| | | | "It's a dangerous moment in our history."
Carl Bernstein on Wednesday's "AC360:" "I think there's considerable evidence that there is a consensus developing in the military; at the highest levels in the intelligence community; among Republicans in Congress; including the leaders in the business community" that President Trump "is unfit to be the President of the United States."
Bernstein has been alluding to this for a while. But he's saying it more forcefully now. "I've talked to some of the military leaders," he said Wednesday, "and what they are saying is extraordinary... They have given up on this president..."
He added: "I think all reporters need to be checking their sources and finding out what people on the Hill and in the military and in the intelligence community are saying... about the stability and the mental condition of the president of the United States. This is something we haven't dealt with before." | | Erickson: "3.5 more years of this is not sustainable..." | | | "Something's got to give," Fox News contributor and The Resurgent founder Erick Erickson tweeted Wednesday evening. "I don't know what, but I know 3.5 more years of this is not sustainable or healthy for the nation." | | His column for Politico Mag is titled "The Breitbart Presidency:"
"Over the past few days, Trump hasn't spoken as the leader of the country, or even leader of one party, but as a leader of an inflamed faction... His level of argument is at the level of a good Breitbart blogger, or of a Twitter egg of yore. He would absolutely kill it in the comments section of a right-wing website..." | | | Hope Hicks was named interim W.H. comms director... Sources said Trump was "without regret" after Tuesday's regrettable Q&A session with reporters... Trump dissolved two business councils as the CEO defections mounted... U.S. military leaders pointedly condemned racism... John Brennan sent a letter to Wolf Blitzer saying that Trump is "putting our national security and our collective futures at grave risk..." and the NYT revealed that one of Trump's attorneys, John Dowd, forwarded along an email "echoing secessionist rhetoric..." | | WashPost had 17 sources for this story 👇 | | | The WashPost's Ashley Parker and Robert Costa say John Kelly is "deeply frustrated and dismayed just over two weeks into his job." The story cites interviews with 17 sources... | | Trump staying off-camera on Thursday | | | POTUS was "laying low" on Wednesday, as Jim Acosta reported on CNN. Thursday's official W.H. sked shows a lunch and a meeting, but both events are listed as "closed press..." | | CNN, Fox, MSNBC hosts pointing this out --> | | Dozens of GOP lawmakers are declining interview requests | | "Let's be honest. Republicans don't mind coming on Fox News Channel." But "we couldn't get anyone to come and defend him here," Shep Smith said at 3pm Wednesday.
Chuck Todd reported the same result on "MTP Daily" at 5pm: "We invited every single Republican senator on this program tonight, all 52." Plus a dozen House GOPers. "None of them agreed to discuss this issue with us today."
Wolf Blitzer said something similar at 5:30: "We did reach out to Republican leaders throughout the day. They all, at least for now, refused to join us..."
And Kate Bolduan, filling in for Erin Burnett at 7pm, said bookers called 55 Republicans and only one said yes... | | Robert Kuttner, co-founder of the progressive American Prospect mag, snagged a much-sought-after interview with Steve Bannon... when Bannon, evidently a longtime reader, reached out to him. Kuttner's story came out on Wednesday evening, and it caused the Prospect's web servers to collapse under the weight of so many clicks.
Later in the evening, Bannon associates claimed that he didn't think it was an interview. C'mon, man. It turns out Bannon also spoke to the NYT... and said something very similar about wanting Democrats to concentrate on race and identity politics, because that's a fight Republicans would win... | | The "default setting" is "on the record" | | Is this another Scaramucci-Lizza controversy all over again? Seriously? Ben Shapiro tweets: "This is the best plot twist yet: Mooch infected others with Moochfail."
Kuttner said on "CNN Tonight" that Bannon never tried to go "off the record." Kuttner: "The default setting when you're talking to a journalist is, you're on the record. That's how it works..." | | Former Breitbart spokesman Kurt Bardella emails... | | | "One of two things is happening here," Kurt Bardella says. "Either Bannon didn't realize he was on-the-record and this will be the end of him OR he knew exactly what he was doing & saying and is daring Trump to fire him. IF Trump keeps him, Bannon just sent a very loud and clear message to his internal detractors that he is untouchable and they better get on board or he's coming for them." | | -- VA governor Terry McAuliffe will be on "CBS This Morning" on Thursday... his first national TV interview since the violence last weekend...
