President Biden schedules Oval Office address, Donald Trump's campaign cancels on Candace Owens, Comcast touts its NBA deal, YouTube misses on advertising revenue, a top Sinclair host calls it quits, Gateway Pundit spends $700,000 on 2020-related litigation, VDARE editor says site will be imminently "suspended," Meta employees debate Threads' anti-politics policy, Mark Zuckerberg touts open source A.I., "Deadpool & Wolverine" set for record-breaking debut, and more. But first, the A1.

The Campaign Against Kamala

CNN Photo Illustration/Fox News

The right-wing media machine is throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Kamala Harris.

As she held a rally Tuesday for the first time as the likely Democratic presidential nominee, Fox News, talk radio, and the constellation of digital news websites and online personalities were busy blitzing her with a wide array of attacks, aiming to quickly villainize her with only 100-some days to go before Election Day.

Over the last 48 hours, Harris has been derided as a radical California liberal; she has been smeared as a "DEI" candidate; she has been denigrated as a "mistress" for her previous relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, even though it occurred after Brown was separated from his wife and was not a secret; she has been ridiculed for her laugh and described as unlikeable; she has been characterized as having been too tough on crime as a prosecutor, but also pro-illegal immigration; she has had her candidacy labeled a "coup"; and she has been subjected to commentators mocking even the pronunciation of her name, among other things.

Suffice to say, it has been a lot.

If elected, Harris would not only be the first woman president, but she is the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants. Her heritage and status as a powerful woman on the cusp of winning the Oval Office has, quite plainly, spurred the attacks drenched in racist and sexist vitriol. 

"Suddenly she's the next messiah?" Fox News host Jesse Watters said Tuesday night as he railed against Harris. "The only reason she is in the White House is because of the DEI deal Biden cut with Bernie [Sanders] to seal the nomination."

The salvo is a page out of the right's playbook targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, a bogeyman it has used to blame for everything from airline safety issues to the Baltimore bridge collapse.

In most of corporate America, even calling someone a "DEI" candidate would be grounds for stiff disciplinary action, if not outright dismissal. But attributing the success of Harris to her race and sex has become standard fare among Donald Trump's media allies who conveniently ignore her wealth of experience in both law and government. (It is somewhat ironic, given that J.D. Vance, Trump's running mate, actually has a rather thin resume.)

To a degree, the onslaught of attacks Harris has been subjected to recalls the ugly treatment that Barack Obama received from right-wing media more than a decade ago as he campaigned for president and served in office. Most prominently, Obama was targeted with the false and reprehensible conspiracy theory suggesting he was an illegitimate president because he supposedly wasn't born in America, a movement that Trump himself endlessly fanned the flames of. The attacks on Harris are, without question, in the same vein.

While right-wing media figures have for years attacked and mocked Harris as the administration's "border czar" and a "socialist," the blitzkrieg of attacks now being directed toward the vice president signal how flummoxed MAGA Media is over how to tackle her candidacy. Until Sunday, the focus of right-wing media had been on Joe Biden, which waged an unrelenting campaign on the president, portraying him as a senile, mentally incapacitated man under the control of nefarious "globalist" forces. 

Now, with the sudden and last-minute switcheroo by the Democratic Party, Trump and his media allies are left searching for the most effective narrative to present to the public to damage Harris' chances at denying them the White House. Those efforts will, surely, increase as new polling emerges showing Harris could seriously threaten Trump's odds of winning in November.

Which narrative Trump's media allies settle on remains to be seen. It may ultimately prove too difficult to identify a singular line of attack on Harris, in which case several charges could be tossed into a stew that blends together. That's how right-wing media confronted Obama in 2008. But, notably, it did not prove to be a successful strategy.

And for some Republicans, the race-based attacks on Harris have already crossed the line.

“Of course it’s not appropriate, for heaven's sakes. What, are they just going to say if you're not a white male, it's a DEI candidate?" moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said. “I’m sorry. No."

