TGIF. Here's the latest on Elon Musk, MeidasTouch, Lara Trump, "Paradise," The New York Post, and much more...
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Musk is consuming all the attention |
Only one person understands the attention war better than
President Trump, and that's Elon Musk.
But is the attention good or bad? Does it redound to his benefit or hurt his reputation? Does it embolden or embarrass him?
Yes, yes and yes.
Thursday was a particularly bruising day for Musk. He got into a public spat with the former commander of the International Space Station; posted so many falsehoods that it was hard to keep up; and after some of his posts attacking Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky came under scrutiny through X's Community Notes system, he lashed out at his own tech and claimed it's "increasingly being gamed by governments & legacy media."
Meanwhile, multiple new polls indicated that Musk is a drag on Trump. CNN's new polling found that only 28% of Americans say Trump giving Musk a prominent role in the administration is a good thing. Fully 54% said it's a bad thing. Washington Post polling showed similar disapproval. News accounts suggested that some Republican lawmakers are growing concerned about Musk's role as bureaucracy's butcher.
And on a terribly sad personal note, one of his former partners, Grimes, publicly begged him to respond "about our child's medical crisis," saying she was pushed to tweet about it because he was ignoring her private pleas. Dozens of news sites wrote about her messages, with some linking the situation to Ashley St. Clair's recent posts saying she secretly gave birth to another Musk child.
So that was Musk's Thursday.
Yet the iconic image from Thursday was Musk giddily wielding embattled Argentinian president Javier Milei's chainsaw on stage at CPAC. Musk loved it so much that he made the image his X profile picture and retweeted an anonymous fan account that said "he looks super cool with glasses and a gold chain around his neck!"
During the CPAC chat with Newsmax's Rob Schmitt, Musk was barely articulate at times, and much of what he said reflected his newly radicalized, Dark MAGA worldview. "I cannot describe how strange Elon Musk’s CPAC appearance was," The Verge's Sarah Jeong wrote, so she published a transcript of it instead. Some X commenters who watched his appearance said they were worried about his health.
The pressure on Musk must be overwhelming. A New York Times headline about Tesla yesterday asked, "Does Elon Musk Still Care About Selling Cars?" His companies, nonprofits and ex-partners all demand attention while he (at least publicly) prioritizes DOGE and pushes retribution for Trump's enemies.
At CPAC, "you could hear people yelling, 'We love you,' and him saying, 'I love you back,'" Washington Post reporter Sabrina Rodriguez told CNN's Kaitlan Collins last night. Rodriguez likened the performance to "WrestleMania" and said Musk was "basking in the power and influence that he has."
So is all the attention good or bad? The answer is... yes.
Maybe Musk simply understands that when working with a showman president, you have to show the work. (Even if the math doesn't add up.) "Trump and his MAGA allies are treating their firings inside the government like a game, a show, even," CNN's Abby Phillip said last night. "They are creating memes, throwing celebrations, and the man in charge is using props to dance on professional graves."
The theatricality is what excites and energizes Trump and Musk's shared MAGA base. Even if Musk's specific actions are unpopular, government itself is unpopular — especially bureaucracies that many Americans believe are wasteful and inefficient. So the theater shows someone is "taking action," advancing the deep story that Trump is telling, a story of Trump "saving the country" from the do-nothing Joe Biden and dastardly Democrats.
Ultimately, though, maybe this was the most significant headline of the day:
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Five good-for-Musk headlines |
>> The Department of Justice is officially dropping a case accusing Musk's SpaceX of refusing to hire certain immigrants. (Reuters)
>> DOGE employee cuts are falling heavily on an "agency that regulates Musk's Tesla," Ian Duncan writes. (Wash Post)
>> William Gavin goes a lot further with this headline: "Musk's DOGE is going after the agencies that regulate his companies." (Quartz)
>> Over at X, Musk "may be on the brink of achieving the impossible: Salvaging his $44 billion investment" in Twitter, David Goldman and Clare Duffy write. (CNN)
>> At yesterday's WH press briefing, Karoline Leavitt "welcomed John Stoll, the head of news at X, to the 'new media' seat." (Politico)
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WSJ's bombshell about Interpublic and X |
This Wall Street Journal scoop from Wednesday deserves more attention. According to the very-well-sourced Suzanne Vranica, executives from Musk's X pushed ad giant Interpublic Group to have clients increase their spending on X. There were hints at "potential deal trouble," alluding to Interpublic's pending merger with Omnicom, which the U.S. government has to approve.
"Even by the extraordinary standards we've seen established in the past few weeks," this story stands out, Business Insider's Peter Kafka writes: "A big media platform, whose owner is deeply enmeshed with the Trump administration, is — reportedly — telling companies to give it business, or risk government reprisal..."
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Lara Trump launches her Fox show |
Lara Trump is prepping for this Saturday's launch of her new Fox News talk show. Her guests will include Tulsi Gabbard, Pam Bondi and Karoline Leavitt. TIME's Eric Cortellessa is out with a thoughtful story about what it means to have the president's daughter-in-law hosting a propagandistic show for him every weekend. "Trump's allies see the show as the clearest sign yet that Fox has fully re-embraced the president," Cortellessa wrote, noting the post-January 6 period when Rupert Murdoch tried to make Trump a "nonperson."
>> The story ends with Lara calling her father-in-law "an avid Fox viewer" who "loved having me there before," when she was a Fox contributor. "After every hit I ever did, he was probably the first or second person to call or text me."
