Happy Tuesday! Here's the latest on Sun Valley, Jon Stewart, Joe Rogan, Christine Brennan, Salena Zito, Bluesky, the "Superman" premiere, and much more...
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'This stinks. This just reeks.' |
The Trump administration is coming under rare and intense scrutiny from its usual pro-Trump media allies. The reason? That new statement from Pam Bondi's Justice Department refuting right-wing conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein.
The criticism is not just coming from MAGA media's fever swamps — though there's plenty of anger there. It's coming from Fox News, too, which means the president is almost certainly hearing about it.
Fox's Peter Doocy pressed Karoline Leavitt about the matter yesterday, and numerous shows highlighted the controversy. "WE NEED ANSWERS ON EPSTEIN," blared a banner on Jesse Watters' show. Watters devoted a full segment to the topic and featured two guests who alleged an ongoing cover-up.
This is, of course, how it always works: As Cass Sunstein once said, "the self-sealing quality of conspiracy theories creates severe practical problems for government; direct attempts to dispel the theory can usually be folded into the theory itself as just one more ploy by powerful conspiracy members."
That's what is happening now. Tellingly, Watters did not criticize Trump directly but instead blamed "the feds" in general. "The government's been keeping us in the dark for generations," he said. And he ended the segment by saying Bondi, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino are "great Americans, but this stinks. This just reeks."
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"This is what happens when the dog catches the car. Or, to put a finer point on it, when you and the people around you become the very 'Deep State' you have spent years attacking," Chris Cillizza wrote over at "So What."
Back when Bongino was just a podcaster, "he felt comfortable speaking about theories and allegations as if they were proven facts," National Review's Jim Geraghty observed. Bongino confidently talked of "overturning that rock and seeing what's underneath." Now he has... and "sometimes you overturn a rock, and you just find the bottom of a rock."
But Bongino's fans don't believe him. He posted Trump's timely praise of the FBI on Monday and was deluged with angry replies on X. The Bulwark's Will Sommer detailed the MAGA world "meltdown" here. Another example just landed in my inbox: Tucker Carlson's morning newsletter asserts that "the government is doing a bad job of getting us to believe its Jeffrey Epstein story" and accuses Bondi's DOJ of "covering up" Epstein's crimes. Simply put, a two-page memo is not sufficient. (But for true believers, nothing will be.)
"I've been lurking in and out of right-wing conversations about the Epstein files" and "it can't be said enough how much legitimate friction and chaos this has created within the MAGA coalition," former Kamala Harris senior advisor Mike Nellis tweeted. "A lot of them feel really betrayed over it—and for good reason."
>> Tangle's Isaac Saul expressed a hopeful note: "It is wild (and ironic), but this might honestly be the thing that wakes up the furthest right-wing, super online zealots about all the B.S. they have been fed by conspiracy-laded accounts. I haven't ever really seen this much fury about something."
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Another Democrat goes on 'Rogan' |
Two weeks ago, Bernie Sanders was on "The Joe Rogan Experience." Today is James Talarico's turn. "The viral Democratic Texas state representative and seminarian," who may run for U.S. Senate in 2026, "has become the latest member of a rarified group of Democrats to record an interview" with Rogan, Politico's Adam Wren reports. "Rogan invited Talarico on the podcast after seeing one of his viral political videos about the Ten Commandments, according to a person familiar with the matter."
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Jon Stewart on 'shameful settlement' |
"The Daily Show" host "returned from a two-week vacation last night" and "opened his monologue with a cry of outrage at the 'shameful settlement,' only to be faux-interrupted by an old-fashioned 'Please Stand By' card faux-sponsored by Arby's," LateNighter's Bill Carter writes.
Ha-ha. The point was that Stewart would not be silenced. His guest was former "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft, and the two men "went all the way there in describing the threat—not just to '60 Minutes,' but to journalism itself and even, Kroft said, the First Amendment." Here's the segment on YouTube.
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Skydance deal window extended |
A "second 90-day extension" of Paramount Global's pending sale to David Ellison's Skydance was automatically triggered on Monday "as per the deal agreement, leaving the parties and the FCC more time to nail things down," Deadline's Jill Goldsmith reports. The deal window now runs through early October.
>> Charlie Gasparino hears that "the regulatory nod is coming in a few weeks."
>> "The fact is that anyone working at '60 Minutes' from now on has to worry about what is going to be allowed on the air," legendary former "60 Minutes" producer Lowell Bergman said on "The Daily."
>> "Let's be honest about what the threat is here. Trump has threatened to put the force of the federal government against these private companies," Abby Phillip said during a "NewsNight" discussion of Paramount's deal and Google's settlement talks.
