| | | | | Happy Sunday! This weekend edition is chock full of Disney news... plus Trump vs. media developments... and the return of "Game of Thrones..." | | Why should we believe...? | | Without the press, we would not know about Team Trump's willingness to accept Russian help. Without the press, we wouldn't know. So it's not surprising that President Trump resumed his Twitter attacks against the media this weekend -- because real reporting has disproven many of his team's past denials about "collusion."
The "Reliable Sources" producing team rounded up those sound bites, including this one from chief of staff Reince Priebus on "Fox News Sunday" in February:
CHRIS WALLACE: "So, no collusion whatsoever between anybody involved with Trump and anybody involved with Russia in the 2016 campaign?"
REINCE PRIEBUS: "No."
After playing the sound bites all in a row and noting that Donald Trump Jr.'s e-mails confirmed a desire to get info from the Russians, I asked: Why should we believe what they say now? | | Case in point: Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow has repeatedly denied the NYT's report that President Trump was involved in the drafting of Donald Trump Jr.'s original statement a week ago. But Sekulow wasn't involved that day, so is he really a reliable source when it comes to this?
On Sunday, Sekulow pulled off a rare feat -- appearing on all five major networks' political talk shows -- from a remote studio in Nashville. On ABC's "This Week," he said, "If this was nefarious, why'd the Secret Service allow these people in?" By the afternoon, the USSS had issued a statement rejecting the suggestion that it was supposed to vet Don Jr.'s visitors. CNNPolitics' Sophie Tatum has a full story here... | | | >> On CNN's "SOTU," Sekulow repeatedly tried to pivot to "the situation with the Ukrainians and the DNC," and Jake Tapper didn't let him. Here's the video... | | That time the W.H. wanted the correspondents association to criticize Tara Palmeri... | | Remember Jeff Mason's recent disclosure that a White House official called him and asked that the White House Correspondents Association publicly criticize an association member's news story about the administration stonewalling the press? Mason said the W.H. wanted him to "release a statement essentially defending the White House." He refused to do it. But when he recounted the episode to members, he wouldn't say whose story sparked the request.
Turns out it was a piece by Politico's Tara Palmeri. She was -- coincidentally -- booked on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" along with Mason, and the two of them talked about it in the green room before airtime. So Mason felt OK revealing it on the show...
When I asked Palmeri to react, she said she was not surprised. "I had heard from my editor that they had threatened to try to remove me from the White House Correspondents Association, which [they] don't have power to do." Mason said the W.H. had never gone THAT far in official conversations with him, but didn't dispute that the threat could have been made... | | Palmeri, Mason and former New York Observer editor Ken Kurson were on Sunday's show for two back-to-back blocks. During the commercial break, Kurson casually said that he'd spent time with the president on Saturday. Nice way to surprise me, Ken! So when we came back from break, I asked him about it.
The two men were together at Bedminster... POTUS "was watching the Women's Open" on TV, "like millions of other Americans, and I think that that's what people don't get about why this president resonates," Kurson said. "He is a normal person. He watches golf. He enjoys it. He connects with people. People come up to him for an autograph or picture. And he connects with them. And that's what we in the media just can't get through our heads -- that people like him..." | | "We have a one-party system, and the media is the other party" | | | Kurson is close with Observer owner Jared Kushner. Kurson 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... | | Fresh evidence that Trump's media bashing is sorta working? | | The cross-tabs from Sunday's ABC/Washington Post poll are remarkable. "Given what you've heard and read, do you think the Russian government tried to influence the outcome of last fall's U.S. presidential election, or not?" 80% of Democrats said yes... 61% of independents... and only 33% of Republicans.
On the June 2016 meeting with the Russian lawyer: "Do you think it was appropriate or inappropriate for them to attend this meeting?" 48% of Republicans said it was appropriate... while only 9% of Democrats said so.
Evidence of our tribal, extremely polarized politics, for sure. I think it's also a sign that the counter-narratives from Trump (Russia controversy is a "hoax") and his media allies (it's Obama's fault) have been effective among his base... | | Trump inaccurately tweeted about "inaccurate" poll | | The president took a whack at the poll, which showed him with a 36% approval rating. He tweeted: "Even though almost 40% is not bad at this time, was just about the most inaccurate poll around election time!"
CNN's polling guru Jennifer Agiesta shared this fact-check with us: "On the assertion that 'almost 40% is not bad at this time:' As ABC News reported, his 36% approval rating at six months in is the worst since modern polling began. Their chart including comparative data from Gallup and ABC/Post polls is available here. Further, they were not 'just about the most inaccurate poll around election time.' The final estimate from the WaPo/ABC tracking poll was 47% for Clinton, 43% for Trump, compared with a final margin of 48.5% for Clinton to 46.4% for Trump. Given margin of error (2.5 percentage points, per the Post's final release), that's actually pretty darn close, and certainly wouldn't qualify as the 'most' inaccurate..." | | 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... | | -- Gabriel Sherman tweets: "INTRIGUE: Murdoch's Sun prints embarrassing Trump leak, just days after NYPOST slammed Don Jr..." (The Sun)
-- WSJ's Michael Bender says W.H. aides contacted CNN commentator Scott Jennings about a senior communications job, but Jennings rebuffed them... (WSJ)
-- "I did not leave the Republican Party. The Republican Party left its senses," MSNBC's Joe Scarborough says in his latest WashPost column. He says it's "a dying party that I can no longer defend..." (WashPost)
-- Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman emails: In the UK, Twitter is negotiating a deal to obtain digital streaming rights for the 2017 US PGA Championship, the FT reports...
