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Tuesday, November 4, 2025 |
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Hey, good morning. Here's the latest on President Trump, Zohran Mamdani, Rachel Maddow, Teen Vogue, Daniel Dale, Scott Galloway, Nintendo Switch 2, and more... |
🗳️ Election Day in America! |
It always feels so good to type that. Today's off-year races will "gauge how voters feel in the first year of Trump's second presidency — and provide signals about the midterm elections just one year away," CNN's Eric Bradner writes.
With key elections in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and California, this election is literally unfolding in the front and backyard of the national media. As a proud New Jersey resident, I'm just ready for the TV and YouTube ads to be over...
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CNN's special will start at 5 p.m. Eastern with all your favorites, led by Jake Tapper in DC and Erin Burnett and Anderson Cooper in NYC. Abby Phillip will take over the live coverage at midnight from NYC, and then Elex Michaelson will helm a special edition of his new show "The Story Is..." from California starting at 2 a.m. ET.
MSNBC will also have a full-blown election night led by Rachel Maddow starting at 7 p.m. ET. Fox News is doing it somewhat differently, airing its regular prime-time talk shows until 10, when it will preempt "Gutfeld!" for a one-hour special by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. Then Trace Gallagher will anchor a two-hour edition of his show.
ABC, NBC and CBS will be producing team coverage on their streaming news services. And this being 2025, there will be dozens of other live streams from news outlets, Substackers, political groups and others. A few notable examples:
– "CNN Election Livecast:" On the new All Access streaming service, CNN is producing a "more casual experience," with commentators like Charlamagne Tha God and Ben Shapiro reacting to the results.
– CNN alum Chris Cillizza is teaming up with Chuck Todd and Decision Desk HQ for a YouTube live stream starting at 6:30 p.m. ET.
– The Bulwark is promoting its election night talk show as communal and conversational: "We'll keep going as long as it takes. Let's all be together!"
– The New York Post is partnering with Mark Halperin and his 2WAY network for a live stream starting at 8 p.m. ET.
– In Jersey, NJ Advance Media is offering a live stream on NJ.com, Facebook and YouTube once polls close at 8 p.m. ET.
– In NYC, the one and only Spectrum News NY1 is making its Election Day coverage free to stream all day long on its website, app and YouTube. Full disclosure for those who don't know: My wife is a NY1 morning host 😀
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Election day notes and quotes |
>> "I think you can clearly see that Donald Trump is threatened by our campaign," Zohran Mamdani told Erin Burnett last night. Mamdani's media-saturation strategy has entailed appearing on CNN one minute and Mad Realities' viral TikTok show "Shop Cats" the next. (Variety)
>> The Free Press staff writer Olivia Reingold, who has published many critical pieces about Mamdani, will be joining the CBS News stream tonight. (CBS PR)
>> Mr. Magic Wall John King has been preparing for tonight for weeks. He talked about the "homework" in this Instagram reel. (CNN)
>> Steve Kornacki, who went with NBC in the NBC/MSNBC divorce, talked with Joe DePaolo about plans for "his first election night without MSNBC in more than a decade." (Mediaite)
>> NewsNation is hoping for an election night edge by "tapping non-traditional voting data," Brian Steinberg reports. (Variety)
>> YouTube TV declined Disney's request to restore ABC for Election Day as the two companies continue to fight over carriage fees. (USA Today)
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MSNBC's highest-rated host, the aforementioned Rachel Maddow, opened her show last night with a ten-minute-long distillation of recent polls underlining Trump's unpopularity. She made this point relevant to media-capitulation chatter: "If you're a business leader watching this right now thinking about, 'Hmmm, I wonder if we should continue to do things to really kowtow to Trump and to be really seen to be putting our thumb on the scale in order to please Trump, I wonder if that'll be good for our bottom line — take a little temperature of the public here, guys. You're aligning yourself with something pretty radically and deeply unpopular."
>> Trump noticed the #s too: Yesterday afternoon, he raged against "Fake Polls" "being shown by the Radical Left Media" and claimed that he's doing well in "Fair Polls."
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Teen Vogue, an unlikely and widely respected source of progressive political journalism, suffered layoffs on Monday, and now the publication "has no writers or editors explicitly covering politics," according to the NewsGuild of New York and Condé United.
The layoffs came as Vogue announced that Teen Vogue will become part of Vogue.com and report to Chloe Malle. Teen Vogue editor Versha Sharma is leaving the company. The company insists it is investing in the youth brand...
