Welcome to Tuesday. Here's the latest on the FCC, Carlos Watson, The Washington Post, Ted Sarandos, "The White Lotus," Disney, and much more... |
'I feel I have to do this' |
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images |
When President-elect Donald Trump was asked about lodging additional defamation lawsuits against the media on Monday, he didn't answer with one of his noncommittal "we're looking at that" wave-offs. He didn't revert to his "retribution will be through success" line, either. No, he welcomed the question and talked for four whole minutes about all the suits he has filed and others he has planned.
Trump's most telling comment came at the end, when he said "I feel I have to do this. I shouldn't really be the one to do it. It should have been the Justice Department or somebody else. But I have to do it. It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press."
In a matter of weeks, he'll be back in control of the Justice Department. And if he gets his way, Kash Patel will be running the FBI, where Patel will be able to act on his 2023 pledge to "find the conspirators not just in government but in the media" and "come after you." What then?
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New: Trump sues J. Ann Selzer |
Trump escalated his legal campaign against media outlets last night by filing suit against pollster J. Ann Selzer, her polling firm, and the Des Moines Register. The suit, obtained by CNN's Paula Reid, calls Selzer's Iowa Poll "election-interfering fiction." The pre-election poll was wildly wrong, but there is no evidence that Selzer made it up. Katelyn Polantz, Reid and I have details here.
The suit "leans on an extremely aggressive reading of a statute in Iowa's consumer fraud law intended to prevent businesses from making misrepresentations to deceive purchasers," Puck's Tara Palmeri wrote last night. She concluded: "The threat of litigation might well deter the pulse-taking of America's electorate, particularly during Trump’s second term—and, perhaps, that’s precisely his aim."
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Bannon wants 'incarceration' |
The ABC settlement and the Selzer suit aren't happening in a vacuum. "We want retribution and we're going to get retribution,"
Steve Bannon said at the New York Young Republican Club gala Sunday night, according to The Guardian's
Hugo Lowell. The Trump ally warned "they need to learn what populist, nationalist power is on the receiving end," and by "they," he said he meant the media.
"I need investigations, trials and then incarceration. And I'm just talking about the media," Bannon said, matching his audience's energy. "Should the media be included in the vast criminal conspiracy against President Trump? Should Andrew Weissmann on MSNBC and Rachel Maddow and all of them?"
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The process is the punishment |
Hadas Gold nailed it in this CNN story: "Even if a lawsuit is tossed by a judge or a media outlet ultimately prevails, the punishment is in the process. Lawsuits can drag on for months or years and can cost companies millions in legal fees." |
CBS (another one of Trump's legal targets) interviewed Ohio professor Aimee Edmondson, who specializes in media law, and who worries Trump's tactics might inspire others to sue "mom and pop" local outlets to retaliate for critical news coverage. "Think of the state and county local officials, who might say, "Oh, this will be a great way to punish local journalists," Edmondson said...
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>> Fox's Jesse Watters last night: "The legacy media is facing justice."
>> Erik Wemple wrote: "ABC News will never live down this capitulation. Never."
>> Sen. Chris Murphy on Jen Psaki's MSNBC program: "You're already seeing people with power... starting to cower."
>> Samantha Barbas, a University of Iowa law professor, told the FT: "We may be entering an era of libel warfare."
>> Sara Fischer on NewsNight: "It doesn't really matter if Trump wins or loses" suits against media outlets because he wins just by "making their life a living hell."
>> Joe Scarborough laughed off the lawsuits: "They're all going to get thrown out."
>> David Axelrod tweeted: "Welcome to Hungary, folks!"
>> George Stephanopoulos has wisely deactivated his X account for now.
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Media chiefs head to Mar-a-Lago |
Yesterday, Trump sat down with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Mar-a-Lago, CNN's Kaitlan Collins reported. Coincidentally, news of the meeting broke a few minutes after TikTok said it filed an emergency appeal at the Supreme Court to temporarily block the looming TikTok ban.
Next up: Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos. CNN's Alayna Treene scooped that Sarandos is expected at Mar-a-Lago today. (Politico Playbook noted his history of donations to Democrats.) Trump is also slated to meet with Jeff Bezos tomorrow...
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Political media notes and quotes |
>> Outgoing FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel on the Politico Tech podcast: "The FCC has no business threatening to take away broadcast licenses because the president does not like the content or coverage on a network." (Politico)
>> Incoming chair Brendan Carr "wants to test the limits of the FCC's authority," but those limits are powerful, for good reasons, Kyle Paoletta writes. (CJR)
>> New from KFILE this morning: "Pete Hegseth spread baseless conspiracy theories that January 6 attack was carried out by leftist groups." (CNN)
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Biden 'bombshell' falls flat |
Marshall Cohen writes: Disgraced ex-FBI informant Alexander Smirnov pleaded guilty Monday to falsely accusing Joe and Hunter Biden of taking bribes from Ukraine. This is notable partly because GOP lawmakers and right-wing outlets championed Smirnov's claims to bolster their ill-fated impeachment push against Biden. (Fox hosts called Smirnov "extremely trustworthy" and said his "bombshell" allegations might be "the biggest story of the year.")
Smirnov has now admitted in court that he made it all up. That's the real "bombshell." But with the Trump transition in full swing, this development captured little media attention on Monday.
