EXEC SUMMARY: Scroll down for four big Wednesday events, three August covers, two memers in the Oval Office, a toast to Gayle King and Norah O'Donnell, and much more. Plus, Chuck Schumer slamming Trump for slamming Fox...
Mueller day is one week away
I'm starting to see TV promos for live coverage of Robert Mueller's long-awaited testimony on Capitol Hill. July 17 is the day -- much to the chagrin of Attorney General William Barr and his boss President Trump. Remember, Trump has already scheduled a rally for that very same day...
The hearing's potential power
Mediaite's Josh Feldman flagged this comment from Heidi Przybyla, who said on MSNBC Tuesday afternoon that one big purpose of the hearing "is to rebut the misrepresentation that was made" by Barr:
"You need to almost have a choreography here -- of Trump saying 'No collusion, no collusion, no obstruction' -- 'Mr. Mueller, is that accurate?' And just by having those sound bites, you're going to correct a lot of misconceptions that are out there -- when you have news reports coming out that even many members of Congress admit to not having read the whole report. You have a whole vast universe out there of -- and I'll say it -- Fox News viewers, for instance, who may not even be aware of the worst things that are in the Mueller report. May not even be aware of it."
Przybyla was citing this new story by Politico's Darren Samuelsohn, who said it's "time for a Mueller report reality check: Only a small segment of America's most powerful have read it."
His point: There's "a giant literacy gap in the country when it comes to the most authoritative examination into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump obstructed that investigation. And closing that gap could determine whether Democrats feel they have public backing to launch impeachment proceedings against the president." Read on, this is an excellent story, pointing out that even the report's "best seller" status doesn't mean much...
FIRST LOOK
Mark Bowden rewrites the Mueller Report for INSIDER
INSIDER Inc. EIC Nicholas Carlson had a clever idea recently: He commissioned a movie-like treatment of Mueller's report. He hired journalist and author Mark Bowden of "Black Hawk Down" and "Killing Pablo" fame to do it -- to condense the report in a still accurate but more compelling way. And he hired Chad Hurd, an illustrator from the art department of "Archer," to illustrate some crucial scenes. | | The feature is officially coming out on Wednesday morning, but the link is already live so you can check it out now.
"Buried within the Mueller report," Carlson writes in his editors note, "there is a narrative that reads in parts like a thriller, like a comedy, like a tragedy — and, most important — like an indictment. The facts are compelling, all the more so because they come not from President Donald Trump's critics or 'fake news' reports, but from Trump's own handpicked colleagues and associates."
Pecker and Howard about to be subpoenaed?
The House Judiciary Committee is "planning a Thursday vote" to authorize subpoenas "as part of its probe into potential obstruction of justice," CNN's Priscilla Alvarez and Jeremy Herb report.
This is an escalation of the panel's "requests" for info back in March. Two of the dozen names on the could-be-subpoenaed list: American Media's David Pecker and Dylan Howard, "suggesting the committee is also ramping up its probe of hush-money payments made to women during the campaign alleging affairs with Trump..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Ross Perot died Tuesday. He was 89. In his final interview with the Dallas Morning News, his parting words to the reporter were: "Texas born. Texas bred. When I die, I'll be Texas dead. Ha!" (DMN)
-- A "what century is this?!" headline out of Mississippi: "Robert Foster, GOP governor candidate, denies woman reporter access because of her gender" (Mississippi Today)
-- CNN's Jennifer Agiesta is out with "new standards for reporting on polling" that the network will use... (CNN)
Carlson v. Omar | | On Tuesday evening Fox's Tucker Carlson tore into Rep. Ilhan Omar for her critiques of the United States, calling Omar "living proof that the way we practice immigration has become dangerous to this country." Carlson claimed "a system designed to strengthen America is instead undermining it. Some of the very people we try hardest to help have come to hate us passionately."
Omar quickly responded via Twitter: "Not gonna lie, it's kinda fun watching a racist fool like this weeping about my presence in Congress." She added two 🤣emojis and said "no lies will stamp out my love for this country or my resolve to make our union more perfect. They will just have to get used to calling me Congresswoman!"
Rapinoe's message to Trump
Anderson Cooper said to US women's soccer captain Megan Rapinoe on Tuesday night: "There's a good chance the president is watching this interview or will watch this interview. What is your message to the president?"
Rapinoe paused, thought about it, and then looked straight into the camera and said this: "I think that I would say that YOUR message is excluding people. You are excluding me, you're excluding people that look like me. You are excluding people of color. You're excluding, you know, Americans that maybe support you. I think that we need to have a reckoning with the message that you have and what you are saying about 'make America great again.' I think that you're harking back to an era that was not great for everyone. It might have been great for a few people and maybe America's great for a few people right now, but it's not great for enough Americans in this world."
