|
Tuesday, September 16, 2025 |
|
|
|
Hey, good morning. We're just learning that Robert Redford has died at the age of 89. If there were a Mount Rushmore for film, Redford would be on it. We have more on his life and legacy below, but first...
|
Free speech chill in the air |
Grief over the assassination of Charlie Kirk is rapidly giving way to a grueling free speech fight with unpredictable consequences.
And President Trump's audacious lawsuit against The New York Times is related to this fight, even though it doesn't mention Kirk.
Most political arguments about speech are really about power — who has it and how they wield it. Trump claims he is using his power to "restore integrity to journalism." But First Amendment experts see his unprecedented legal crusade against media outlets for what it is: A presidential strategy to silence critical news coverage and curb free speech by filing legally dubious lawsuits.
It is vital for news outlets to explain this strategy to the public in plain terms. As Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger said in a speech last night, a few hours before Trump announced the suit, "media leaders" must "stand up for your journalism. Stand up for your journalists. Stand up for your rights."
Let's begin with the latest on the lawsuit...
|
A libel lawsuit or an op-ed? |
ABC. CBS. The Des Moines Register. The Wall Street Journal. And now the NYT. Trump's legal crusade against the American press has now reached the publication that he (arguably) covets most and criticizes most.
Trump announced his defamation suit against The Times just before midnight. I have reviewed a copy of the suit but have not yet confirmed that it has been ingested by the federal court in Tampa.
"The Times has been allowed to freely lie, smear, and defame me for far too long, and that stops, NOW!" Trump wrote, while singling out its endorsement of Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election, which is exactly the sort of thing that he hates, but which doesn't rise to the level of defamation.
The suit also names book publisher Penguin Random House and four Times reporters, including two who wrote a book for Penguin, titled "Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success."
The suit reads at times like a pro-Trump op-ed, with page after page of gushing praise for the president and repeated references to his suits against ABC, CBS, etc. First Amendment lawyers are already starting to pick apart the arguments in the suit. And the NYT just responded to it by saying "this lawsuit has no merit. It lacks any legitimate legal claims and instead is an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting. The New York Times will not be deterred by intimidation tactics. We will continue to pursue the facts without fear or favor."
>> So: Is the real goal to bankrupt the Times, or to win PR and look like a "fighter" in public? You can read the complaint PDF here and decide for yourself.
|
Sulzberger's prescient speech |
The Times is surely prepared for this moment. Its legal team has rebuffed Trump's legal threats many times before, including as recently as last week. And for the past year, Sulzberger has been drawing attention to the "anti-press playbook" being deployed by strongmen around the world. Last night, he spoke at the Investigative Reporters & Editors' 50th anniversary gala at Gotham Hall in NYC. NY1 anchor Pat Kiernan sent me some video clips from the speech.
"Democracy is in retreat all over the world," Sulzberger said. "Aspiring strongmen are undermining the laws, norms and institutions that are the bedrock of free societies. A primary target of this project is the press, because when journalists are kept from providing independent information to the public, it becomes far easier for those in power to act with impunity."
One part of the playbook, he said, is to "exploit the civil courts to impose financial pressure." And as I noted in this morning's story for CNN.com, Trump is claiming $15 billion in damages, which exceeds the market cap of the NYT. For more from Sulzberger, read his Sept. 2024 essay about the playbook here.
>> Paul Farhi reminds folks that "Trump has sued the @nytimes twice before this suit. Both suits were dismissed (in one, in January 2024, he was ordered to pay $392,000 in legal fees to the Times). The landmark Sullivan vs. NYT decision in 1964 protects reporters against such suits."
|
'We will absolutely target you' |
Speaking of The Times, one of its top headlines yesterday was "White House Officials Threaten Vast Crackdown on Liberal Groups." That's why many people are bracing for the mother of all free speech battles. As Democratic Rep. Jason Crow said to Jake Tapper on "The Lead" yesterday, the Trump administration is "using this as an excuse to crack down on dissent, and we cannot be silent about that."
Some Trumpworld figures, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, are trying to differentiate between "free speech" and "hate speech," as if there is a simple way to delineate between the two. "We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech," Bondi told Katie Miller in a podcast chat.
Bondi's remarks were widely criticized after being clipped and shared on social media sites last night. As Kirk himself wrote on X last year, "Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There's ugly speech. There's gross speech. There's evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free."
AG Bondi attempted to clean up her remarks this morning, retroactively claiming she only meant overt threats of violence. But that's definitely not what she said. Watch the whole segment here for yourself.
|
More examples of the chill |
>> Bondi later told Sean Hannity that if a print shop refuses to print a Kirk vigil poster, "We can prosecute you for that… I have Harmeet Dhillon right now in our civil rights unit looking at that, immediately." (SCOTUS ruled in 2018 that a Christian baker could not be forced to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, a decision that conservatives cheered.)
>> Asked whether he would consider designating the "Antifa" movement a domestic terror organization, Trump said, "It's something I would do..."
>> Trump also claimed he is having Bondi look into four protesters who heckled him at a DC restaurant last week. He claimed one woman was "a paid agitator. I've asked Pam to look into that, in terms of bringing RICO cases, because they should be put in jail. What they are doing to this country is really subversive."
