| | | | Let's hear more from Afghan vets | | "I was looking for more of an end date."
That's what U.S. Army Sergeant Blake Buchanan said on CNN shortly after President Trump's prime time address about Afghanistan. Buchanan served in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2011. He was a questioner at the CNN town hall Jake Tapper moderated with House Speaker Paul Ryan. But Buchanan didn't really ask a question -- he just spoke from the heart. He sounded so disappointed when he said "it would seem like we're going to be continuing for quite some time."
Will this 16-year-long war ever end? Television anchors dutifully pointed out the length and human cost of the Afghan war while teeing up the President's address on Monday. But I wish we had heard more from veterans of the war... veterans like Buchanan...
-- More: Here's a full recap of the CNN town hall... | | These wars "aren't weighing on the public's consciousness as they should" | | "Not only is it important to hear from those who've seen war, but the coverage seems to be disproportionately about the impact of tonight's speech on the President rather than those whose lives are on the line," Allison Jaslow, an Iraq war veteran and the executive director of IAVA, told me via email Monday night.
"I'd also say that while I'm grateful for many outlets starting the day understanding the gravity of the President's address to the nation and its human impact, the coverage in total seemed to wane mid-day, and veteran voices notably went missing. Put simply, this reaffirmed my belief that our nation's wars and the less than 1% of Americans that are fighting them, aren't weighing on the public's consciousness as they should." | | TRUMP'S FIRST PRIME TIME ADDRESS | | The headline: "No deadlines" | | The President vowed to keep fighting in Afghanistan, but did not present a timeline or announce any specific troop surge. "No deadlines in Afghanistan," CNN.com's headline says. "Trump gives military more leeway and says plans will no longer be announced."
Ahead of the speech, many news outlets reported that the President had approved an additional 4,000 troops in Afghanistan.
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell reacted to the speech this way: "At no point tonight did the President clarify anything about what would actually change militarily for the U.S. in Afghanistan. If this speech is meant to be interpreted as an increase in troop strength in Afghanistan, it is the first time a President has announced an increase in troop strength without actually announcing an increase in troop strength." | | -- CNN's Fareed Zakaria to Don Lemon: "What will 4,000 American troops do that 140,000 couldn't do five years ago?"
-- Fox's Jack Keane celebrated Trump's address: He said "we've finally got a commander in chief who speaks honestly..."
-- MSNBC's Rachel Maddow: "We heard the president basically dismiss his previous self" and we heard him "start a new fight with Pakistan..." | | Comedian Josh Gad reacting to the President's address: "Tonight's the night Donald Trump's Teleprompter became President."
There were lots and lots of comments about the prompter on Monday night. The Daily Beast's John Avlon tweeted that "TelePrompTer Trump sounds like he's discovering every sentence & fact anew." Former Democratic congressman Steve Israel said on CNN that Trump "is a uniter when he reads from the teleprompter, but seems to be a divider when he speaks from the heart." The BBC's Kim Ghattas said "every time POTUS reads from teleprompter, sticks to the teleprompter, US media declares: this is the new Trump, presidential. Until next tweet." | | Washington Examiner senior political correspondent/CNN analyst David Drucker tweeted this on Monday morning, and re-upped it after the President's address:
"For POTUS: Conventional Afghanistan speech on Monday, Phoenix rally on Tuesday. Maybe we should save all of the analysis until Wednesday." | | | Brian Lowry emails: Setting aside the substance, I was struck by how low energy -- to borrow his term -- Trump seemed to be. He got better as the speech went on, but the delivery looked and sounded labored initially. Perhaps that's in part because he didn't have a boisterous rally crowd off which to feed. | | | The broadcast networks rushed back to regular programming after just a couple of minutes of post-speech discussion. CNN's Allie Malloy noticed this: "ABC aired a pre-election rerun of 'Blackish' that honored Obama following Trump's address. 🤔" | | REACTIONS FROM ALL OVER... | | -- WashPost's Philip Rucker: "Tonight is a new President Trump: Acknowledging a flip-flop and talking about gravity of office, history & substance."
-- NYMag's Olivia Nuzzi: "did I miss the announcement of a new strategy or what"
-- AP's Jonathan Lemire: "Very few obvious ad-libs from Trump tonight. Resisting temptation to play to crowd, which was issue before (speech at CIA memorial wall)"
-- The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro: "Seems like the only big difference from Obama on Afghanistan is Pakistan policy."
-- Politico's Susan Glasser: "Bottom line: a few thousand more troops, no new policy. There's nothing dramatic about it except that Trump acknowledged flipflop."