She continued -- still looking straight to the camera most of the time -- "I think that we have a responsibility, each and every one of us and, you have our incredible responsibility as the chief of this country, to take care of every single person, and you need to do better for everyone." Watch...
WEDNESDAY PLANNER
NYC's ticker tape parade for the US women's national team starts at 9:30am ET...
Then the team flies to L.A. for The Espys, live on ABC in prime time...
The Chicago Defender releases its last print issue before going digital-only...
Vidcon gets underway in Anaheim...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- In advance of VidCon, "Facebook is stepping up its efforts to offer creators tools to monetize their content..." (Axios)
-- "Podcast events are making a killing," Sara Fischer writes, citing data from Vivid Seats... (Axios)
-- Don't miss Nicholas Quah's mid-year look at the state of podcasting... (NiemanLab)
-- Hadas Gold emails: This big case in Europe's highest court could potentially lead to huge changes in personal data flows across the Atlantic... (CNN)
"From Penthouse to Jailhouse"
...That was the banner headline on the front page of Tuesday's Miami Herald, perfectly packaging the Jeffrey Epstein arrest news.
President Trump said Tuesday that he "feels badly" for his Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, who is rejecting calls for his resignation as the Epstein scandal deepens. While Trump is sympathizing with Acosta, others are expressing sympathy for Epstein's victims and expressing thanks for the newfound interest in the case.
The NYT's Tiffany Hsu is out with a new profile of Julie K. Brown, the Herald reporter who forced the Epstein case into the national spotlight.
And Brown's colleague Leonard Pitts Jr. has a new column that sums up the situation quite well: "If anyone knows the power of a free and vibrant press, it's Jeffrey Epstein."
What's Trump hearing?
"If the past is a guide, Acosta's fate will not be sealed by the President's defense of him Tuesday but by how media coverage plays out in the coming days and how Trump's army of informal on-the-phone advisers think the furor is reflecting on him," CNN's Stephen Collinson wrote Wednesday.
>> Trump's friend Christopher Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax, told Don Lemon on "CNN Tonight" that "I think that [Acosta] is not going to stay for long..."
| | Trump met right-wing meme creators in Oval Office
Oliver Darcy emails: Two pro-Trump meme creators had an Oval Office meeting with the President on July 3, according to a Tuesday report by WaPo's Tony Romm, Michael Scherer and Amy B Wang. They reported that Trump greeted the individuals behind @mad_liberals and @CarpeDonktum by saying, "Where is the genius? I want to meet the genius." During the meeting, per WaPo, the two creators complained about perceived social media bias. Trump has been promoting memes more and more often via his Twitter megaphone...
...Meeting comes ahead of White House social media summit
Darcy adds: The meeting with the memers comes ahead of Trump's planned social media summit on Thursday. The summit appears slated to feature a number of far-right media personalities and conspiracy theorists. The progressive watchdog Media Matters has a breakdown that says numerous "extremists" have been invited…
>> Romm's recap of the story says it really well: The summit "has a lot of digital experts fearful that Trump is giving a stage to online provocateurs, essentially legitimizing the very kind of content that FB, Twitter are trying to stop in 2020..."
"Court says Trump can't block the haters"
That's Lauren Dezenski's headline in The Point newsletter about Tuesday's US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling "that said Donald Trump limiting users' access to his Twitter account (by blocking them) is unconstitutional. Because he's cutting off access for those with whom he disagrees, Trump 'engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination,' according to the ruling." Dezenski quips that Trump can try the "mute" button instead...
Twitter locks Louis Farrakhan's account over anti-Semitic tweet from 2018
Oliver Darcy emails: Twitter locked Louis Farrakhan's account on Tuesday, freezing his ability to post new tweets until he removes a 2018 anti-Semitic tweet that violates a brand new set of rules it introduced. Farrakhan's tweet, which compared the Jewish people to termites, had long prompted outrage to be directed at Twitter, which had said the tweet did not violate its previous set of rules.
But on Tuesday, Twitter introduced new rules against hateful conduct prohibiting "language that dehumanizes others on the basis of religion." That new rule applied to Farrakhan's 2018 tweet, and a Twitter spokesperson confirmed to me that it had actioned the Nation of Islam leader's account until he deletes it. The NYT's Kate Conger has a behind-the-scenes story about the new rules...