Pleading guilty obviously won't – and can’t – undo the real political impact of Smirnov's lies, which hurt Biden and benefitted Trump, who is now headed back to the White House. Yes, this guilty plea finally closes the loop on what was true, and what was false. But if a liar admits that he lied, and no one is listening, does it even matter?
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Carlos Watson is sentenced |
What started with a Ben Smith column about Ozy Media in The New York Times in 2021 ended, tragically, in a New York courtroom yesterday. Ozy co-founder Carlos Watson was sentenced "to almost 10 years in prison for trying to defraud investors and lenders by lying about the company's finances," the NYT's Danielle Kaye reports. Judge Eric Komitee, who imposed the sentence, called it "a tragedy of Mr. Watson's own making." Watson has continued to assert his innocence...
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Again and again, after mass shootings in the U.S., The Onion republishes a headline that reads "'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens." On Monday, the occasion was the Abundant Life Christian School shooting in Madison, Wisconsin. The satirical news brand's CEO Ben Collins said it was "the 39th time we've had to post this, and this time about The Onion's original hometown..."
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>> New this morning: "The situation at the Washington Post is so dire that two candidates to run the paper — Cliff Levy of the NYT and Meta's Anne Kornblut, a former Post editor — both withdrew from consideration for the top newsroom job over the paper's strategy," Mike Allen and Sara Fischer report. (Axios)
>> Post publisher William Lewis reportedly wanted to name a new editor by the end of the year, but that timeline is now in doubt.
>> Speaking of The Post, it is revamping its "commenting experience" for subscribers. (Wash Post)
>> Oliver Darcy is out with another dispiriting look at the Los Angeles Times, this time focusing on Patrick Soon-Shiong banning critical editorials on Trump unless a dissenting voice is also published. (Status)
>> Kay Burley, "one of the UK's highest-profile news anchors," is reportedly leaving her Sky News breakfast show. (Sidebar: American morning shows should be called breakfast shows!) (Deadline)
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Syrian inmate's real identity |
"CNN confirmed Monday evening that it was misled by a man who was freed from a Syrian prison last week while the network's cameras were rolling," The Washington Post's Jeremy Barr reported.
>> The man "was a former intelligence officer with the deposed Syrian regime, according to local residents, and not an ordinary citizen who had been imprisoned, as he had claimed," CNN's Tim Lister and Eyad Kourdi wrote here. The man's current whereabouts are unknown...
>> Barr noted that CNN has added an on-screen statement to the web video of the original segment. "Since this report was published, CNN has continued to look into the background of the prisoner featured in it," it said.
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>> OpenAI "is rolling out a search product to all users" of ChatGPT, escalating its rivalry with Google, Rachel Metz reports. (Bloomberg)
>> Meanwhile, Google Labs "is testing a new image generator called Whisk" which "allows people to prompt with images instead of text." (TechCrunch)
>> “Britain's online safety regime came into force on Monday, requiring social media companies like Meta's Facebook and ByteDance's TikTok to take action to tackle criminal activity on their platforms and make them safer by design." (Reuters)
>> YouTube "will now let creators opt in to third-party AI training," Sarah Perez reports. (TechCrunch)
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CEO killer inspires documentaries |
Anonymous Content and Alex Gibney's Jigsaw Prods. are "teaming up to develop and produce a documentary" about the killing of CEO Brian Thompson – and about the killer Luigi Mangione. Variety's Tatiana Siegel says the doc will "explore how killers are created, what this killing says about our society and the values we place on who lives and who dies." It won't be the only one. Separately on Monday, Investigation Discovery said it had ordered an hour-long special from Dan Abrams tentatively titled "Who Is Luigi Mangione?"
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Jay-Z's lawyer goes on offense |
Jay-Z's lawyer Alex Spiro met with reporters in NYC yesterday and said the Jane Doe allegation against his client "is all a fantasy."
"We expect the case to be dismissed. If it's not, we expect this all to crumble," Spiro said, per CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister. He showed off a PowerPoint presentation with a "the timeline of the allegations from the accuser's lawsuit that he said are demonstrably false." More here...
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>> Netflix's Mike Tyson-Jake Paul boxing match "drove 1.43 million new sign-ups within three days of the fight — making it the 'single largest acquisition moment' in [Netflix] history," Sean Burch reports. (TheWrap)
>> "The Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans Christmas flick 'Red One' attracted a record-breaking 50 million worldwide viewers in its opening weekend on Prime Video... becoming Amazon MGM Studios’ most-watched film debut ever." (Variety)
>> The follow-up to "Wicked" will be titled "Wicked: For Good." (THR)
>> Khloé Kardashian will launch a video podcast on X next month. (IMDB)
>> The official teaser for the third season of HBO's "The White Lotus" has dropped. (YouTube)
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SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST... |
Bluey on the big blue screen |
If you have kids, you know that this is a big deal: "Bluey, the puppy and star of the Bafta-winning children's TV show, is hitting the big screen in her first feature film," the BBC's Helen Bushby reports.
BBC Studios and The Walt Disney Company announced the film a few minutes ago. "It will arrive in cinemas in 2027 and will then stream on Disney+, ABC iView and ABC Kids in Australia," Bushby writes...
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