-- CFR's Micah Zenko: "Bottom line: Trump has now expanded US military presence and/or airstrikes in EVERY combat theater he inherited from Obama." | | Reactions from the pro-Trump media universe | | | Oliver Darcy emails: Trump's speech was not received well by the pro-Trump media universe. On Twitter, some Breitbart writers drew comparisons between Trump's outlined approach and President Obama's. On its front page, Breitbart's banner headline went as far as to accuse Trump of a "flip-flop" -- and the article the headline linked to declared the speech to be a "disappointment to many who had supported his calls during the campaign to end expensive foreign intervention and nation-building." Ann Coulter suggested on Twitter that Trump's speech was proof the military industrial complex always wins. And right-wing troll Mike Cernovich asked, "Why did we even have an election?" | | Elsewhere on the right... | | | Sean Hannity sure sounded happy with the President's speech. But Laura Ingraham, who's in line for a prime time show on Fox, asked on Twitter: "Who's going to pay for it? What is our measure of success? We didn't win with 100K troops. How will we win with 4,000 more?" The headline on Ingraham's site LifeZette summed it up well: "Conservatives Divided Over Trump's Afghanistan Plan." | | | There were strong suspicions on the right that Monday's address was scheduled for political reasons. Jessica Tarlov beforehand on "Fox News Specialists:" "I wonder if the timing of this announcement has to do with how badly last week went." Rachel Maddow afterward on MSNBC: "I still don't understand exactly why he made this announcement now." Eric Boehlert on Twitter: "why does he need prime time national address to announce small troop increase for a 16-year old war??" | | | Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman emails: POTUS said "When we open our hearts to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice, no place for bigotry and no tolerance for hate." I have a question: How does this apply to the transgender service members who opened their hearts to patriotism, but were cordially uninvited from serving their country by Trump? | | Pence amplifying Trump's address | | | VP Mike Pence will be interviewed by Ainsley Earhardt on Tuesday's "Fox & Friends." Pence also has an op-ed in USA Today echoing the President's remarks. And he'll be in Phoenix for Trump's rally Tuesday night. | | Maggie Haberman tweeted pre-speech: "If people don't tune in/the ratings are not strong for his first prime time address, it will compound a sense of frustration he already has..."
So for the record, Barack Obama's prime time address about Afghanistan in Dec. 2009 averaged 40.8 million viewers via TV... | | Will the W.H. brief the press? | | (Probably not, since Trump is leaving at lunchtime for Arizona. Maybe a press gaggle aboard AF1?)
Trump's address notwithstanding, the White House is still in silent mode, as I wrote in this story earlier in the day. Sarah Huckabee Sanders didn't hold a press briefing on Monday, even though Trump was officially back at work after a 17-day vacation. Sanders and other White House aides are still nowhere to be found on television... | | Charles Krauthammer recovering from surgery | | | Bret Baier shared this on "Special Report" Monday night: Fox regular Charles Krauthammer "underwent a pre-planned surgery this morning and will be in recovery for a number of days. We don't know how many. We're told that everything went extremely well..." | | By Julia Waldow:
-- Mitch McConnell challenged one of Trump's major talking points -- "fake news" -- when he said on Monday, "It is in my view that most news is not fake." He also said he reads a number of outlets Trump has criticized, like the NYT. (Politico)
-- CNN is launching a daily Snapchat news program, "The Update." Each episode will feature at least five news stories, and "CNN will update the show with breaking news throughout the evening and early morning before the next day's episode airs." (Recode)
-- "Friends From College," the Netflix series starring Keegan-Michael Key, Cobie Smulders, and Fred Savage, has been renewed for a second, eight-episode season. (Variety) | | Tronc starting over at the LATimes | | The biggest newspaper in the West, the Los Angeles Times, suddenly has a new publisher and a new editor in chief.
In the morning: Davan Maharaj, who has held both jobs since March 2016, was fired during a breakfast meeting with Tronc CEO Justin Dearborn on Monday morning. It had been a long time coming... the two men had been at odds for many months. Several of Maharaj's top deputies at the paper, including the managing editor and the deputy managing editor for digital, were also dismissed.
In the afternoon: Former Yahoo and Fox Interactive Media executive Ross Levinsohn was appointed publisher and CEO, and Jim Kirk was named executive editor on an interim basis. | | Here's what Levinsohn told me | | | "We're in a moment where the need for the L.A. Times -- for journalism, for facts and for reporting -- has never been greater, and I see so much potential to grow our impact." He said he'd seek to invest more in "groundbreaking journalism" about entertainment, art, tech, climate change, and other subject matter. But staffers at the Times can be forgiven if they are skeptical... Here's my full story... | | -- Jeffrey Lord "in talks with Breitbart." (The Daily Beast)
-- Steve Warren is CNN's newest military analyst. Warren, a well-liked Pentagon spokesman, was forced out last week. (The Hill)
-- Via Howard Cohen: NBCU sales chief Linda Yaccarino says Megyn Kelly taking over the 9am hour "has been a real boon for us," but some of the reports about ad pricing "were a little bit overstated." (TVNewser) | | I don't know about you, but I thought the eclipse was amazing. As David Joachim said, it was like "New Year's Rockin' Eve," but in reverse! CNN's VR live streams were immersive. And the television broadcasts were really remarkable.