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Allen & Company's annual Sun Valley gathering is getting underway, and "the growing emergence of artificial Intelligence is expected to be the hot topic," the NYPost's James Franey writes from Idaho. Variety obtained the guest list last month and said the names included Tim Cook, Ted Sarandos, Greg Peters, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Sam Altman, David Zaslav, Brian Roberts, and Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch.
>> TheWrap's Sharon Waxman expects moguls will be gossiping about Shari Redstone and the aforementioned Paramount settlement, with some coming to her defense and arguing she did the "best" she could...
>> Puck's Matthew Belloni reports that Ellison will be in attendance...
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Today's new nonfiction releases |
CNN sports analyst Christine Brennan is out today with "On Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women's Sports." The book is already #2 on Amazon's new releases list, signaling that it's going to be a big hit. CNN.com has a fantastic excerpt that's specifically about Brennan and the media's role covering the WNBA.
Two new releases in politics are also selling well: Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf's "2024" and Salena Zito's "Butler."
>> Also hitting shelves: "The Man Who Would Be King: Mohammed bin Salman and the Transformation of Saudi Arabia" by Karen Elliott House, "A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck" by Sophie Elmhirst, and "Dinner with King Tut: How Rogue Archaeologists Are Re-creating the Sights, Sounds, Smells, and Tastes of Lost Civilizations" by Sam Kean...
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>> Trump's media company says its TV streaming platform, Truth+, is now online. It includes live streams of Newsmax and OAN's free ad-supported offshoots. (Reuters)
>> Private equity firm TPG has "completed its $7.6 billion purchase of the 70% stake it didn't already hold in DirecTV from AT&T." (Axios)
>> Gray Media and E.W. Scripps are swapping TV stations "cross five mid-size and small markets, resulting in the creation of new duopolies for each." (TV News Check)
>> "Manchester United have withdrawn from secret talks over a record-breaking Amazon Prime access-all-areas documentary next season after concluding it could distract from the progress of the first team," David Ornstein and Adam Crafton report. (NYT)
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'Europe's crackdown on speech goes far and wide' |
Americans who don't pay close attention to European politics might be taken aback by the details in this new WSJ story. It describes how "loosely defined hate-speech laws and the rise of social media have led to zealous policing" of speech across the continent.
The pendulum has "swung more to restrictions of free speech," Oxford professor David Nash told the reporters. Key insight: "Nash said that social media not only acts as a vector for individuals to broadcast views but also reaches a range of people who could be potentially offended, creating a dilemma for European authorities."
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Threads catching up to X? |
New data from Similarweb shows that "Instagram Threads is close to catching up to top competitor X in terms of mobile app users," TechCrunch's Sarah Perez reports. "In June 2025, Threads’ mobile app for iOS and Android saw 115.1 million daily active users, representing 127.8% year-over-year growth; X reached 132 million daily actives, as its year-over-year growth declined by 15.2%."
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Bluesky adds activity alerts |
A big step forward for Bluesky: Users can now customize notifications from their favorite accounts, making the platform a lot more useful for journalists and other power users. Bluesky "can really keep up with the news now that it has activity notifications," The Verge's Richard Lawler writes...
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'Superman' gets press praise, MAGA hate |
James Gunn's "Superman" premiered in Los Angeles last night, and while initial press has been chock full of praise for the reboot's first installment — "a terrific start for the new DC Studios," wrote Fandango's Erik Davis — the film has also been the subject of a right-wing media outrage cycle after the director described the titular character as an "immigrant."
>> On the premiere's red carpet, Gunn addressed his MAGA critics: "This movie's for everybody. I don't have anything to say to anybody. I'm not here to judge people. I think this is a movie about kindness, and I think that's something everyone can relate to." Variety has details here.
>> Nathan Fillion, who plays the Green Lantern, was more direct: "Aw, somebody needs a hug. It's just a movie, guys."
>> And speaking of the actual movie, here are more of the first reactions...
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Entertainment odds and ends |
>> "A group of independent music companies and trade associations called on the European Union to launch an in-depth investigation into Universal Music Group's acquisition of Downtown Music Holdings, saying the deal threatens competition if antitrust officials let it go ahead," Mauro Orru reports. (WSJ)
>> Pop quiz: Have you heard of "G20" the movie? "The Viola Davis kickass spy movie" has "pulled in more than 50 million worldwide Prime Video viewers since its April 10 launch." (Deadline)
>> "Wicked" filmmaker
Jon M. Chu "is set to direct a live-action 'Hot Wheels' movie for Warner Bros." (Variety)
>> Last but not least, Amazon's four-day-long Prime Day event began this morning, and there are a bunch of streaming deals. (THR)
>> Extending Prime Day "also means more advertising opportunities, lifting revenue in Amazon's fast-growing, $50 billion advertising business," CMO Daily points out. (WSJ)
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