-- A blunt column by the BBC's Katty Kay: "I've just returned to Washington after a few weeks in Europe. In 20 years of living in the US, I've never returned to a country so dispirited, nor so dismissed."
-- Chris Matthews on MSNBC: "If you can't stand up for core American beliefs, if you can't walk away from Nazism, WHY DO YOU HAVE FEET?"
-- Tom Brokaw on "Today:" Trump is "going to have to find a way to stitch the country back together again," and "I don't know if he is capable of doing that in his own mind."
-- "A Treacherous President Stood in the Way" -- on Wednesday The Atlantic republished an 1866 essay by Frederick Douglass...
-- The WashPost says Trump's "false claim that counter-demonstrators lacked a permit" earned four Pinocchios...
-- Jay Rosen tweets: "'The White House said' is inoperative. The metonymy no longer works. There's just him, his personality, and people who work in the building..." | | "On late-night TV, Trump's no laughing matter anymore" | | Trump "has inspired a new form of late-night performance: comedy-outrage," Bill Carter writes in this must-read column. He points out that two hosts, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel, openly called for "Trump to be cut loose from the presidency" on Tuesday night...
-- Meyers told Carter: "I think this is the angriest I have been..." | | -- What has this week been like for local reporters in Charlottesville? Kristen Hare tells their stories here... (Poynter)
-- An Phung emails: This is a great story about how a newspaper that's more than 500 miles away from Charlottesville "dominated" coverage of the attack. It all started with a copy editor... (CJR)
-- Margaret Sullivan's latest: "This week should put the nail in the coffin for 'both sides' journalism..." (WashPost)
-- About that NBC video of John Kelly with his "arms crossed, head down" during Trump's presser: the videographer was Andrew Scritchfield...
-- "The events in Charlottesville have created the first real crisis for the pro-Trump media, which is caught between its mainstream aspirations and its addiction to the traffic and energy of the white nationalist movement," Charlie Warzel says... (BuzzFeed)
-- What are Alabamians hearing about Charlottesville on conservative talk radio? Vox's Jeff Stein has the disturbing answer here... (Vox) | | Vice's report reaching tens of millions of viewers | | | When my mom shared Vice's documentary about Charlottesville on Facebook, that's when I knew it had really broken through. "Charlottesville: Race and Terror," a special episode of HBO's "Vice News Tonight," came out on Monday night. HBO gave the OK for Vice to post the whole thing on YouTube and Facebook. TV networks like CNN and NBC played clips from it. And now the footage has now been seen by tens of millions of people. It's a breakout moment for "Vice News Tonight..." and I spoke with Josh Tyrangiel about it... here's my full story... | | "They called me lügenpresse" | | | In an interview on "AC360," Vice correspondent Elle Reeve said the most striking thing about the white nationalist protest was "how well-organized it was." Some of the participants were hostile toward her: "They called me 'lügenpresse' -- that's a Nazi term for lying press..." | | | HBO CEO Richard Plepler emails: The Vice doc was "invaluable journalism that held a mirror up to the despicable face of hatred, bigotry and racism. Sickening to watch, but necessary that we not forget that such vitriol still finds voice in our country and must be condemned and called out for what it is." | | | Lee Alexander emails: What do white supremacists believe? Does their hateful rhetoric deserve media attention? These are legitimate questions – uncomfortable questions for news organizations to grapple with -- but WBTV's full interview with these KKK members in North Carolina is a textbook example of why it's dangerous to hand over the mic and give hate speech a public platform. Some of the quotes have gone "viral." I think it's clear the twelve minutes WBTV allowed these KKK members to vent their grievances without fact-checking or strong push back is not in the public's interest... | | | LOOKING BACK AT SATURDAY... | | Four reporters were attacked | | | "Four reporters have been attacked while covering recent protests and counter-protests," according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. Jake Tapper pointed out in this tweetstorm that "at least two journalists in Charlottesville were assaulted by people protesting the Klan/Nazi/alt-right rally." Details here... | | | Oliver