ABC's two-hour special report by David Muir was the most ambitious production of all. CBS had impressive coverage as well. (Anthony Mason anchored from Carbondale, Illinois, not from NYC -- my info in last night's newsletter was wrong.) NBC had multiple cut-ins from Lester Holt, but didn't produce a full two-hour special, which felt like a big missed opportunity to me. Oh well. CNN had Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper anchoring... | | So many mesmerizing live shots | | I was flipping channels, so I missed a lot, but here are some of the best live shots I saw...
-- ABC's Rob Marciano in Lincoln City, Oregon: His crew experienced the darkness of the eclipse first... what a TV moment... he called it "a communal experience filled with awe and joy..."
-- CBS's Jeff Glor in Jackson Hole, Wyoming: He stopped talking mid-sentence when darkness descended. He put on his glasses, looked skyward, and let the moment speak for itself. Perfect...
-- NBC's Kate Snow on an eclipse vacation with her family in Madras, Oregon: The Snows said they'll travel again to the eclipse in 2024...
-- CNN's Stephanie Elam in Saint Joseph, Missouri: Watch her sheer joy about the moment of totality... | | De Niro says Trump is going to "sink himself" | | Megan Thomas emails: Robert De Niro has been a vocal critic of President Trump, and he did not hold back on that in a new interview with Deadline. "If he was smart, he'd be even more dangerous," De Niro said. "He's dangerous as it is. He's terrible, and a flat-out blatant racist and doubling down on that, and it's good that he does because he's going to sink himself..."
De Niro is an Emmy contender for lead actor in a mini-series or movie for his performance as Bernie Madoff in HBO's "The Wizard of Lies," and he says he hopes there will be anti-Trump protests at the Emmy Awards on September 17... | | | For the record, part three | | | Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman emails:
-- Erik Wemple's latest on Sarah Palin's lawsuit against the NYT: a draft of the editorial Palin is suing over raises questions on the editing process... (WashPost)
-- Christiana Mbakwe at CJR argues that white supremacism and right-wing extremism should be a specific beat for reporters... (CJR)
-- NYT's John Herrman with an important analysis on the glaring contradictions built into internet platforms, for-profit spaces centered on the rhetoric of participation, and how Charlottesville forced platforms to address them... (NYT)
-- As PolitiFact turns 10, creator Bill Adair shares his thoughts on the "unlikely success" of the site... (CJR)
-- News startups are often the hottest thing... until they no longer are. Here's the case of Fresco News, a company with celebrity backers like Ashton Kutcher, "facing intense pressure to sustain the veneer of success while secretly struggling to pay bills..." (The Outline)
-- BBC World Service is expanding its coverage by offering news in 12 new languages: Afaan Oromo, Amharic, Gujarati, Igbo, Korean, Marathi, Pidgin, Punjabi, Serbian, Telugu, Tigrinya, and Yoruba. The BBC says this is its biggest expansion since the 1940s... (Press Gazette) | | Following up on the NYT's story about Apple's TV aspirations | | Brian Lowry emails: There are two key points in the New York Times' piece about digital/tech titans -- Apple, Facebook, YouTube -- crowding into the entertainment space alongside Netflix and Amazon:
-- New buyers inevitably tend to drive up costs for talent, at least in the short term...
-- And while newcomers to Hollywood have a long history of getting their noses bloodied, with pockets as deep as Apple and Facebook, it's going to take a considerable pounding to break the skin... | | "Confederate" backlash born in "Game of Thrones" success | | More from Lowry: It's been a huge summer for "Game of Thrones" as the show gears up for this Sunday's season finale. But that inordinate success has also helped reenact a familiar pattern -- where producers use the latitude a big hit affords them to take creative risks -- in the controversy over HBO's planned alternate-history series "Confederate."
Read Lowry's full thought-provoking column here... | | Taylor Swift about to launch a new album? | | | Or is that headline just wishful thinking on my part? Well Lisa Respers France writes this: Taylor Swift is definitely up to something. Days after deleting all her social media content, the singer returned to post a slithery video clip... Fans are speculating about what it means... | | Lowry's appreciation of Jerry Lewis | | | Brian Lowry emails: Here are my thoughts on the career of Jerry Lewis, who along with Dick Gregory -- another comedy titan who died this past weekend -- leaves behind a legacy that echoes well beyond the laughs... | | | For the record, part four | | | By Lisa Respers France:
-- It was the ultimate Rickroll when the Foo Fighters teamed up with Rick Astley for a mashup of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Never Gonna Give You Up" at a music festival...
-- Instead of a Confederate monument in Portsmouth, Virginia, some music fans want to flip it up and reverse it with a statue of one of its most famous native daughters: rapper/singer/producer Missy Elliott. A petition to make that happen has gathered some steam...
-- Britney Spears gave fans "Something To Talk About" when she did a live cover of Bonnie Raitt's 1991 hit. Apparently Brit is tired of folks saying she must lip sync because she lacks the chops to sing live...
-- Matt LeBlanc revealed he was offered the role of Phil Dunphy on "Modern Family" but turned it down. He's not the only actor to pass up a role... | | | Sunday's "Reliable Sources" | | | | Email 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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