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What CBS cut from the 'extended' interview |
The 73-minute "extended" YouTube version of Norah O'Donnell's interview with Trump omitted a tense exchange about the "appearance of corruption" in Trump's pardon of Changpeng Zhao.
The awkward back-and-forth appears at the end of the interview transcript, but the video hasn't been released in any form, leaving CBS open to criticism (given the history we all know). Witness this Axios headline yesterday: "Dems float FCC probe of '60 Minutes' trimming Trump interview."
>> Adding to the confusion, Team Trump promoted the YouTube cut as "the FULL interview," "without the network's edits." But CBS noted that the extended version was still "condensed for clarity."
>> O'Donnell deserves credit for pressing Trump about the Zhao pardon, and it's worth noting that Trump's "I don't know who he is" answer did air in the TV version.
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>> CNN's Daniel Dale counted "at least 18 inaccurate assertions" in the "60" interview. David Goldman and Matt Egan drilled down on two: Trump's false claims that "we have no inflation" and "our groceries are down." They say "Trump appears to be denying the economic reality that people are experiencing." (CNN)
>> "Many feared the assassination of Charlie Kirk would tear apart the country. Instead, it's ripping apart some of MAGA's biggest celebrities," Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write. (Axios)
>> "Trump saw a segment on Fox News. Within an hour, he was laser-focused on Christians' treatment in Nigeria." (CNN)
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'Notes on Being a Man' is #1 |
Scott Galloway's "Notes on Being a Man" is the country's best-selling new release right now, per Amazon, thanks to early appearances on "Today," "The View" and other shows. The book has a lot to say about how media "contributes to and profits from young men's growing social isolation, boredom, and ignorance." Galloway was on "AC360" last night; here's the segment on Instagram...
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📚 More of today's new nonfiction books |
Also on sale today: "The Bigger Picture," a posthumous memoir by Oscar-winning producer Jon Landau, who wrote the book as he came to terms with his terminal diagnosis. I'm in the middle of reading it now, and it's magnificent, full of advice about life.
I'm also looking forward to reading Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis's newsy new release, "Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department." Also new today: Tim Tebow's "Look Again," Kenny Chesney's "Heart Life Music," Patti Smith's "Bread of Angels," and former prime minister of Finland
Sanna Marin's "Hope in Action."
>> Plus, Martha Stewart's debut book, "Entertaining," "which, for years, has been igniting bidding wars on resale sites like eBay," is getting "a long-awaited reissue," THR's Erin Lassner reports.
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>> Marjorie Taylor Greene is on "The View" later this morning.
>> After three years of bargaining, the New York Daily News Union has reached a tentative agreement, its first, with Alden Global Capital. (NY Guild)
>> “The New York Post's West Coast offshoot, the California Post, has hired Breitbart senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak as its opinion editor." (TheWrap)
>> Voice of America veteran Carla Babb has joined Newsmax as a national security correspondent. (X)
>> Laura Loomer "has been credentialed to cover the Defense Department," Scott Nover reports. (WaPo)
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Paramount keeps Jon Stewart in place |
When Paramount cancelled "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" in July, folks wondered if "The Daily Show" would be next. But on Monday Comedy Central said Jon Stewart has renewed for another year of weekly "Daily" shows, keeping him in place through the midterms.
>> Over at Status, Oliver Darcy called it a signal of "independence" by Paramount: The move is a counterweight to the "perception that it's taking direction from the White House. And that is especially valuable for Paramount right now."
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In what GQ bills as an "exclusive exit interview," Colbert talked with Zach Baron about the "indispensable" but troubled late-night TV landscape. He treaded lightly about his own cancellation: "I have my feelings about not doing the show anymore, but you'd have to show me why that's a fruitful relationship for me to have with my network for the next nine months, for me to engage in that speculation. I have had a great relationship with CBS. It's one of the reasons why this was so surprising and so shocking that there was no preamble to this." Check out the rest here...
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>> This morning Nintendo "hiked its sales forecast for the Switch 2 gaming device to 19 million units for the financial year ending March 2026." (Reuters)
>> Also this morning Spotify "reported active users and revenue in the third quarter that surpassed analysts’ expectations." (Bloomberg)
>> Britain's competition watchdog is probing the proposed merger between Getty Images and Shutterstock "after remedies offered by the companies failed to address its concerns." (Reuters)
>> TikTok is launching its "first-ever TikTok Awards show in the US." (TechCrunch)
>> And Apple "has unveiled its vibrant new logo for Apple TV, which will be featured at the beginning of its shows and films." (Deadline)
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