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This morning Kari Lake is facing another VOA lawsuit. The Pentagon is restoring the NYT's press passes. Nexstar is making its mark on Tegna stations. Amazon is celebrating its "Hail Mary." Let’s get to it...

From 'Linda in Arizona' to Trump?

"Linda from Arizona," a caller on a conservative talk radio show, might deserve the credit or blame for the ICE agents deploying to airports across the US today.

Linda said on "The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show" midday Friday, "I think I have a solution to the TSA problem." She said, "We need to bring in ICE agents."

"It’s kind of a brilliant idea," co-host Clay Travis responded.

About 24 hours later, President Trump announced that exact vision on Truth Social, sending his own government scrambling to make it happen.

What happened in between? Travis appeared on one of Trump's favorite Fox News shows and personally pitched the idea.

The White House hasn't commented on whether Trump did, in fact, hear the TV segment and act accordingly. But you and I both know that Trump has a decade-long track record of watching Fox and posting his reactions on social media.

"Clay and Buck" certainly sees a connection. On Saturday, the show's Facebook page touted its influence: "On Friday, a caller named Linda proposed a brilliant idea. Friday night, Clay talked about it on Fox. Today, President Trump took the advice! Way to go, Linda."

The talk radio ➡️ Fox News ➡️ Trump pipeline

Travis is a media-savvy guy. He is well aware of the president's Fox fixation. So I suspect he was speaking to an audience of one when he brought up Linda's idea on "Jesse Watters Primetime" Friday night. Watters' guest host, Charlie Hurt, looked intrigued by the idea. Prominent pro-Trump social media accounts amplified the segment and cheered the idea of deploying ICE on Saturday morning. And then came Trump's post.

But... what are the ICE agents going to do? If this idea really originated from a radio call-in segment, what does that say about the state of the government?

On Sunday, Hurt was back on Fox, and he asked a TSA worker and local union leader what ICE could do that "would be helpful to your members." Not much, the agent said, sounding apprehensive about the hastily assembled plan. Hurt wrapped the segment without any mention that Fox might have inspired Trump’s ICE deployment plan in the first place. Here's my full story...

Beefing with a Newsmax reporter?

This morning, when POTUS took questions before boarding Air Force One, he bristled when a Newsmax reporter began to ask about the unusual ICE deployment. Trump did the usual "who are you with?" maneuver and repeatedly said the reporter was "not doing a very good job." A few minutes later, Trump added, "I don't think he's gonna be at Newsmax long." Observers were left wondering whether Trump had a personal beef with that reporter or if he was battling Newsmax more broadly... 

NEW THIS MORNING

Pentagon reporters ask for press passes to be reinstated

Some Pentagon beat reporters who handed in their press passes last fall in protest of Pete Hegseth's restrictive policy are trying to have their passes reinstated now that a federal judge has voided key parts of the policy. 

I'm told that reporters at several major news outlets have reached out to the Pentagon's press operation today to inquire about when they can return.

I'd say they want to "get back to work," but they've been working this whole time, breaking countless stories about the US military from outside the Pentagon's five walls. Nevertheless, there are some advantages to being inside the complex and having face time with military officials.

Friday's ruling in New York Times v. Defense Department specifically said that the NYT's access must be restored. This morning, an NYT spokesman said, "We've heard from the Pentagon and they've indicated our journalists will get space and credentials today at some point."

Will the other outlets? TBD. The Pentagon has not responded to my request for comment.

New questions about US-Iran talks

Reporters are trying to discern what's true and what's not after Trump said he was delaying strikes on Iranian power plants after "very good" talks about ending the war. Iran's foreign ministry denied having any dialogue with Washington, and some analysts speculated that Trump was trying to calm US stock markets. 

 >> WSJ editor turned columnist Gerry Baker wrote on X, "The unsettling reality is that with this president, Americans in wartime are in the unprecedented position of having to suspect that the enemy's version of events is more likely to be true than our own. We have become Baghdad Bob."

 >> Something to watch/hear today: Joe Kent will be on Mark Levin's radio show tonight. WaPo's Dan Lamothe wrote about Kent's media tour here.

Fox kept Trump's Mueller reaction off TV

If you only watched Fox News over the weekend, you wouldn't have heard about Trump's cruel response to Robert Mueller's death. The network mentioned Mueller at least six times on air Saturday and Sunday without ever quoting Trump's "I'm glad he's dead" post or the backlash it sparked, Andrew Kirell and I reported last night.

Most of those mentions were brief updates, not full discussions — a curious choice for a network that spent years villainizing Mueller. One of the only extended segments, on Trey Gowdy's Sunday night show, focused instead on Mueller's "Russia collusion hoax." Trump's post did not come up.

Fox was certainly aware of the controversy, as its website featured a story about Mueller's death with Trump's quote at the very top. But on TV, "I'm glad he's dead" was not deemed newsworthy. Some critics saw Fox's on-air silence as an implicit acknowledgement that the comment was indefensible. Read our full story here...

