Welcome to a newsletter written by a man who has now seen "Dune: Part Two" four times! In this edition: Kate Middleton ignites controversy, Deadspin gets sold and lays off its entire staff, Chris Cuomo chats with Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, TikTok braces for a bill that could result in its ban, the Oscars generate golden ratings, and so much more. But first, the A1. 

CNBC's Trump Call-amity

CNN Photo Illustration/CNBC

Suffice to say, this was no perfect call.

CNBC on Monday made the curious decision to welcome Donald Trump onto its airwaves for an extended live telephone chat, in which the business news network allowed the twice-impeached, four-time indicted, insurrection-inciting former president a safe harbor to make a number of outrageous and false comments without scrutiny.

"I believe on the 'Squawk' news line, we are joined by former President Donald J. Trump, DJT 45. It is good to welcome you. It’s been a while, Mr. President," Joe Kernen, co-host of "Squawk Box," greeted Trump on the air.

Almost immediately after commencing the interview, Trump launched into one of his trademark, fact-free rants. Kernen asked the Republican candidate to outline his "vision for the country" following President Joe Biden's State of the Union address, to which Trump unleashed a stream of deceit-laced drivel. Most notably, he alleged Biden has weaponized the government and that the U.S. legal system under the "very angry and confused man" is now comparable to that of "third world countries."

Kernan let it all fly. Rather than fact-checking Trump, or at least providing context about the serious allegations he leveled to viewers, the CNBC host brushed the insidious comments aside and attempted to move the interview along. Kernen, trying to conduct a serious interview with a very unserious man, proceeded to asked Trump about his view toward entitlements.

But Trump didn't answer. Instead, he said he disagreed with the premise of the question (that "something has to be done" to rein in entitlement programs) and pivoted to other topics, infusing his rambling response with more lies. The former president, for example, claimed that when he was in office, the country was producing oil at a "much higher level oil" than now.

"We were drill baby drill," Trump boasted. 

But, as those paying attention to the issue know well, Trump's claim was false. U.S. gas and crude oil production has soared to a record under Biden, surpassing Trump's term in office. In fact, coincidentally, the U.S. Energy Information Administration put out a press release on Monday noting that in 2023, the U.S. broke all previous records for oil production. Unfortunately, Kernen failed to challenge Trump on the matter.

Instead, throughout the interview, the "Squawk" host effectively surrendered the channel's air to Trump, allowing the dishonest GOP candidate to abuse the platform and mislead its audience of influential viewers — all by phone.

To be fair to the "Squawk" crew, it was not only Kernen who had the opportunity to ask Trump questions during the Trump chat. Co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin attempted at times to press Trump on various issues, such as his reversal on whether the U.S. should ban TikTok. While Kernen showed no interest in holding Trump accountable, Sorkin at least tried to compel Trump to include some substance in his responses, though it was largely to no avail.  

Watching the CNBC interview felt like being transported in time to 2015, back when news outlets allowed Trump to phone in to news shows and deliver a drive-by of lies to their audiences. Even after the interview aired, CNBC waited hours to do the bare minimum and publish digital stories fact-checking some of Trump's claims. Instead, the outlet quickly spliced Trump's comments into a handful of clips and posted them online, amplifying his comments further. 

It is hard to see how any responsible news executive would defend CNBC's actions as beneficial, nevermind smart. Asked why the network allowed Trump to repeatedly lie on its air without scrutiny, a CNBC spokesperson told me: "We asked Former President Trump questions that are important to our audience such as social security and entitlement spending, and challenged him throughout the discussion on business issues like tariffs and their impact on the nation's relationship with China. Additionally, the CNBC digital team has followed up with reporting throughout the day pointing out areas of inaccuracies and including comments from others questioning his statements."

Regardless of how debatable that characterization is, it is remarkable that after nearly a decade of covering Trump as a politician, prominent news outlets, having witnessed the democracy-threatening effects of Trump's lies, have reverted to lowering their guardrails, allowing him to once again poison the public discourse with false claims. It's even more striking given the stakes.

Trump has publicly confessed he would like to rule as a strongman and exact revenge on his political opponents, should he win in November. He has even explicitly threatened NBCU News Group parent Comcast over the media giant's political coverage, calling its chairman Brian Roberts in November a "slime ball" and declaring "our so-called 'government' should come down hard on them." (Trump was notably never asked about these overt threats during his Monday interview on CNBC.)

Instead of recognizing the threat Trump poses and assuming a more cautious stance, NBC News Group appears to be moving in the opposite direction. MSNBC has recently started taking Trump's public remarks live (to the vocal objection of star host Rachel Maddow) and CNBC is now welcoming Trump to its air for friendly chats.

At the end of Monday's "Squawk" interview, Trump claimed his legal problems "aren't legal issues" but "Biden issues;" falsely claimed Biden installed Fani Willis as the Fulton County district attorney; alleged without evidence Biden has "weaponized government" to target him; raged against E. Jean Carroll and again called her accusation of sexual assault "false," prompting her attorney to suggest maybe she will sue him again; and ominously warned about the "fragile" state of the country and how "people are rejecting" the government for supposedly targeting him.

Kernen, a purported newsman, apparently didn't find any of those issues worth confronting Trump on. Instead, he thanked Trump for appearing on the program and immediately moved to invite him on again for more interviews.

