Mark Thompson announces overhaul of CNN, Ingrid Ciprián-Matthews says she will step down as CBS News president, Joe Kahn talks to Clare Malone about how The NYT would cover a second Donald Trump presidency, the NBA reportedly finalizes its new media partners, Candace Owens is blasted for casting doubt on Holocaust atrocities, Elon Musk emerges victorious in a Twitter-related lawsuit, opening arguments take place at Alec Baldwin's "Rust" trial, and more. But first, the A1.

Tinseltown Turns on Biden

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Joe Biden is losing a particularly influential corner of support: Hollywood.

On Wednesday, George Clooney became the latest — and perhaps most notable — member of the Tinseltown elite to express misgivings about Biden's candidacy, calling on the embattled president to drop out of the 2024 race. 

"I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him," Clooney wrote in a blunt piece for The New York Times. "Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced."

"But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can," Clooney added. "It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate."

Clooney, a major Democratic donor and one of Biden's most high-profile supporters, concluded his piece by writing, "Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024."

The unreserved take from Clooney added even more pressure on Biden to exit the race. More importantly, Clooney's candid assessment is representative of the mounting pressure Biden is facing out west, where his all-important and deep-pocketed support in Hollywood is quickly eroding. 

The potential loss of Hollywood spells major problems for the president, who has not only counted on the City of Angels for the strong surrogates it has offered him, but also for the film industry's ability to raise millions of dollars to power his campaign. In fact, the Hollywood fundraiser that Clooney headlined last month and referenced in his piece, raised a staggering $30 million — more than any other Democratic fundraiser in history. 

Now that crucial support is in flux. Since Biden's hard-to-watch performance at the CNN debate, a number of influential Hollywood voices have gone public with their concerns about his candidacy, with many calling on the president to exit the race. 

Director Rob Reiner shared Clooney's op-ed Wednesday on X, writing that "democracy is facing an existential threat" and that Biden "must step aside" to make way for "someone younger to fight back" against Donald Trump. Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings told The Times last week that Biden needs to "step aside." The "LOST" creator Damon Lindelof wrote a piece for Deadline, saying Biden "has to go" and urging fellow Hollywood denizens to stop writing checks until a new candidate is named. Disney heiress Abigail Disney also said she would withhold donations until Biden is replaced. And Endeavor boss Ari Emanuel said at a conference that he was "pissed off at the founding fathers" for having never put an age limit on the presidency. 

"Donald Trump said, 'I'm the only one.' Right? 'I alone can make all these problems go away.' And now Biden is saying, 'I’m the only one that can beat Trump.' Seems like it’s pretty similar here, [but] we have a great bench in the Democratic Party," Emanuel said last week. "We’re looking at a man who’s saying the other guy’s a liar, and he’s telling us malarkey!"

Turing the tide in Hollywood will be a difficult challenge for Biden, who is simultaneously struggling to keep Democratic members of Congress and governors from expressing concerns about his ability to defeat Trump and serve another term in office. I'm told that the Biden campaign has actively been making phone calls to Hollywood supporters, working to maintain their support in this turbulent moment. 

As for Clooney, a senior Biden campaign adviser told me, "POTUS won't be sitting front row at 'Oceans 14.'" But, the person added, Biden is "encouraged by the strong grassroots support we're seeing and he's determined to earn every vote and win this election." 

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The Thompson Transformation: The fog is starting to lift on Mark Thompson's strategy to revamp CNN for the future. The network boss on Wednesday, nine months into his tenure, announced a set of sweeping changes to the iconic outlet. They include plans to build a billion-dollar digital business, experiment with artificial intelligence, and overhaul key newsroom structures. The measures, which Thompson described to staffers in a memo as a "key milestone in the transformation of CNN," will result in about 100 employees, or about three percent of the workforce, being laid off. Impacted staffers, who were notified if they had been part of the cuts on Wednesday, will receive severance, Thompson said. Details in my full story here.

