Exec summary: The WaPo has published Jamal Khashoggi's final column. This isn't just about the crime anymore, it's about the cover-up. Scroll down for our complete coverage...
Rosenstein speaks!
Why? And why now? I'd love to know why Rod Rosenstein decided to give this interview to Sadie Gurman of the WSJ. Rosenstein almost never grants interviews. Gurman's story notes that the "rare" Q&A "took place during a turbulent period." And there are numerous takeaways:
-- No "witch hunt:" Rosenstein called Robert Mueller's probe "appropriate and independent."
-- "People are entitled to be frustrated, I can accept that," he said. "But at the end of the day, the public will have confidence that the cases we brought were warranted by the evidence, and that it was an appropriate use of resources."
-- Rosenstein said "I try very hard to ignore media speculation about what we're doing and focus instead on what we're actually doing. We sit down every day and we work toward the goals of the department and try to ignore the inevitable attention in the media."
-- Rosenstein "declined to comment on a timetable for completion of the Mueller probe."
HMMM: Rosenstein had no particular reason to give this interview now. That said, Gurman's story doesn't drop any hints about why he decided to speak. Maybe we'll find out someday...
In the meantime, here's CNN's latest on the Mueller probe: "People around Trump and other witnesses believe more criminal indictments will come from Mueller..." Insiders are expecting "an active post-election period..."
Trump has a list... | | Rosenstein isn't the only one being interviewed. The White House's top spokesman, a/k/a President Trump, says "we're communicating very well" -- now that he is giving interviews and talking to the press almost every day.
Trump has been invigorated by his media blitz in recent weeks, two White House officials told's CNN's Jeremy Diamond. The W.H. is working its way down a list of outlets the president plans to sit down with before the midterm elections. The list includes both friendly hosts like Fox's Stuart Varney, who tossed softballs to Trump on Wednesday, and traditional media outlets like the AP. "We have a list. And we're just trying to get through it," a senior official said. Here's our full story...
BUT: Don't expect this amount of press access to last
Trump's calculation is that the more he talks, the more successful the GOP will be on Nov. 6. Trump told Varney that he probably won't keep up this pace of interviews after the midterms. "We want to win, we want to get the Republicans nominated and we want to get them elected," he said...
Interview #37 with Fox
According to Mark Knoller, the Varney interview was #37 for Fox News/Fox Biz/Fox News Radio. This is just since inauguration day. Fox's total compares with six interviews with the NYT, five with the WSJ, five with NBC News and CNBC, four with CBS News, two with ABC, and zero with CNN.
So how many more interviews will Trump give between now and Nov. 6? "As much as we can fit in," the senior official told Diamond. "He loves to talk. He feels like he's communicating with people. And he feels like he's giving you" in the media "what you want." Hey, the official has a point! Many members of the media have bemoaned Trump's Fox-centric behavior in the past. Now he's talking with a wider variety of outlets. BUT: This flood-the-zone approach has resulted in a flood of fibs, flubs, and outright fantasies...
Thanks, Rush!
On Wednesday's "Rush Limbaugh Show," Rush re-aired part of my Sunday monologue about Trump being "the country's biggest promoter of misinformation." I said that access to POTUS is valuable, but "with Trump, the downside of that access is that he's saying so much stuff that's untrue that it sows confusion and division." Rush proceeded to call me "little Brian," but hey, hopefully I got through to some of his listeners...
The point remains the same: By saturating the airwaves and filling up reporters' notebooks, Trump is spreading a whole lot of B.S. "He has polluted our information ecosystem," David Zurawik said on Sunday's show. "Trump can go on TV and say something incredibly stupid, something that's horrible in terms of foreign relations, and it almost does not matter, because he is on to the next thing talking about it, and we are always chasing him."
-- FLASHBACK: Gary Kasparov tweeted in December 2016: "The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth."
If you haven't read it yet...
Check out the full transcript of The AP's Tuesday interview with Trump. Picture how Fox's prime time lineup would have reacted if Barack Obama had said this:
AP: "Why have you not yet visited a military base in a combat zone like in Iraq and Afghanistan?"
Trump: "Well, I will do that at some point, but I don't think it's overly necessary. I've been very busy with everything that's taking place here. We have the greatest economy..."
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST...