Isikoff: Russian intel planted Seth Rich conspiracy theory
Oliver Darcy emails: Michael Isikoff published a big investigation on Tuesday which dug into the origins of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory. Isikoff said he found that Russian intelligence had first planted "a fake report claiming … Rich was gunned down by a squad of assassins working for Hillary Clinton" – a story which ultimately gave rise to the baseless theories surrounding Rich's death. His findings are posted in an online story, and told in greater detail on a new Yahoo News podcast called "Conspiracyland." The first two episodes of the pod came out on Tuesday, and the remaining four episodes will roll out weekly...
Fox News editors doubted existence of network's source?
Darcy adds: One of the explosive claims contained in Isikoff's investigation was the fact that Fox News editors investigating the network's Seth Rich debacle lacked confidence the "federal investigator" source that was cited actually existed. Citing a source familiar with Fox's investigation, Isikoff reported that Fox executives "grew frustrated they were unable to determine the identity" of the source, and ultimately "came to have doubts that the person was in fact who he claimed to be or whether the person actually existed." Yikes...
Cuomo's reaction
Chris Cuomo's closing argument on his Tuesday night program: "It was one of the wildest conspiracies of the 2016 election and was peddled by Trump's favorite TV network & inside his own White House. The true origins of the Seth Rich lie are being exposed and we hear crickets from those who pushed it. They must own it, they must apologize." Video here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Fox's Ed Henry underwent surgery to donate part of his liver to his sister Colleen on Tuesday. "It was a success," Tucker Carlson said Tuesday night. "They are both now recovering. Godspeed to both of them."
-- Execs from Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google will testify July 16 in front of the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee... A continuation of the Big Tech hearings that began last month... (WaPo)
-- BuzzFeed's star L.A. correspondent Kate Aurthur is joining Variety as editor-at-large, "writing high-impact cover and feature stories about the industry" and reporting to EIC Claudia Eller... (Variety)
Schumer slams Trump for slamming Fox
A notable comment from Chuck Schumer on the Senate floor on Tuesday: "President Trump amazingly attacked Fox News in the last few days, in a series of tweets for coverage he viewed as unfavorable to his administration. This is Fox News, a news outlet that frankly is 90% or more on the president's side. Their most popular shows seem to just be cheerleaders for President Trump. To me it's the most biased newscast there is of the major news stations, not that any of them are free of any bias. And yet, when President Trump hears a small dissonant tweet, dissonant note from Fox News, now he attacks it? What kind of thin skin does this man have? What kind of thin skin? But it's worse than his thin skin. When a president can attack a news organization overwhelmingly friendly to him, with some of his leading advocates getting prime time space, some of them go to his rallies, it shows he really doesn't believe in freedom of the press..."
-- Related: Jeremy Barr wrote about the fact that when Trump attacks Fox, almost once a month on average, "the network tends to stay silent..." (THR)
CNN's Dem debate format
On Monday CNN said Jake Tapper, Dana Bash and Don Lemon will moderate the July 30 and 31 debates in Detroit... And that the network will televise a live drawing on July 18 to divvy up the candidates. On Tuesday, the campaigns received important info about the format... The debates will feature "opening and closing statements and two hours of debate time each night," per Mark Preston's recap here... A few other key details:
"There will be no show of hands or one-word, down-the-line questions... A candidate who consistently interrupts will have his or her time reduced..." And, a personal favorite of mine, "questions posed by the moderators will appear on the bottom of the screen," so viewers can tell when the candidates are dodging...
JUST ANNOUNCED:
ABC's debate will be held in Houston
ABC confirmed Michael Grynbaum's NYT scoop on Tuesday evening: ABC and Univision's two-part debate in September will be held in Houston... No word on the venue yet...
Reminder: There's also a debate slated for October... The hosts have not yet been announced...
A toast to Gayle and Norah
Tina Brown hosted a cocktail party for Norah O'Donnell and Gayle King in NYC Tuesday evening. Brown commented that the first female president of CBS News, Susan Zirinsky, has named women to helm the morning and evening newscasts -- "there is a God, and she is smiling."
O'Donnell takes over the "CBS Evening News" on Monday. "Onward!" she said in brief remarks. "And upward!" King said. Spotted: Peggy Noonan, Sally Quinn, Ken Auletta, Chris Licht, Tony Dokoupil, Katy Tur, Anthony Mason, Preet Bharara, Christa Robinson, Arianna Huffington, Cynthia McFadden, Steve Adler, Cecile Richards, Reena Ninan, more...
| | The name is HBO Max
HBO Max is the name of WarnerMedia's forthcoming streaming service, which is being built to compete with Netflix, Disney, etc. WarnerMedia announced the name and several tentpole programs on Tuesday. Chief among them: "Friends," one of the most popular titles on Netflix, will be available exclusively on HBO Max starting next year. The streaming service (now set to launch next spring) will also include brand-new shows, called "Max Originals," some of which have already been announced, and movies, including several to be produced by Greg Berlanti and Reese Witherspoon.
