Good morning. It's the end of a publicly funded era. In a victory for President Trump, lawmakers are about to zero out the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's budget for the first time since 1967, back when TV stations still broadcast in black and white. 📺 Scroll down for full coverage. Plus: Today is Netflix earnings day, World Emoji Day, and Disneyland's birthday. But first...
|
The MAGA information silo |
NPR.org home page this morning
|
"Boring." "Hoax." "Bullshit." President Trump's confusing comments about the Jeffrey Epstein controversy are provoking cognitive dissonance among some of his extremely online supporters, highlighting the information silo that shapes politics and media on the right.
Calling the silo "impenetrable" would be an overstatement. But it is definitely heavily fortified. The resolutely anti-Trump columnist David French said that through the Epstein affair, "quite a few Americans are learning ONLY FOR THE FIRST TIME that Trump is a liar. It's taken ten years, but here we are."
French said on X that he's been trying to tell liberals for a long time that "MAGA's ignorance about Trump's sins and scandals is staggering. Every piece of media they consume idolizes the man and trashes his opponents. And then they're told he's God’s man to save America."
Indeed, that's what the information silo does so well. But inside that silo, sex-trafficking conspiracy theories have been an eternal and highly profitable topic of speculation for years. Trump is now effectively saying that many of MAGA media's trusted voices, from talk radio hosts to TikTok stars, have been lying to the base about the topic. The question: Will any Trump supporters be offended enough to reconsider their media diets?
>> I wondered about this while listening to Adam Kinzinger's podcast chat with Rich Logis, who founded a group called "Leaving MAGA." Logis said it's "so difficult to leave" because "the information silo always creates this gravitational pull to just remain in MAGA."
>> On the other hand, as an unnamed Trump fan told the Spectator's Bridget Phetasy, "people who talk for a living are overestimating how much people who don't talk for a living care about this."
>> On the other other hand, the notion of a Trump admin cover-up is gaining cultural currency: During Shane Gillis' opening monologue at the ESPYs last night, he quipped, "There was supposed to be an Epstein joke here, but it got deleted, must have probably deleted itself, right? Probably never existed. Actually. Let's move on as a country and ignore that."
|
"The disconnect on Epstein between Trump and his hyper-online base shows that while the president is a prolific poster — he perhaps isn't as savvy a consumer of social media," CNN's Donie O'Sullivan says.
On "The Source with Kaitlan Collins" last night, O'Sullivan said Trump is either "playing dumb here, and hoping that this Epstein stuff goes away, or maybe he just genuinely doesn't fully grasp how much he has stoked the conspiracy theory space online, for years." Check out his latest column here.
>> Candace Owens tweeted: "I estimate Trump is about 4 days away from calling his base a bunch of DEPLORABLES. 😂"
>> Joe Biden's autopen usage is "the scandal they should be talking about, not Jeffrey Epstein," Trump said yesterday, and some MAGA media outlets dutifully followed his lead. "SCANDAL AROUND BIDEN'S DECLINE DEEPENS" was the first banner I saw when I flipped over to "Hannity" last night.
|
Rescission passes the Senate... |
In a middle-of-the-night vote, the Senate advanced Trump's proposal to cancel all the federal funding for PBS and NPR. The House is expected to pass the amended bill before Friday's deadline. It's a long-sought victory for Trump and conservative activists, and a long-dreaded disruption for local stations that bank on taxpayer support. For those wondering "now what?" here's my latest piece for CNN.com.
Public TV stations will be "forced to make hard decisions in the weeks and months ahead," PBS CEO Paula Kerger said in a statement this morning, reiterating that smaller stations will suffer the most. Read on...
|
David Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, which has campaigned against the federal support for decades, celebrated the "historic rollback" in an X post overnight. "PBS and NPR were chartered to provide objective journalism," Bozell wrote. "Instead, we got drag shows for kids, gushing coverage of Democrats, and silence or smears for conservatives."
Of course, public media officials say that type of criticism totally distorts what actually airs on stations. Today's report about the clawback on NPR's "Morning Edition," for example, was studiously neutral, and the hosts pointed out that NPR management was not involved in the news coverage of its own funding dilemma.
|
Stations are already making changes |
In NYC, the New York Public Radio CEO LaFontaine Oliver is moving into a new position, executive chair, that's been created in response to the threats to federal funding. He will "lead efforts to develop new funding models, forge partnerships across public radio, and secure support from foundations, members, and other non-federal sources," Inside Radio reports.