"We appreciate all the time you’ve given us this morning, Mr. President," Kernen said. "I look forward to another conversation in the not too distant future."

CNN Photo Illustration/Reuters

A Royal Mess: Will news outlets ever be able to trust Kensington Palace for handout photos again? That is one of the very many questions raised by a doctored photo of Catherine, Princess of Wales, with her three children. The photo was the first image of Kate since she vanished from public life following surgery earlier this year. For that very reason, as CNN's Lauren Said-Moorhouse and Max Foster wrote, the photo "should have put a stop to the explosion of speculation over her health and whereabouts."

But, instead, it has fueled more conspiracy theories and given way to more questions. It has also fueled distrust between news organizations and the royals, with CNN even saying it is reviewing all handout photos previously provided from Kensington Palace. Kate on Monday confessed to having edited the photo in a very brief statement. But Kensington Palace refused to release the original unedited image and it's still not clear what precisely was altered and for what reason. Moorhouse and Foster have more here.

🔎 Zooming in: "For years, researchers and journalists have warned that deepfakes and generative-AI tools may destroy any remaining shreds of shared reality," Charlie Warzel writes. "Experts have reasoned that technology might become so good at conjuring synthetic media that it becomes difficult for anyone to believe anything they didn’t witness themselves. The royal-portrait debacle illustrates that this era isn’t forthcoming. We’re living in it. This post-truth universe doesn’t feel like chaotic science fiction. Instead, it’s mundane: People now feel a pervasive, low-grade disorientation, suspicion, and distrust. And as the royal-photo fiasco shows, the deepfake age doesn’t need to be powered by generative AI — a hasty Photoshop will do."

CNN Photo Illustration/Alamy Stock Photo

Dead-Spin: The one-time Gawker empire died a little more on Monday. G/O Media boss Jim Spanfeller abruptly announced in a note to staff that the company had made the decision to sell Deadspin and lay off all its staffers, leaving 11 people without jobs. Spanfeller explained that Deadspin's new owner, European firm Lineup Publishing, which bought the website for an undisclosed sum, had "made the decision to not carry over any of the site's existing staff and instead build a new team more in line with their editorial vision for the brand." Translation: While the name of the irreverent sports outlet will live on, it is actually dead. The staff writers were its beating heart. Without them, there is no Deadspin. CNN's Liam Reilly has more here.

CNN Photo Illustration/NewsNation

Cuomo and the Conspiracists: Chris Cuomo can't seem to get enough of right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists. On Monday, the NewsNation anchor sat down for a discussion with Tucker Carlson. Over the weekend, he debated Candace Owens on the "PBD Podcast." And a couple weeks ago, he conducted a friendly interview with Jackson Hinkle. The recent string of chats has not gone unnoticed, with many of the former CNN anchor's fans seriously questioning his decisions to appear with figures who operate in bad faith. Cuomo, for his part, has defended himself. "This idea that you can just ignore people and ideas that you don't like just isn't working for us," he said in one social media post, adding that he believes "conversation is the cure."

🔎 Zooming in: A glaring hole in Cuomo's argument is that appearing with these figures has given them added legitimacy and introduced them to new audiences, who might be persuaded to follow them after Cuomo's chats. It is one thing for Owens to rant alone in a room, or with like-minded extremists. It's much different when she is appearing side-by-side with Cuomo, eliciting headlines about how she supposedly "destroyed" the well-known journalist. Moreover, if Cuomo deems figures like Carlson and Owens as worth hearing out, doesn't that signal to his audience that they too should listen to what these dishonest figures have to say? That seems to be how the math works out. And it's hard to see how encouraging people to follow these voices, who flood the discourse with dangerous lies, is the responsible thing to do. 

CNN Photo Illustration/Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Trouble for TikTok: TikTok is in peril. The House is poised to vote this week on a bipartisan bill that could ultimately ban the popular short-form video platform in the U.S. if its China-based parent company Bytedance does not divest the app. As The Hill's Rebecca Klar wrote Monday, "bipartisan momentum [is] propelling the bill forward quickly." Notably, however, this comes as Donald Trump speaks out against a ban and only one month after Joe Biden's campaign opened an account on the platform.

► Meanwhile, TikTok creators are looking "for other places to make money" as the threat grows more serious, NBC News' Zach Vallese reported.

CNN Photo Illustration/Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

Golden Ratings: Powered by blockbusters "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer," ABC saw its ratings claw back with its broadcast of the 96th Academy Awards. The program, which also started an hour earlier, averaged 19.5 million viewers, nearly one million more than last year, according to Nielsen data. Viewership of the awards peaked at 21.9 million viewers during the final half-hour, ABC said. That made the Sunday ceremony, hosted for the fourth time by Jimmy Kimmel, the most-watched Oscars broadcast in four years. CNN's Brian Lowry has more here.

🔎 Zooming in: While that is a solid audience for a traditional broadcaster in 2024, it doesn't change the fact that viewership of Hollywood's "biggest night" has dropped considerably from the audience it once commanded 10 to 20 years ago. Back then, before cord cutting and streaming, the Oscars regularly averaged 30 million-ish viewers, at times even climbing above the 40 million mark. But ABC's decision to move the show's start time an hour earlier, coupled with a record-shattering year at the box office, appears to have helped bring audience interest back to the star-studded ceremony.