WarnerMedia (CNN's parent) declined to comment on pricing plans. But HBO Max is expected to cost slightly more than the existing HBO Now streaming service, which is priced at $14.99 a month, which is higher than Netflix, Hulu and the forthcoming Disney+ service. Here's my full story...
How much "Friends" is costing
Quoting from Joe Flint's WSJ scoop: Netflix most recently paid $80 million for a year of "Friends," and "HBO Max is paying $425 million to carry 'Friends' for five years starting in 2020, a person familiar with the terms said, in what was essentially a transaction inside WarnerMedia... Robert Greenblatt declined to comment on the terms of the 'Friends' deal but said the price was fair to the show's financial stakeholders, known as 'profit participants.' The profit participants could seek legal recourse, and WarnerMedia could risk alienating talent if were seen as cutting itself favorable deals. 'You absolutely need to make these deals at market value, and we are doing that,' Mr. Greenblatt said in an interview..."
"We're sorry to see Friends go..." | | Brian Lowry emails: Netflix went the gracious and adorable route in bidding farewell to "Friends" via Twitter, but as the studios hoard more and more of their content to stock their new ventures -- i.e. Disney+ and HBO Max -- the streaming service might become more reluctant to call attention to the material that's taking up residence elsewhere...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
By Lisa Respers France:
-- Cameron Boyce's dad is thankful, even in the midst of a "nightmare" he can't wake up from...
-- Jodi Benson, the original voice of "The Little Mermaid," supports Halle Bailey being cast in the remake. #NotMyAriel has focused on the fact that Bailey is black, while the animated character is not...
-- Aziz Ansari thinks white people are trying too hard with "Crazy Rich Asians." Their support of the film is a very funny part of his new Netflix stand-up special...
-- "Sex and The City" star Kristin Davis teared up recalling racism directed at her adopted black daughter when she was a baby...
Lowry says 'Love Island' is the 'TV equivalent of Brexit'
Brian Lowry emails: CBS is giving five nights a week to "Love Island," which looks like the love child of "Bachelor in Paradise" and "Big Brother." The show comes with the pedigree of having been a big hit in the U.K., but based strictly on the Tuesday premiere, it's basically the TV equivalent of Brexit.
>> Read Lowry's full review here...
Film about Paradise, CA's fire is in the works
"The tragedy and the heroism of the 2018 Camp Fire is getting the big-screen treatment, with Matthew Heineman, the filmmaker behind biopic 'Private War,' set to write and direct a drama for Focus Features," THR's Borys Kit reports. "Temple Hill — the banner run by Marty Bowen and behind the films 'First Man' and 'Love, Simon' — will produce what is being titled 'Paradise,' along with Heineman. Josh McLaughlin will executive produce." Details here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
By Megan Thomas:
-- Move over Casamigos, "Breaking Bad" co-stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul are putting out a line of mezcal... (VF)
-- An interesting read from THR's Stephen Galloway: "Disney's Dominance Is Changing How Movies Are Released..." (THR)
-- "The Human Rights Foundation is applauding Nicki Minaj's decision to back out of a concert in Saudi Arabia," Kendall Trammell reports... (CNN)
Essential movies of the '80s
Brian Lowry emails: In one of those thankless tasks, I undertook the challenge of picking "essential" movies from the 1980s in concert with CNN's "The Movies" series. There are a lot of caveats and disclaimers about what made the cut and what didn't -- including those that define the times, and ones that can be watched over and over -- but think of it as a stab at what an alien visitor might want to view to understand this strange planet. (I copped out a bit by putting them in chronological order.)
Three covers | | -- Ariana Grande and her dog Toulouse are on the August cover of Vogue... Grande spoke candidly about Mac Miller and Pete Davidson... (CNN)
-- And Serena Williams is "on the cover of Harpers Bazaar and none of the images, including the cover, have been airbrushed," Yashar Ali noted... (Twitter)
-- And Mariah Carey is on the August cover of Cosmopolitan, wearing a T-shirt with her face on it... (Cosmo)
| | | Thank you for reading! Email me feedback anytime. See you tomorrow... | | | |
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