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MeidasTouch's fast-growing podcast has "outpaced The Joe Rogan Experience by a large number of downloads and views over the past month, according to podcast ranker Podscribe, The Daily Beast's Julia Ornedo wrote.
MeidasTouch – which bills itself as "unapologetically pro-democracy" and is ferociously anti-Trump – is also #1 on Apple's top shows chart right now.
It probably helps that MeidasTouch publishes many short podcast episodes each day – more like a YouTube channel than a pod...
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Political notes and quotes |
>> Today's New York Post cover is for an audience of one. It says "President Trump: This is a dictator," with a scowling image of Vladimir Putin. (X)
>> Politico is relaunching its West Wing Playbook newsletter with a "Remaking Government" frame, focusing on Musk, DOGE and OMB. (Politico)
>> Another Trump agency putting pressure on Big Tech: The FTC has "initiated an inquiry into technology companies' use of censorship." (Daily Caller)
>> Following up on something we mentioned yesterday: "Paramount is starting to fight back against Trump in '60 Minutes' lawsuit," Winston Cho writes. (THR)
>> "The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, joined by more than 30 news media organizations, is asking the White House to restore the Associated Press's pool participation." (RCFP)
>> And one last item about Musk. Tangle founder Isaac Saul cleverly asked Grok to analyze @ElonMusk's 1,000 most recent X posts for accuracy. The result: "More than half of what Elon posts on X is false or misleading, while most of the 'true' posts are simply updates about his companies." (Mediaite)
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>> Azerbaijan's government "has ordered the suspension of BBC News' Azerbaijani operation in the capital city, Baku." (BBC)
>> "France's top administrative court has upheld a decision to shut down popular TV channel C8 for repeated failures to respect human rights and protect minors, causing an outcry among some right-wing politicians who alleged an assault on free speech." (Reuters)
>> OpenAI's weekly active user count "surged past 400 million in February," up from 300 million in December. CFO Sarah Friar shared other bullish new #'s with CNBC's David Faber. (Reuters)
>> The MLB and ESPN have "have 'mutually agreed' to end their national television deal after the upcoming 2025 season." (NYT)
>> Regular Reliable Sources contributor Marshall Cohen has been promoted to senior reporter at CNN. (X)
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Last December, in a smashing front page story, the WSJ's Erich Schwartzel and Jessica Toonkel revealed the "stalemate" between Amazon MGM and the woman who controlled the rights to James Bond, Barbara Broccoli. "The two sides are at an impasse: Amazon needs Broccoli to furnish them with ideas for a new Bond movie, but Broccoli doesn't want to make a new Bond movie with Amazon." Broccoli was quoted in the story telling friends that the Amazon executives were "idiots."
But now the standoff is no more. Amazon "is taking creative control of the James Bond franchise," as Liam Reilly wrote here. Broccoli and the other producers are presumably being paid out. Now, the WSJ's Alyssa Lukpat wrote, Amazon will control "who will play 007, who will write the next script, and when the film goes into production" – ASAP, from the studio's perspective...
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>> Gabe Fleisher coined "The Haberman Rule," a/k/a "how to know what Trump really cares about." (Wake Up To Politics)
>> David A. Graham called Trump and Musk "free-speech phonies." (The Atlantic)
>> Stephen J. Adler offered tips on "how to fight anticipatory compliance." (CJR)
>> Willy Staley documented "how the 'manosphere' became mainstream entertainment." (NYT)
>> CT Jones explained how Gabby Petito's death "changed TikTok's true-crime community." (Rolling Stone)
>> Hanaa' Tameez showcased how Germany's Der Spiegel replaced comments sections with a debate forum. (Nieman Lab)
>> Brian Steinberg explored how commercials have bled into spaces previously deemed off-limits. (Variety)
>> Laura Hall explored the "White Lotus effect" on travel. (BBC)
>> I really enjoyed this Long Lead Q&A with Bloomberg and NYT vet Ashlee Vance, who just launched a sci/tech coverage startup. Asked "what makes you hopeful for the future of journalism?" he says "the tools at our disposal." (Depth Perception)
>> And have you heard of being "oneshotted?" If not, Dan Brooks can explain. (The Atlantic)
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Today in content creation |
>> Spotify is "making it easier to release audiobooks narrated by AI." (TheVerge)
>> ESPN is looking to "add user-generated content to upcoming 'flagship' streaming service." (CNBC)
>> YouTube is planning a "lower-priced version of its paid video service, offering its vast library of podcasts and how-to clips without advertising." (Bloomberg)
>> Twitch is "planning to cull some of the content archived by streamers to save on storage costs." (TheVerge)
>> Substack is letting creators "monetize videos and post them directly from its app." (TechCrunch)
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>> "Ne Zha 2" has passed the $1.7-billion mark at the global box office, edging out Disney's "Inside Out 2" as the highest-grossing animated movie of all time, Nancy Tartaglione writes. (Deadline)
>> Season one of "Jury Duty" was a blast. Now it's coming back "and — surprise — its second season is already in the can." No premiere date yet, though. (Deadline)
>> And here's the best news of the past 24 hours: Dan Fogelman's "Paradise" has been renewed for a second season! If you haven't watched yet, check it out this weekend on Hulu. I would explain why, but that would spoil it. (Variety)
>> As part of the renewal order, the first season will air on ABC starting in April. Fogelman has a "three season plan he's already mapped out." If you've watched the first few episodes, you'll enjoy this Q&A with him. (THR)
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