, however, he privately told a group of senators that the House version was "mean." Anonymous sources shared the comment with journalists. Trump later used the same word in an interview, confirming what the sources had said... | | More attacks against the media to make up for all the "repeal and replace" rhetoric?
An hour and a half after the announcements, Breitbart was still leading with this: "How Establishment Media Use Flawed 'Approval Polls' to Attack Trump." (h/t Hadas Gold)
By 10:30pm, though, the headline was "Republican Healthcare Bill Flatlines..." | | | -- On the other hand: BuzzFeed's Alexis Levinson made the point in this story that some top Republicans are NOT "signing up for Trump's war with the media..." | | | Keep scrolling for more of today's Trump/media news... including the president's surprising acknowledgment of fact-checkers... | | Another Netflix milestone | | Netflix added more than 5 million subscribers in the quarter ending June 30, "bringing its total subscriber base to about 104 million," CNNMoney's Seth Fiegerman reports. "The vast majority of new subscribers -- more than 4 million -- came from its overseas markets. In fact, Netflix's international subscriber base is now larger than the U.S. for the first time."
The result: More of the headlines you've seen before, saying Netflix stock is surging on earnings news.
-- Kudos to whoever at Netflix wrote this humblebrag sentence: "We underestimated the popularity of our strong slate of content which led to higher-than-expected acquisition across all major territories."
-- Here's the shareholder letter... | | This chart tells the story... | | | Bloomberg's chart show how Netflix topped Wall Street expectations: | | "The trick is to make it sustainable" | | | Martin Peers of The Information offers this cautionary note: Netflix's Q2 results "demonstrate the company continues to do well at signing up subscribers -- but at a mounting cost. Netflix said it expects to burn through between $2 billion and $2.5 billion in cash this year and doesn't expect to generate actual cash for 'many years.' In other words, it is financing its expansion by borrowing money... To stay viable, Netflix will have to sharply raise prices in coming years. Fortunately, it has some headroom as pricing remains relatively low. But let's not pretend that Netflix has discovered a secret new business model others should emulate. Anyone can start a service and burn through a pile of money. The trick is to make it sustainable..." | | I thought this moment at Trump's "Made in America" was fascinating, because he acknowledged the role of media fact-checkers -- actually one specific brand of fact-checking by the WashPost. After he wrongly said, "we've signed more bills -- and I'm talking about through the legislature -- than any president ever," he added this caveat: "I better say 'think,' otherwise they'll give you a Pinocchio. And I don't like those -- I don't like Pinocchios."
Trump has received many, many Pinocchios from the Post, of course. And he apparently knows it. The Post's Glenn Kessler fact-checked this latest legislative claim... | | Cillizza says the W.H. is "working to kill off the daily press briefing..." | | The White House has now gone almost three weeks without an on-camera briefing. The last time the press shop allowed video recording was way back on Thursday, June 29.
"That's bad. Full stop," CNN's Chris Cillizza writes. "Yes, President Donald Trump has been on two foreign trips during that time -- a longer visit to Germany for the G20 and a short skip to France to celebrate Bastille Day last week. And the July 4 holiday. But still. 12 days. Zero on-camera briefings. This is not an accident. What the White House is doing is working to kill off the daily press briefing..." | | Trump has only held one solo press conference in six months | | Tom Kludt writes: "The last time President Donald Trump gave a solo press conference, Michael Flynn's resignation as national security adviser was only three days old. James Comey was still in charge of the FBI, the Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare had just been unveiled in the House of Representatives, and Donald Trump Jr. was in the spotlight -- after getting pranked on Twitter by the actor Seth Rogen." It was back in February... five full months ago... read more here...
-- For comparison's sake: "Barack Obama gave 11 solo press conferences in his first year, George W. Bush gave five and Bill Clinton held 12..."