In SF, KQED is "laying off 45 people and losing 12 more who took voluntary departure offers" as the Bay Area network "faces a significant budget shortfall and mounting financial uncertainty," the network says.
>> Bill Siemering, who was central to NPR's creation, told the NYT's Ben Mullin that the rescission package is "an example of government trying to insert itself into the editorial process of independent journalism."
|
Iger ringing the opening bell |
Disneyland opened 70 years ago today, on July 17, 1955. To mark the occasion — which the theme park is celebrating for a full year — Disney CEO Bob Iger is ringing the NYSE opening bell from Anaheim this morning. NYSE president Lynn Martin will be there too.
>> Disney is also opening a new attraction, featuring an audio-animatronic version of Walt Disney in his office, at the park today. I was given a sneak peek last year; it's truly uncanny.
|
Netflix releasing #s after the close |
Netflix will kick off media/tech earnings season this afternoon. Per Investopedia, "analysts are largely bullish on Netflix's long-term outlook heading into the earnings report, and expect the streamer to report rising revenue and profits." |
Dems tell FCC to stop targeting CBS |
These next two items matter not because they're going to result in any action — they're not — but because they prompt discussion and put politicians on the record. First: Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Ed Markey wrote to Brendan Carr yesterday urging the FCC to "end its partisan attacks on CBS and cease interfering with the judgment of independent news organizations."
|
A bill against the library 'loophole' |
Second: "A group of Democrats in Congress is introducing legislation to close 'loopholes' that allow for unchecked donations to presidential libraries," Variety's Todd Spangler reports. The bill doesn't have any Republican sponsors, so you know what that means. But it's a direct response to Disney and Paramount settling with Trump and routing money to his future library.
|
>> Well, the WSJ editorial board can't be any more direct than this: Its latest piece is titled "Don't Fire Jerome Powell, Mr. President." (WSJ)
>> Lauren Egan asserts that "Democrats are finally beginning to appreciate the significance of the attention economy." (The Bulwark)
>> "Butler" by Salena Zito has debuted at #1 on the NYT best seller list. "On Her Game" by Christine Brennan is at #2. (NYT)
>> Correction: Yesterday I wrote that Jon Parales has been NYT's chief pop critic since 1998. He has actually held the job since 1988. Thanks to Nancy for flagging the mistake.
|
|
|
"Fox News and Pennsylvania just got a little cozier: Two of the network's political correspondents recently got engaged to two of the state's GOP congressmen," WaPo's Roxanne Roberts writes.
Fox told Roberts that it has "policies in place to ensure there are no conflicts of interest between our journalists and the stories or subjects they cover." (The word "journalists" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, since Fox's commentators are endlessly conflicted and entangled with the Trump admin.) Regardless, congrats to the newly engaged couples...
|
>> Marc Andreessen "is scheduled to take the stand" today in the latest Facebook trial. (Reuters)
>> "AI safety researchers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and nonprofit organizations are speaking out publicly against the 'reckless' and 'completely irresponsible' safety culture at xAI," Maxwell Zeff reports. (TechCrunch)
>> "OpenAI plans to take a cut from online product sales made directly through ChatGPT, as the Sam Altman-led group looks to further develop ecommerce features in the hunt for new revenues." (FT)
>> An intriguing read from Dylan Butts: "AI-generated music is going viral. Should the music industry be worried?" (CNBC)
>> Did you know today is World Emoji Day? I didn't until I saw this: Apple News+ is launching Emoji Game, a daily puzzle that "is basically Emoji Wordle." (Polygon)
|
Entertainment odds and ends |
>> Connie Francis, the actress and pop vocalist whose 1962 hit "Pretty Little Baby" went mega-viral on TikTok earlier this year, has died at age 87. (CNN)
>> NBCUniversal has paid $3.6 million "to settle a lawsuit accusing it of failing to provide users an easy mechanism to cancel automatically renewing Peacock subscriptions." (THR)
>> Netflix has dropped the first official teaser for the fifth and final season of "Stranger Things." (YouTube)
|
|
|
|
® © 2025 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.
1050 Techwood Drive NW, Atlanta, GA 30318 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