🔎 Zooming In: While Thompson outlined the broad contours of his plan, the nitty-gritty details still remain quite fuzzy. What precisely is the plan to build a billion-dollar digital business? Thompson indicated that a subscription component will be part of the roadmap to get there, and he said that CNN will send its first digital subscription product to the market by year's end. But he did not offer any further information on what it will entail. A newsletter? A vertical like the Cooking section he helped build at The NYT? All of that remains unclear. In his memo to staffers, Thompson himself acknowledged that some key components of what he was announcing remain nebulous. "Turning a great news organization towards the future is not a one-day affair. It happens in stages and over time," Thompson said. "Today’s announcements do not answer every question or seek to solve every challenge we face. However, they do represent a significant step forward and I hope you will read about them in that spirit." That's, of course, fair. But staffers are certainly hoping for more concrete answers soon.

📺 On the TV front: Somewhat buried in the lengthy memo Thompson sent out was yet another acknowledgement that CNN's television programming is in need of some assistance, to put it kindly. Thompson said that Charlie Moore, the longtime "Anderson Cooper 360" executive producer who was recently promoted to vice president of prime time programming, will "find ways to further develop and strengthen" the network’s linear offerings. Suffice to say that Moore has work to do, given that CNN's prime time ratings have been hovering at lows for some time. How he will breathe new life into the lineup remains to be seen. 

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Change at CBS: Executive turnover has once again struck CBS News. Ingrid Ciprián-Matthews, the three-decade CBS News veteran who ascended to the role of president in 2023, announced to staffers Wednesday that she will exit her position in the next few weeks. Ciprián-Matthews, who replaced Neeraj Khemlani after his own short two-year stint in the job, will transition to the newly created role of senior editorial adviser, where she will help guide the outlet's politics coverage during the election. The announcement, of course, comes days after CBS parent Paramount Global accepted an offer from Skydance Media that will see the two companies merge. Following the merger, Skydance Media plans to install its own leadership team. Ciprián-Matthews alluded to the corporate uncertainty in her memo to staff. Here's my full story.

🔎 Zooming In: The decision by Ciprián-Matthews to vacate her role means two of the nation’s biggest broadcast news organizations will be without a chief heading into the high stakes November elections and amid a particularly turbulent period in the media industry. Earlier this year, Disney ousted Kim Godwin as ABC News chief and has yet to announce a replacement.

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Owens' Holocaust Outburst: Right-wing extremist Candace Owens, who was ousted from The Daily Wire earlier this year after her embrace of antisemitic rhetoric, has earned fresh scorn this week over new commentary casting doubt on Holocaust atrocities. The reprehensible remarks — which were made in an episode of her show titled, "Literally Hitler. Why Can’t We Talk About Him?" — drew pushback from the Combat Antisemitism Movement, which noted Wednesday that SS officers, such as Josef Mengele, did indeed perform "deadly experiments" on the Jewish people during the Holocaust. The group condemned Owens' comments as "utterly repugnant," noting she is trying to "rewrite history by denying these depraved acts ever happened." Mediaite's Alex Griffing has more here.

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Elon vs the Employees: The world's richest man has succeeded in avoiding paying $500 million in severance payments to the thousands of Twitter employees he gleefully laid off after purchasing the social media platform. A judge ruled Tuesday that the employees were not covered under a federal law key to their suit, paving the way for Elon Musk's victory in the case. TechCrunch's Maxwell Zeff has more here.

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Baldwin on Trial: Alec Baldwin on Wednesday was in court as opening arguments got underway in the "Rust" involuntary manslaughter case. During the opening arguments, the prosecution accused Baldwin of having violated the "cardinal rules of firearm safety" by pointing the gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Baldwin's lawyers acknowledged the shooting death of Hutchins was an "unspeakable tragedy," but insisted the actor "committed no crime." The trial is expected to last about two weeks. CNN's Josh Campbell, Eric Levinson, and Ray Sanchez have more here.