-- George Condon: "He's held fewer press conferences and taken fewer questions than any president since World War II..." | | Followup to yesterday's item about the W.H. and Tara Palmeri... | | | Yesterday I wrote about Tara Palmeri's charge that the White House press shop "threatened to try to remove me from the White House Correspondents Association, which [they] don't have power to do." She said her editor relayed the threat to her. On Monday, press secretary Sean Spicer told the WashPost's Erik Wemple via email, "No that never happened -- as Tara herself noted, it's a private organization (and FWIW I have no clue whether she is a member in the first place)." Spicer said outgoing WHCA president Jeff Mason "was correct that it never occurred." | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
-- Daniel Funke at Poynter explains why the Knight Institute's lawsuit against Trump on behalf of seven people he blocked on Twitter may be a complicated case...
-- Recommended: Ken Doctor breaks down what's really going on with the News Media Alliance's effort for publishers to get an antitrust exemption for negotiations withFacebook and Google...
-- Digiday says Amazon Video Direct will allow publishers to make money from day one, challenging YouTube and Facebook. We'll see...
-- Also from Digiday: Politico Pro says it has 20,000 paid subscribers, accounting for 50% of Politico's revenue...
-- Rani Molla at Recode reports that mobile video ad spending will surpass desktop and reach $18 billion next year, when people are expected to watch 25% more videos on their phones and tablets... | | Scarborough v. Hannity, round... honestly, I don't know, I've lost count | | Joe Scarborough, on Monday's "Morning Joe," called Sean Hannity's show "state-run TV," continuing the long-running battle between the two cable news hosts.
Hannity responded with a tweetstorm, saying "Liberal Joe is desperate for attention now," and addressing Andy Lack and Phil Griffin: "Fact; Liberal Joe BEGGED Ailes and Shine dozens of times for a job on Fox while working at NBC. Phil & Andy call me for details. #Betrayal" | | The experience of a Tucker Carlson guest | | Brian Lowry emails: Columnist Max Boot wrote a first-person account of his recent on-air run-in with Tucker Carlson, describing among other things the "home-court advantage" that the Fox News host enjoys. This is actually an underrated aspect of the peril for hostile guests on these programs, one that Bill O'Reilly -- the former occupant of that time slot -- also very shrewdly exploited...
-- Pull quote: "I tried to stick to the issues, but he kept interrupting me with smirky sarcasm, obnoxious laughter, and ad hominem insults. It was hard to get in a word edgewise..." | | Megyn Kelly ratings update | | Andy Lack pledged "patience" when Megyn Kelly's Sunday night newsmag premiered. Just how patient will he be? On Monday Kelly suffered another round of bad stories saying her show (quoting The Hill here) had "registered its lowest ratings since its debut on June 4." Kelly's show averaged 3.1 million viewers, which is strong by cable standards, but pretty weak by broadcast standards.
-- The bright spot for NBC was that CBS's "60 Minutes" had a low-rated week, so the gap between the two shows was relatively small...
-- But the question I asked a few weeks ago is still applicable today: Will "Sunday Night" come back to NBC's schedule after NFL season, or is it going to fade away? | | "Perhaps the marketplace of ideas could be improved with a few more walls."
--NYT's Kevin Roose in this column about Facebook's private groups... | | A pivotal negotiation for Disney | | | Some news from the WSJ's Miriam Gottfried: "Disney is set to begin talks over its contract with cable operator Altice USA, which expires this fall. The deal will be the first of a series of new contracts Disney will negotiate with pay-TV providers that will allow it to offset subscriber declines at ESPN... Its challenge is to recoup those costs by raising prices and tightening rules over how many subscribers can migrate to TV packages that exclude ESPN..." | | Al Gore promoting "An Inconvenient Sequel" in NYC | | Jon Shenk and Bonni Cohen, the co-directors of "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power," told me that they finished the third iteration of the documentary just three weeks ago. The doc had to be revised after Trump withdrew from the Paris climate agreement. Al Gore was on hand for a Peggy Siegel screening of the doc on Monday night... Gore told me he had just taped with Stephen Colbert before the screening...