CNN Photo Illustration/Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images

Canceling Candace: Cancel culture has struck again! Right-wing extremist Candace Owens will no longer take part in a Donald Trump campaign event this week, Jewish Insider's Matthew Kassel reported Tuesday night. The reversal came after Owens' scheduled appearance with Donald Trump Jr. in Tennessee generated a storm of backlash. Owens, of course, has a history of trafficking in antisemitic tropes, to such an extent that The Daily Wire earlier this year chose to end its relationship with her. Kassel has more.

🔎 Zooming in: Despite her long history of false, conspiratorial, and hateful rhetoric, Owens has still managed to stay in good graces with a number of power players in conservative politics, as evidenced by the fact that the Trump campaign had planned to hold an event with her. And that speaks volumes about the state of affairs on the right these days. 

Chris Marion/NBAE/Getty Images

David vs Goliath Amazon: The fight that Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav is bringing to the NBA is raising larger questions about the future of sports rights and Big Tech. All signs suggest that the NBA is likely to stick with a deal it struck with Amazon and force WBD to bring litigation against the league in its attempt to match the e-commerce giant's bid. That led to a worthwhile discussion Tuesday morning on "Squawk on the Street," with David Faber asking, "Is every sports rights deal going to ultimately end up with Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, or even Netflix at some point?" Jim Cramer then wondered, "Do these companies own the world?" While Big Tech might not own everything in the world quite yet, if Amazon can pocket the NBA games, it certainly suggests that plenty more sports rights will likely find their way into Silicon Valley's camp. And that will have ramifications for the industry at large. 

► Comcast boss Mike Cavanagh said on the company's earnings call Tuesday that they have a tentative 11-year deal with the NBA: "Much like our long standing relationships with the NFL and the Olympics, we look forward to putting the weight of our entire company behind our partnership with the NBA for decades to come."

CNN Photo Illustration/Sinclair

Signing Off from Sinclair: One of Sinclair's top anchors has called it quits "over concerns about the accuracy and right-wing bias of the content he was required to present on air," Popular Info's Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. According to the duo, anchor Eugene Ramirez, who hosted Sinclair's national evening newscast, believed political bias was present in some of the stories the outlet compelled him to cover. Ramirez effectively confirmed the Popular Info story, writing on social media that he does not "contest any of the claims made" and that his "integrity is not for sale." Read the full story here.

The Cost of Election Lies: The far-right conspiracy site Gateway Pundit has spent roughly $700,000 so far defending itself from 2020 election-related defamation lawsuits, according to a new filing in its bankruptcy case  uncovered by my colleague Marshall Cohen. The company sought bankruptcy protections after being sued by two Georgia election workers and a former Dominion Voting Systems executive, who were falsely accused by Gateway Pundit and others of rigging the 2020 election.

CNN Photo Illustration/Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

Losing the Thread: It seems not everyone at Meta is happy with the company's decision to curtain "political" news on Threads. After Joe Biden exited the 2024 race, staffers complained in an internal forum that the news was nowhere to be found on the text-based platform's "For You" feed, The Info's Kalley Huang and Sylvia Varnham O'Regan reported. "It feels broken that a topic overwhelming my following feed doesn’t show up at all in [For You]," Dalton Smith, the head of product at Threads, candidly wrote in a post. Read the full report here.

🔎 Zooming in: A spokesperson for Meta responded to The Info by reiterating the company's anti-politics position. Of course, it is worth noting that many months after adopting this significant policy, Meta has repeatedly declined to offer answers to basic questions about how they are implementing it. 

CNN Photo Illustration/Marvel Studios

'Deadpool' Set to Deliver: The summer box office is poised to remain red hot this weekend. Marvel's "Deadpool & Wolverine" is on track to net $160-$170 million at the domestic box office, meaning it could very well surpass the opening weekend performance of last year's smash hit, "Barbie." Even if it falls short of the $162 million "Barbie" commanded on opening weekend, the blockbuster is certain to become the biggest R-rated movie debut of all time. And it looks to get a good start at the overseas box office, with estimates it could earn as much as $190 million. Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandro and Nancy Tartaglione have more here.

► The review embargo has lifted – and they're not as great as I expected? The film is currently boasting an 81% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with 103 reviews in. It's a solid score, but given the hype, lower than I had anticipated.

► Ryan Reynolds joked to Jimmy Fallon on "The Tonight Show" that there will be no "Deadpool 4," joking his "wife and children will divorce me."