VF's Keegan to THR
Rebecca Keegan, VF's Hollywood correspondent and the writer of the HWD Weekly newsletter, is joining The Hollywood Reporter... Matt Belloni will announce her hiring on Thursday... She'll be THR's senior editor for film, covering the movie biz and more, writing features and analysis pieces...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- NYT with the scoop: Don McGahn's final day as W.H. counsel was Wednesday... (NYT)
-- Read Laura Hazard Owen's latest on the "pivot to video:" "Did Facebook's faulty data push news publishers to make terrible decisions on video?" (NiemanLab)
-- Marc Belisle, formerly of Reverb Press, says Facebook's purge of 559 pages -- purportedly for breaking rules against spam and "coordinated inauthentic behavior" -- is deeply troubling. "What Facebook calls 'spam' behavior is, in reality, a response to its own constant unexplained changes..." (BuzzFeed)
-- Brain food: A Q&A with Jill Abramson and Jane Mayer... (Harvard Gazette)
| | WHERE IS JAMAL KHASHOGGI?
It's the crime. AND it's the cover-up.
The apparent killing of Jamal Khashoggi is horrifying. And so is the apparent cover-up. That's what is driving this story forward now: The so-called investigation by the Saudis, the attempts to explain his disappearance, and the US government's response. Some Americans are looking at this and saying the Trump administration appears to be part of the cover-up -- a claim President Trump denies. Others are saying the US-Saudi alliance must be protected at almost all costs.
View from the left: Chris Hayes' MSNBC show called the Trump-Saudi ties "COLLUSION IN PLAIN SIGHT."
View from the right: Pat Robertson said on "The 700 Club" that "we cannot alienate our biggest player in the Middle East" and cited arms deals.
CNN's latest reporting is here: "Jamal Khashoggi investigation closes in on Saudi Crown Prince's inner circle."
Meanwhile, the Washington Post wants Khashoggi's voice to be heard loud and clear...
Khashoggi's final column
One day after Khashoggi was reported missing by his fiancee, WaPo global opinions editor Karen Attiah received his latest column from Khashoggi's translator and assistant. On Wednesday night the Post published the column.
Attiah: "The Post held off publishing it because we hoped Jamal would come back to us so that he and I could edit it together. Now I have to accept: That is not going to happen. This is the last piece of his I will edit for The Post."
His column, fittingly, was about the need for a free press and free expression. Read it here...
Here's what Thursday's op-ed page will look like in print: | |
Why the Post decided to publish it now
This story is increasingly about the cover-up, the US-Saudi relationship, etc. So "we wanted to bring it back to his words. To his ideas. To his thoughts," Attiah told Anderson Cooper. "Who he was as a person and why he was so passionate about being free here in Washington and being free here at the Washington Post."
His message
"The Arab world needs a modern version of the old transnational media so citizens can be informed about global events," Khashoggi wrote. "More important, we need to provide a platform for Arab voices. We suffer from poverty, mismanagement and poor education. Through the creation of an independent international forum, isolated from the influence of nationalist governments spreading hate through propaganda, ordinary people in the Arab world would be able to address the structural problems their societies face."
There is sustained global media attention on this story
CNN analyst Josh Campbell tweeted Wednesday: "If the global media presence here in Istanbul is any indication, those in Washington and Riyadh hoping the #Khashoggi investigation will simply go away are going to be sorely disappointed..."
Another CNN analyst, Aaron David Miller, tweeted, "The Khashoggi killing -- now entering its 16th day -- is the first serious foreign policy crisis Trump has faced involving Congress, the media, private sector and most important US values/interests. Right now, Trump Administration is protecting neither."
Trump's POV
As Jake Tapper on "The Lead" put it, Trump "has had harsher words in the last week or so for Stormy Daniels, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Taylor Swift than he has had for the Saudis responsible for the likely butchering and slaughter of a Washington Post columnist."
There was a revealing moment in Trump's chat with Stuart Varney on Fox Business on Wednesday -- when Trump said that Saudi Arabia's arms deal with the US (which has yet to come close to fruition) would produce "500,000 jobs." What? Where'd he get that #? Varney should have asked him, but he didn't. Earlier this year, Trump claimed that deals with the Saudis would account for "over 40,000 jobs in the United States." He didn't provide evidence for THAT claim, either. But it shows where Trump is coming from...
Talking tough behind closed doors?
Meanwhile, a source familiar with Mike Pompeo's meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told CNN's Jamie Gangel that the "smiling photo op" on Tuesday "disguised the reality of a blunt, tough meeting in which the top US diplomat told the royal his future as king depends on his handling" of the suspected killing. The source told Gangel that Pompeo told bin Salman in no uncertain terms that he had to "own" the situation, and "that every fact is going to get out."
Other updates...
-- The W.H. says Trump will meet with Pompeo at 10 a.m. Thursday...