Darcy's scoop: The far-right website GotNews claimed that the person who had run over a group of demonstrators was a Trump critic, NOT a white nationalist. But the Michigan man GotNews had identified was in fact not the driver. He was not even in Virginia at the time. Within hours, he and his family had been forced to flee their home at the advice of local police, who expressed concern for their safety after a slew of death threats rolled in. Read Oliver's full story here >>> | | | WEDNESDAY'S COVERAGE OF TRUMP'S COMMENTS... | | CNN and MSNBC ahead of Fox | | | Via TVNewser's A.J. Katz: "CNN was No. 1 on Tuesday among adults 25-54, led by 'AC360.' MSNBC was No. 1 in total viewers, led by 'Maddow.'" Fox News fell to third place on Tuesday evening. This reminds me of mid-May, when MSNBC and CNN gained ground in the wake of James Comey's firing... | | "Tears flowed on the air" | | "Raw feelings were close to the surface on news networks Wednesday but particularly at Fox, the favorite news network for Trump and his supporters," the AP's David Bauder writes. "Tears flowed on the air, by CNN's Kate Bolduan as she watched a memorial service for a woman killed Saturday, by Fox's Melissa Francis as she argued on 'Outnumbered' and by two guests on a 'Fox & Friends' segment." If you haven't seen that "Friends" segment yet, watch it here... HuffPost's Jenna Amatulli criticized host Abby Huntsman for failing to moderate the emotional conversation...
-- Related: Dana Milbank watched all three hours of "Friends" and wrote about it...
-- Kudos to Guy Benson, Sean Hannity, and others at Fox for defending Eboni Williams from hateful viewer comments... | | | Wednesday's other news... | | | Apple's $1 billion budget for shows | | | Big shoutout to the WSJ's Tripp Mickle, who broke this news early Wednesday morning: "Apple has set a budget of roughly $1 billion to procure and produce original content over the next year, according to people familiar with the matter -- a sign of how serious the maker of iPhones is about making a splash in Hollywood..." | | Apple characteristically declined to comment, CNNTech's Seth Fiegerman reports.
-- Reality check: Some producers are eager to work with Apple, sensing a first-mover advantage. Others have a lot of questions about how Apple will distribute its programs. Netflix already had a large catalog of licensed programming when it introduced its own TV shows. Apple doesn't have that -- but it does have iPhones in hundreds of millions of hands... | | Netflix bulking up because of Apple? | | Brian Lowry emails: If Hollywood needed more sleepless nights about Silicon Valley horning in on its business, Apple's latest executive hire, WGN America's Matt Cherniss, and Wednesday morning's WSJ story seem like pretty good reasons. It also might help explain Netflix's recent spending spree -- signing talent like Shonda Rhimes, Robert Kirkman and the Coen brothers -- faced with a potential competitor to whom a $1 billion investment amounts to pocket change...
-- Lowry adds: ABC, meanwhile, made its own move to remind people it's still in the showrunner business after losing Rhimes, inking a deal with "Lost" producer Carlton Cuse. Don't be surprised if there are more big-ticket announcements... | | -- I missed this last night: "The Nation is reviewing a story casting doubt on Russian hack of DNC," Erik Wemple reported... (WashPost)
-- Meantime, the NYT broke this news on Wednesday: "For the first time, an actual witness, a Ukrainian malware expert, has emerged in the hacking of the DNC and he has been interviewed by the F.B.I..." (NYT)
-- Julia Waldow emails: HBO cannot catch a break. The next episode of "Game of Thrones" was accidentally released five days ahead of time in Spain and Nordic countries... (AP)
-- Also via Julia: BuzzFeed has clinched a six-figure deal with the election data startup Decision Desk HQ for live coverage of national and state elections through 2018... (Poynter) | | Tom Kludt emails: James Bennet's testimony on Wednesday served as a behind-the-scenes account of the editorial that prompted Sarah Palin to sue the NYT. It was Elizabeth Williamson, a Times editorial board member based in D.C., who submitted the first draft of the piece. And it was Bennet who authored the offending language that forms the basis of Palin's lawsuit. But he insisted that he did not intend to suggest a "causal link" between Palin and the 2011 Tucson massacre, and he was deeply concerned when he discovered that many readers had interpreted the editorial of saying just that.