Spotted: Ann Curry, Sunny Hostin, Jim Gianopulos, David Linde, Michael Blum, Michael Feldman, Kate Snow, Anthony Bourdain, John Berman, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Jeffrey Toobin, Derek Blasberg, Alex Gibney, Mary Pilon, Corinna Gore, and many more... | | By Howard Cohen:
-- ABC News launched "The Briefing Room" on Monday -- a streaming show right after the daily press briefing. Jon Karl, Rick Klein, Cecilia Vega and Mary Bruce will offer commentary and analysis... (TVNewser)
-- Facebook turned down Pakistan's request to link new accounts on its main service to users' mobile phone numbers. Pakistani officials had requested that the feature be added to address the rise of fake accounts, which they claim had been used to spread hate material... (BBC)
-- Mark Fuhrman, the former LAPD detective whose testimony gave rise to a controversy over racism and perjury during the O.J. Simpson trial, will provide on-air insight & analysis for Fox News during Simpson's parole hearing on Thursday... (Variety) | | Another ratings record for "Game of Thrones" | | | Frank Pallotta reports: The ratings for the season premiere of "Game of Thrones" were almost as impressive as Daenerys Targaryen's massive, flying dragons. A record 16.1 million viewers tuned in for Sunday's season seven premiere of the popular HBO fantasy series, according to the network. That includes the 10.1 million television viewers who watched on HBO Sunday night. The rest were viewers who watched the two replays of the premiere at 10pm and at midnight, combined with those who streamed the show with the HBO Go or HBO Now apps. The 16.1 million number was up 50% from last year's April premiere, making it the most-watched premiere night in HBO's history... Read more... | | Alec Baldwin's next NBC role | | | Brian Lowry emails: Alec Baldwin is extending his relationship with NBC, per THR, by taking the iconic Jack Nicholson role in the network's live production of Aaron Sorkin's "A Few Good Men..." | | | "Reliable Sources" highlights | | | Four ways to catch up on the show | | "We have a one-party system, and the media is the other party" | | | On Sunday's show, former New York Observer editor Ken Kurson (who's close with Observer owner Jared Kushner) asserted that "the media has become the opposition to Trump..." that "the press has assigned itself the chore of undoing the results of this election, which they simply don't accept..." and that the Democrats have become irrelevant, so "we have a one-party system, and the media is the other party." Kurson and I had a spirited conversation about all of this... here's the four-minute video... | | Out: "Anonymous sources." In: "Confidential sources." | | Another one of the president's Sunday morning tweets decried "phony unnamed sources." Normally I call these "anonymous sources..." but WashPost exec editor Len Downie offered a different term on Sunday's "Reliable Sources:"
"I prefer to call them confidential sources," he said. Because the identities of the people are not "anonymous" to the reporters and editors who are involved. "They are sources who do not want their names used in connection with the information they're providing reporters because they can lose their jobs or worse. Things could happen to them. And so, it's understandable why they don't want their names used..." | | What Bernstein means when he says we're in a "cold civil war" | | "One of the big differences" between the Watergate era and today "is that we are in a midst of a cold civil war in this country, a political and cultural civil war," Carl Bernstein said during the segment with Downie.
Bernstein said Fox News "changed American politics" profoundly, providing a "right wing counterforce" for someone like President Trump. "A fact-based debate is becoming impossible in this culture," he said, "and that's part of the difficulty here." Watch his full remarks here... | | Sinclair's role in the pro-Trump media universe | | | Sinclair's TV segments by former White House operative Boris Ephsteyn are "close to classic propaganda," Baltimore Sun media critic David Zurawik told me on Sunday's show. Sinclair distributes the pro-Trump analysis segments to its stations all across the country, marked as "must run," and there's been a recent increase in how many are airing. Zurawik wrote about it in the Sun this weekend. His "bottom line" is that "more Epshteyn means less credibility for Sinclair." Watch our discussion here, and read his column on the Sun's site... | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Email us... we're at reliablesources@cnn.com... we appreciate every email. | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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