-- Fox Business is one of the only remaining media partners for "Davos in the Desert." A Fox rep says "the situation remains under review..."
-- Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin will make a decision about attending the conference on Thursday...
-- BOTTOM LINE: I recommend reading Nick Paton Walsh's latest opinion piece for CNN.com: He says the Saudis, the Turks and the Americans all seem, "one way or another, involved in some form of cover-up..."
The Secret Service responds...
Oliver Darcy emails: On Wednesday night the Secret Service defended an agent who physically blocked a CBS News reporter from questioning Jared Kushner. The agency said "the actions of the special agent in this incident were in no way intended to impede those rights or the media's access to a Secret Service protectee. The actions were taken solely in response to an abrupt movement by an unknown individual who later identified themselves as a member of the media."
It's worth noting that the journalist, Errol Barnett, said he was wearing his CBS News and White House press credentials during the incident. Furthermore, when he identified himself as a member of the press, the Secret Service agent replied, "I don't give a damn who you are." When I pointed this out to the Secret Service spokesperson, I was told, "Our Office of Communications and Media Relations had an in-depth conversation earlier in the day with CBS News about this incident." The spokesperson said the agency would not be commenting further.
>> Related: Barnett spoke with Jake Tapper about the incident on "Outfront" Wednesday evening. You can watch that clip via Mediaite here...
On Thursday morning...
On "CBS This Morning," Norah O'Donnell has an interview with Joe Biden. "I just don't know why this administration seems to feel the need to coddle autocrats and dictators from Putin to Kim Jong Un to you know Duterte. I don't understand it," Biden said...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
By Julia Waldow:
-- Sheelah Kolhatkar profiles Sinclair's prominent place in the conservative media world... (The New Yorker)
-- Want to retrieve a copy of your data from Apple? Zack Whittaker tells you how. But, he notes, "don't be disappointed when you get your download and find there's almost nothing in there..." (TechCrunch)
FIRST LOOK
Time's "Wave Makers" cover
Here's a sneak peek at the next edition of TIME, out Thursday, featuring Charlotte Alter's cover story about "how the outraged got organized." | |
Farrakhan's hateful messages
Oliver Darcy emails: Twitter once again finds itself at the center of a firestorm: This time over a tweet posted by fringe Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. On Tuesday, Farrakhan tweeted a video of a sermon he delivered with the caption, "I'm not anti-Semite. I'm anti-Termite." The comment prompted immediate outcry -- and news outlets like BuzzFeed asked Twitter if the comment violated the platform's policies against hate and abuse.
A Twitter spokesperson told me that the tweet did not violate Twitter's current policies as they require such tweets to be "targeted at an individual." That said, the spokesperson noted that Farrakhan's tweet could potentially have violated Twitter's proposed policy against dehumanizing individuals, but that policy is not yet in place. So for now, Farrakhan's anti-Semitic remark remains up...
CONTEXT: This is not the first Farrakhan tweet that's crossed the line. Far from it. Keep an eye on this issue...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Don't miss David Streitfeld's interview with Craig Newmark... (NYT)
-- The Atlantic just relaunched "The Atlantic Argument" video series, with Elaina Plott discussing gun control... (YouTube)
-- Steve Ballmer introduced Clippers CourtVision on Wednesday... (Variety)
- "The New York attorney general is investigating the parent company of MoviePass," Jill Disis reports... (CNN)
| | Julia Waldow emails some recommended reading: ProPublica and WNYC partnered to produce what ultimately became a long-form, eight-month investigative journalism piece on the Trump family. Titled "Pump and Trump," the piece dives into "a dozen Trump deals" that show "deep family involvement in projects that often involved deceptive practices." Read the story from Heather Vogell, Andrea Bernstein, Meg Cramer, and Peter Elkind here...
NYT criticized for profile of Proud Boys founder
Did you read the NYT profile of Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes?
CNN's S. Mitra Kalita emails with this reaction: "Another feature on white nationalists, another furious social reaction to the NYT humanizing hate. What I wish the story had, oddly enough, is both distance and intimacy. Distance might have infused it with data on hate crimes or street fights or even the growth of the Proud Boys' membership/online influence. Intimacy might have interviewed mothers like me who live in fear of our children running into these types on subways and playgrounds. That's the very real effect of hate like this going mainstream. Even as an article in a newspaper..."
| | Is Silicon Valley becoming more transparent with reporters?
Donie O'Sullivan emails with a hopeful note: A CNN investigation found a network of fake Facebook pages targeting Women's March activists. The pages were run from Bangladesh.