Bennet appeared anguished on the stand as he recalled writing the editorial under a tight deadline. When he saw the criticism piling up on social media, Bennet said he felt "a huge amount of concern." There aren't many journalists who relish the idea of reliving their most humiliating corrections. But to do it under oath? Oof. Read Tom's full story here >>> | | It was a #HulkVsGawk reunion... | | More from Tom: The questioning was conducted by Times attorney Michael Sullivan and Palin counsel Ken Turkel, both of whom were at the center of last year's big media trial. It was the Tampa-based Turkel who tried Hulk Hogan's invasion of privacy case against Gawker, which was represented by Sullivan...
-- Your daily irony: Turkel asked Bennet about a 2011 post by Andrew Sullivan (at the time, Sullivan's blog was housed at The Atlantic, which was being run by Bennet). In the post, Sullivan had demanded a correction from the FT after one of its writers accused him of linking the Tucson shooting to "Republican ideology or rhetoric." Bennet said he couldn't recall the specific post, telling Turkel that Sullivan had editorial independence over the blog. But let's just pause and digest this for a moment: lawyers for Sarah Palin invoked Andrew Sullivan -- one of her fiercest media critics -- to bolster their case... | | | For the record, part three | | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
-- Steve Bannon, Breitbart and the White House are on the cover of this Sunday's NYT Magazine... the story is by Wil S. Hylton... (NYT Mag)
-- "We have hired a bank," Mashable says, to raise capital and to explore options that may include a sale... (Bloomberg)
-- Opinion? News? Analysis? The Duke Reporters' Lab found that only 40% of large news orgs label their content... (Poynter)
-- The Marshall Project debuted its membership program on Tuesday, and already raised a five-figure sum from "a couple hundred members..." (Poynter)
-- Gay dating app Grindr has launched a digital magazine called Into, seeking ad $$$s from brands that would otherwise avoid advertising in a dating app... (Digiday)
-- Highly recommended: The Tow Center has issued a new report looking at political polarization at the local level, and its impact on media consumption habits... (CJR) | | "Being online is really bad, and the way we interact with information on the web is a type of sickness unique to this moment in time. Not only is each Trump tweet treated as a breaking news emergency, but there stems from each one a contest of sorts -- who can have the best response? This has turned the internet into a cluster**** of moral performativity."
--Leah Finnegan's latest for The Outline... | | | For the record, part four | | | By Frank Pallotta:
-- Bond, James Bond will again be played by Craig, Daniel Craig. The actor confirmed the news to Stephen Colbert Tuesday night...
-- THR has a must-read feature on the first family of pop culture: The Kardashians. And it has one of my favorite headlines this week, "The Kardashian Decade: How a Sex Tape Led to a Billion-Dollar Brand." (THR)
-- Director Edgar Wright sat down with Vulture to talk about my favorite movie of the year, "Baby Driver," which just crossed $100 million at the U.S. box office... (Vulture) | | Lowry reviews "The Defenders" | | | Brian Lowry emails: Netflix's multi-series relationship with Marvel reaches its apex with the premiere this weekend of "The Defenders," a superhero team-up featuring the characters from four prior series: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. Like most of the Marvel-Netflix shows, it starts slow, but this one both lightens up and gets progressively better... | | | For the record, part five | | | By Lisa Respers France:
-- I talked to Marlon Wayans about his new TV comedy, which hits pretty close to home for him. He plays a dad, and since he really is, he said his kids can expect their antics to show up on the series...
-- Anna Faris offered some relationship advice on her podcast, including this: "Life is too short to be in relationships where you feel this isn't fully right or somebody doesn't have your back, or somebody doesn't fully value you..." 😳
-- The Purple One, Prince, has been honored with his own Pantone purple shade...
-- A second season of "Big Little Lies" is sounding more and more likely... | | | Email us at reliablesources@cnn.com... we appreciate every message. The feedback helps us craft the next day's newsletter! | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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