-- Howard Cohen emails: Facebook is ratcheting up the testing of its new Explore Feed... for discovering content across the social network and see posts outside of your traditional filter bubble... (TechCrunch) | | "Game of Thrones" returns! | | | Brian Lowry emails: My wildly favorable review of the "Game of Thrones" season premiere will post right after it airs, but it's a testament to the show's cultural footprint how many oped columnists (including the New York Times' Maureen Dowd and Ross Douthat) have weighed in about the show, seeking (sometimes laboriously) to connect it to real-world politics. (As a footnote, I watched it at a public showing with a huge audience at the Disney Concert Hall, a much different experience from seeing it at home.) Lowry's review will be posted on CNN.com after the premiere... | | NPR and union reach late-night deal and avoid worker walkout | | | Jackie Wattles reports: "NPR and the SAG-AFTRA labor union have finally landed a tentative contract deal. The news came in the early hours of Sunday morning after days of marathon talks. NPR employs over 800 people, and the union says 433 of them are SAG-AFTRA members... The tentative agreement, which would cover the next three years, still needs to go to NPR's unionized employees for approval..." | | Media week ahead calendar | | -- Monday: Netflix earnings after the bell...
-- Thursday: Comic-Con San Diego gets underway...
-- Friday: "Dunkirk" arrives in theaters... | | 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... | | WHCA will "not accept" this: | | | More from Jeff Mason's appearance on Sunday's "Reliable:" The White House Correspondents' Association will "not accept" the recent rollback in televised briefings. (Last week, NO briefings were on-camera.) "The trend is not going in a direction that we want," he said. Mason is about to hand over the WHCA president position to Bloomberg's Margaret Talev... | | Four ways to catch up on the show | | "We still don't know what this cover up is about." But "we know there is a cover up..."
--Carl Bernstein at the very beginning of Sunday's "Reliable..." | | Sandra's report from the D23 expo | | Sandra Gonzalez emails: I spent the weekend at the D23 Expo in Anaheim, where Disney unveiled sneak peeks galore. Saturday's highlights included the first teaser trailer for Ava DuVernay's "A Wrinkle in Time," which was met with huge praise. They also showed early footage from "Mary Poppins Returns" and "The Lion King."
The studio also released a new behind the scenes featurette from the making of "Star Wars: Last Jedi" that was a nice treat.
The first look at live-action Simba was my personal favorite moment of the weekend because that movie is so near and dear to my heart. I felt my worries sort of melt away. Here's my full report... | | No "Avengers" footage for the public 😞 | | | Sandra adds: My one quibble with the live-action event was that the super-awesome footage of "Avengers: Infinity War" was not shared with the masses. Yes, the whole point of going to D23 is that you get to see footage before everyone else, but I think a stage full of superheroes is more than enough of a treat for the crowd. Why not share the sneak peek with the public? Mashable has a good rundown of the play-by-play, for those with good imaginations... | | This immersive hotel inspired by "Star Wars" looks spectacular | | | One more item from D23 from Sandra: At Saturday's Parks and Resorts panel, Disney announced a "Star Wars"-inspired hotel. It looks... insane. The company also announced some new details about "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge," the lands coming to Disneyland and Walt Disney World in Orlando... | | | Jackie Wattles reports: George A. Romero -- the writer and director behind the cult-classic horror flick "Night of the Living Dead" -- died Sunday. He was 77. Romero has been called the "father of modern horror films." He died following "a brief but aggressive battle with lung cancer," his longtime production partner Peter Grunwald told CNN. Read more... | | "Walking Dead" stunt performer John Bernecker dies on set | | Terrible news from the set of "The Walking Dead:" John Bernecker, a stunt performer for the show, died Friday after a fall on the show's set in Georgia, Jackie Wattles reports. The death was deemed an accident caused by blunt force trauma to the head...
-- AMC's statement: "We are deeply saddened by this loss and our hearts and prayers are with John's family, friends and colleagues during this extremely difficult time." Read more... | | Say hello to the first female lead of "Doctor Who" | | More from Sandra Gonzalez: BBC has made history with the selection of Jodie Whittaker, star of the British crime drama "Broadchurch," as the first female Doctor on the long-running British series. She succeeds the current star, Peter Capaldi, who announced in January that he would leave after the 2017 Christmas Special.
The backlash to the choice -- particularly from bitter fanboys -- was swift. But I loved this quote from Whittaker from a BBC-released Q&A: "I want to tell the fans not to be scared by my gender. Because this is a really exciting time, and Doctor Who represents everything that's exciting about change. The fans have lived through so many changes, and this is only a new, different one, not a fearful one." | | Weekend box office report | | | Frank Pallotta reports: "War for the Planet of the Apes," the latest film in the rebooted franchise, brought in an estimated $56.5 million at the domestic box office this weekend. That was enough to beat the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Sony and Marvel Studios' "Spider-Man: Homecoming" nabbed an estimated $45.2 million in North America in its second weekend... | | "Apes:" Not a "gratuitous sequel" | | | NYT's Brooks Barnes quoting Chris Aronson, 20th Century Fox's president of domestic distribution: "I think critics and audiences were exactly aligned — this is not a gratuitous sequel. What sets 'Apes' apart from any other franchise is its linear storytelling -- it's truly episodic." | | | 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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