THIS JUST IN

A new lawsuit against Kari Lake's actions at VOA 

It's going to be an eventful week for the US Agency for Global Media. This morning, Steve Herman reports, a fresh lawsuit has been filed "against USAGM (including Kari Lake) by several Voice of America journalists alleging the parent agency interfered in VOA programming by violating the Charter and firewall, undermining its reputation and crushing its global reach." NPR's David Folkenflik has all the details here.

The plaintiffs say the new suit "strengthens" the ongoing cases against USAGM that recently caused a judge to order the reinstatement of VOA employees. The government claimed it can't bring everyone back all at once, so the judge signed off on a plan to bring back about 70 employees a week...

The White House's 'favorite two-step'

CNN's Daniel Dale has noticed that White House spokespeople "have a favorite two-step reply when reporters ask them to comment on one of the president's false claims. First: They say, 'President Trump is right.' Second: They defend some related point that isn’t the one Trump actually made." Dale analyzed the template here...

Nexstar and Tegna: Can the egg be unscrambled?

The Democratic state attorneys general who sued to block the Nexstar-Tegna deal last week are seeking a temporary restraining order now that Nexstar has closed the deal with FCC and DOJ approval. Staffers at local stations affected by the deal tell me that Nexstar is moving quickly to assert its ownership – for instance, newscasts that showed a Tegna logo at the end now show a Nexstar copyright animation "I don't see how any of this gets reversed at all," one plugged-in local reporter said.

But the state AGs say they're fighting, and as Ted Hearn noted on X, DirecTV has also filed in court seeking to reverse the FCC's approval. Hearn asked: "Can they really unscramble the egg?"

Vox pulls back on podcast sale talks

"Last year, bankers for Vox Media approached media companies and investors with a series of offers" to either "take over Vox's podcast business," buy New York mag, or "buy the company in its entirety," Semafor's Max Tani reports. In recent months, though, the company "has appeared to change its mind," informing some potential investors "that the podcast network was no longer for sale." No comment from Vox.

ICYMI over the weekend...

 >> Heart-wrenching news out of Minnesota: NHL reporter Jessi Pierce and her three children "were killed Saturday in a house fire." (ESPN)

 >> National parks employees told SFGATE, which is known for its parks coverage, that it has been blacklisted by the Interior Department. The move "follows critical coverage of new Park Service policies." (SFGATE)

 >> Tatiana Siegel reported that Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos was seen lunching with HBO CEO Casey Bloys, "sparking Hollywood speculation." (California Post)

 >> A California jury "largely sided with Twitter shareholders who accused billionaire Elon Musk of making false statements and intentionally driving down the social media company's stock" before acquiring the company. But the jury "absolved Musk of claims of engaging in a 'scheme' to defraud investors," Clare Duffy wrote. (CNN)

 >> Polymarket's "monitoring the situation" pop-up bar in DC was hard to monitor. But Maura Judkis dutifully tried. (WaPo) 

👀 on social media trials

Closing arguments are scheduled today "in a landmark trial in New Mexico where social media conglomerate Meta is accused of misleading its users about how safe its platforms are for children," per the AP.

 >> And in Los Angeles, jurors are still deliberating in another landmark trial, this one about social media addiction. The jury has been meeting for more than a week now...

Turning Epstein's island into viral video content

This is one of those stories that makes you just want to log offline forever. "A thousand miles off the coast of Florida, influencers have found the secret to instant virality," NBC's Bruna Horvath writes. "One after another, content creators are finding their way to Little Saint James," aka the island once owned by Jeffrey Epstein. "Several of the creators who went to the island are known for their prank videos or for their content exploring government conspiracy theories..."

More of today's tech talk

 >> Sean Hollister finds that "Google is beginning to replace news headlines in its search results with ones that are AI-generated." (The Verge)

 >> Pinterest CEO Bill Ready has "called on world leaders to ban social media ‌for youth under 16." (Reuters)

 >> Axios CEO Jim VandeHei outlined how the company's approach to AI, including how AI has radically changed its product and tech team, in a new memo. (X)

Amazon celebrates its 'Hail Mary'

"A decade after it got into the movie business, Amazon has its first major box-office hit," the WSJ's Ben Fritz writes. "Project Hail Mary" "opened to an estimated $80.5 million in the U.S. and Canada." Abroad, the Amazon flick "grossed $60.4 million, opening at No. 1 in nearly every market except China," Fritz writes. 

 >> Amazon MGM chief Mike Hopkins: "This is the year where we have some of our biggest, boldest bets coming on and then we have a lot planned for '27 and '28 and '29. I really do think we're in the first half of the first inning."

Praise for the new 'SNL UK'

The first-ever episode of "Saturday Night Live UK" aired 10 p.m. local time on Sky One and "drew a solid 226,000 viewers," Variety reports. Critics seemed to enjoy it: The Guardian's Lucy Mangan gave it three stars, writing that the show's "ambition was refreshing to see." The Independent's Nick Hilton similarly rated the show with "some hits, some misses, and a bang-on Princess Di impression."

And Trump apparently enjoyed it, too — sort of. The show's cold open roasted UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, portraying him as weak, indecisive, and terrified of a belligerent Trump during a phone call. Trump approved, posting the full video to Truth Social without comment. And then the two men spoke by phone for real on Sunday...

This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.