>> Brian Glenn praised Trump for forcibly dismantling the longstanding peace vigil encampment outside the WH, and noted it has since reassembled. "They still have their First Amendment right, though. They're still out there protesting," Glenn said. "Yeah, well, I'm not so sure," Trump responded.
>> Jesse Watters on Fox, condemning people who are allegedly "gloating" over Kirk's death: "You don't deserve to be able to say that and have no penalty. There will be costs, there’ll be social costs, financial costs. We will shame, excommunicate them, banish them. And that is a promise."
>> VP JD Vance, while guest-hosting Kirk's podcast yesterday, said the admin would not go after "constitutionally protected speech," but elsewhere implored listeners: "When you see someone celebrating Charlie's murder, call them out — and, hell, call their employer."
|
Views from left and right |
Robert Redford, 1936-2025 |
The world has lost an absolute legend of film and activism: "Robert Redford, the dashing actor and Oscar-winning director who eschewed his status as a Hollywood leading man to champion causes close to his heart, has died," CNN confirmed moments ago.
Redford was 89. He died "at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah—the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved," a family spokesperson said. CNN.com has published an obituary here.
I had the privilege of interviewing Redford at the film festival he founded, Sundance, about a decade ago. Redford told me he looked forward to the festival because he learned from the younger, Redford-inspired filmmakers there. Nearly 80 at the time, he screened docs and films at Sundance each year and saw "new ways of telling stories." May his memory be a blessing.
|
Today's new nonfiction books |
Happy book release day to friend-of-the-newsletter Elie Honig, who is out with "When You Come at the King: Inside DOJ's Pursuit of the President, from Nixon to Trump." NYMag has an adaptation from the book here.
I'm also looking forward to reading "Madden & Summerall: How They Revolutionized NFL Broadcasting," about the legendary broadcast duo. The author, Rich Podolsky, worked with both men at CBS.
And there's more! Also new today: "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All," Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares; "We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution" by Jill Lepore; "Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy" by Mary Roach; and "History Matters," a posthumous collection of essays by David McCullough.
|
Do they really have a TikTok deal? |
"A deal has been reached between the Trump administration and China to keep TikTok operational in the United States, administration officials announced Monday, concluding a yearslong effort," David Goldman reports. Much more to come later this week... |
Daily Beast apologizes to Melania |
The Daily Beast has removed part of a podcast episode that claimed First Lady Melania Trump was "very involved" in the Epstein scandal. "We apologize to the First Lady and our readers," the Beast wrote in an updated editor's note that FLOTUS shared on social media on Monday. The Beast had already taken down a related article and apologized "for any confusion." Fox's Brian Flood has the backstory here...
|
>> Welcome aboard, Marie Beaudette! She is joining CNN as VP, business and media, after a two-decade career at Dow Jones. She was most recently the business, finance and economics coverage chief at the WSJ. (CNN)
>> Jorge Ramos and daughter Paola are launching an English-language podcast. Their first interview, which drops on Wednesday, is with Zohran Mamdani. (NYT)
>> Stanley Tucci will be contributing "travelogue style segments" for NBCU's coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. (THR)
>> Sky "is set to cut hundreds of jobs in the UK." (FT)
|
HBO Max to stream scripted series about Oct. 7 |
"HBO Max has acquired U.S. rights to 'One Day in October,' a scripted event series based on first-hand accounts of the Hamas attack on Israel," Variety's Ethan Shanfeld reports. The show "is touted as the first real-time scripted portrayal of personal stories from the attack." It will debut on Oct. 7, the two-year anniversary of the massacre.
|
Want to own a piece of The Economist? |
"Lynn Forester de Rothschild is exploring a sale of a significant minority stake in The Economist Group, marking the first ownership shake-up in a decade at the 182-year-old magazine," Bloomberg's Katherine Griffiths and Aaron Kirchfeld report.
The sale of around 20% in voting shares may "fetch about £200 million to £400 million," or roughly $270 to $540 million.
|
>> "More than 200 contractors who worked on evaluating and improving Google's AI products have been laid off without warning in at least two rounds of layoffs last month," Varsha Bansal reports, noting "the move comes amid an ongoing fight over pay and working conditions." (WIRED)
>> Here's what people use ChatGPT for, according to a new scholarly paper. "Practical Guidance," "Seeking Information," and "Writing" are "the three most common topics." (X)
>> Don't miss this recap of WIRED's AI Power Summit, featuring comments from several prominent news execs. (WIRED)
>> Gannett has launched Taboola's AI answer engine called "DeeperDive," which answers Q's by tapping into the USA Today Network's stories. (USA Today)
|
Entertainment notes and quotes |
>> Sunday's Emmy Awards "delivered an average of 7.42 million viewers on CBS, up 8% from last year's audience for ABC," Stephen Battaglio reports. (LAT)
>> Brian Steinberg says NBC is betting that "Jimmy Fallon's advertising antics will help ward off TV’s late-night woes." (Variety)
>> Netflix's "KPop Demon Hunters" "just can't stop breaking Billboard records." (Gizmodo)
>> 20th Century Studios dropped the official trailer for "Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere." (YouTube)
>> No, he's not taking over for Howard Stern, but Andy Cohen has struck a three-year deal extension with SiriusXM. (TheWrap)
|
|
|
|
® © 2025 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.
1050 Techwood Drive NW, Atlanta, GA 30318 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