Often when reporters bring evidence of abuse on social media platforms to the companies' attention, the company removes the accounts and won't tell us why.
But this time Facebook kept us up to date on their internal investigation – which had some Facebook staffers work long hours over the weekend (I have a habit of finding things on a Friday! 😁). The new normal or a once-off? Time will tell...
Twitter releases an archive of troll tweets
More from Donie: Twitter just released 300 gigabytes of tweets sent by the Russian government-linked trolls that caused chaos online in the run-up to the 2016 election.
But let's not get too excited – independent researchers and the press gathered most of these tweets long before Twitter decided to be transparent...
No explanation for the YouTube blackout
I'm curious about this: YouTube went down for about an hour on Tuesday night... But the company won't give any comment about WHY or HOW it happened. Spokespeople declined to tell me anything on Wednesday...
| | | FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
By Daniella Emanuel:
-- Twitter is making some changes to the visual layout of reported and deleted tweets... (TechCrunch)
-- Bill Adair reviewed the new Broadway play "The Lifespan of a Fact" starring Daniel Radcliffe, noting the confusion it may cause surrounding people's definitions of a "fact-checker..." (Poynter)
About last night
If you read last night's newsletter carefully, you probably caught my mistake -- a stray line of text that was only meant for my editor. Whoops!
For those of you who don't work in newsrooms, here's what it meant: It was a note to Rob that one of the top editors at CNN Business had reviewed and approved my usage of a confidential source. This is the decidedly unglamorous part of the job... But a standard step taken by serious newsrooms... Getting a source vetted and OKed before publishing. You accidentally saw it in action!
| | "The Conners" is a hit after week one
"The Conners" premiered to 10.5 million viewers on Tuesday night, "making it TV's No. 1 series debut this season," Frank Pallotta writes. "Tuesday's viewership is on par with the finale of 'Roseanne' last season, which nabbed roughly 10.5 million viewers..."
Now what about week two?
Brian Lowry emails: Everyone was understandably focused on premiere results for "The Conners," which were good, if not spectacular. But the larger question will be the week-two results -- namely, how many people tuned in specifically to see how they dispatched Roseanne, and opted not to return, as well as whether the sampling generated for "The Kids Are Alright" (which held about 60% of its lead-in) pays any dividends.
From ABC's perspective, "The Conners" is probably less a longterm player than a temporary fix to the gaping hole that Roseanne Barr's professional-suicide-by-Twitter stunt left in its schedule.
Speaking of "Kids," I interviewed the show's creator/narrator, Tim Doyle -- whose credits include the "Ellen" coming-out season and "Last Man Standing" -- about this foray into his childhood, and the timing of setting a sitcom during the Nixon administration before Watergate blew up... | |
Big news about Big Bird
Caroll Spinney has portrayed Big Bird on "Sesame Street" for five decades. And this week he is retiring. This is really big news in my household, where we watch several "Sesame" episodes each day... Sunny looks at the TV and starts dancing, which is her way of saying "turn on Elmo..." I bet some of you can relate!
The NYT's Dave Itzkoff conducted an exit interview with Spinney, and Lisa Respers France has CNN's full story here...
JLD speaks
Chloe Melas emails: Julia Louis-Dreyfus gave an in-depth interview to The Washington Post and explained why she never considered departing 'Veep' after her cancer diagnosis last year. Here's our recap...
Trying to help Kanye...
Lisa Respers France emails: Jenifer Lewis knows what it's like to be black, bipolar and navigating fame in Hollywood. The "Black-ish" star broke down in tears talking with me about Kanye West, whom she is desperately worried about. She says members of his camp are trying to arrange a meeting between her and the controversial rapper. Lewis says she really wants to try and help him...
"OITNB" is ending after season seven
Brian Lowry emails: The end of "Orange is the New Black" -- confirmed on Wednesday -- probably comes a couple of seasons too late creatively speaking, after what I thought was a pretty weak sixth season. The idea of building toward some kind of conclusion -- however messy that will likely be -- is one way to stoke some excitement for what was the last season under a three-year renewal deal, and will come on the heels of the finish to the service's other key title in laying the groundwork for Netflix originals, "House of Cards," which returns next month...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
By Lisa Respers France:
-- Syndicated radio host Delilah, out with a new book, is opening up about her teen son's suicide last year...
-- After her split with Pete Davidson, Ariana Grande says it's time to say "bye bye" to the internet for a little bit...
-- Here's a list of all the winners at the BET Hip Hop Awards 2018...
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