Hey, welcome to a special weekend edition. Sunday is CNN's 45th anniversary. It was the dawn of the 24/7 news age. Ted Turner's audacious idea worked, and we have been bearing witness to history ever since. Here's the latest on PBS, Anna Wintour, NBC, Lesley Stahl, Tudum, Molly Jong-Fast, and more. But first, a scoop about One America News... |
Fired for telling the truth? |
Gabrielle Cuccia criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's crackdown on press access at the Pentagon. And then, she says, she was fired.
The staunchly pro-Trump OAN hired Cuccia, a self-proclaimed "MAGA girl," as chief Pentagon correspondent just a few months ago, after Hegseth's team evicted NBC from Pentagon workspace and let OAN have the space.
Cuccia served in the Trump White House in 2017 and 2018 and later reported from the White House for OAN, so her return to the network made perfect sense. But she soon grew skeptical of the Defense Department's dealings with the press corps.
In a post on her personal Substack account on Tuesday, she wrote that the DOD's recent move to make vast parts of the Pentagon off-limits to journalists was a "troubling shift." She heaped doubt on the department's rationale for the restrictions. And she questioned why Hegseth hasn't held any formal press briefings since being sworn in. "This article isn’t to serve as a tearing down" of Hegseth, she wrote. "This is me wanting to keep MAGA alive."
Evidently, someone disagreed. On Thursday, I heard that she was seen clearing out the workspace that she had personally renovated weeks ago. Last night she confirmed that, yes, on Thursday, "I was asked to turn in my Pentagon badge to my bureau chief," and on Friday "I was fired."
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Gabrielle Cuccia/Instagram |
The 'antithesis' of MAGA? |
Cuccia's Substack post is well worth reading. It aligned with the slogan that she printed on tank tops and sold on Etsy last year: "Love your country, not your government." Cuccia repeatedly pointed out her MAGA bonafides, but wrote that "without press, we by default have to assume that our government relaying information to us." She called that attitude "the antithesis of what we believe in."
Cuccia summarized the DOD's many steps to curtail press access, including some I hadn't heard about before. "This Administration, to my surprise, also locked the doors to the Pentagon Briefing room, a protocol that was never in place in prior Administrations, and a door that is never locked for press at the White House," she wrote. Trump "welcomes the hard questions… and yes, even the dumb ones. Why won’t the Secretary of Defense do the same?" Here's my full story...
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I emailed OAN president Charles Herring for comment repeatedly, specifically asking why Cuccia was terminated, and about whether any Pentagon officials complained to OAN about her Substack post. He hasn't responded. But Herring did email me this afternoon about a totally unrelated matter: An upcoming special report featuring OAN host Matt Gaetz's recent visit to El Salvador's CECOT prison. "Debuting this weekend," Herring wrote, attaching a press release about the show.
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"PBS filed a lawsuit today in U.S. District Court suing the president to block his executive order that would cut all of its federal funding," Amna Nawaz reported on last night's PBS "NewsHour."
The lawsuit mirrors NPR's arguments about viewpoint discrimination and was filed in the same court. "Our Constitution and laws forbid the President from serving as the arbiter of the content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS," the suit states. Here's my recap, including the WH's repetitive response...
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Wintour at the White House 👀 |
This happened on Thursday but didn't generate much media coverage: Vogue boss Anna Wintour met with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles "to discuss tariff relief," Vogue Business reported. Also in attendance: the CEOs of the Council of Fashion Designers of America and the American Apparel & Footwear Association. "As highlighted in the meeting, the fashion industry is already one of the most heavily tariffed industries in the US..."
>> Pro-Trump outlets heard about the meeting and linked it to the longtime conservative complaints that Vogue has never put Melania Trump on the cover. The Daily Caller asked, "Could Melania Finally Get Her First Lady Cover?"
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Elon dodges Q's about drug use |
In January 2024 Kirsten Grind was one of two bylines on a WSJ story titled "Elon Musk Has Used Illegal Drugs, Worrying Leaders at Tesla and SpaceX." A few months later, she jumped to the NYT, and she has stayed on the Musk beat. Friday's story by Grind and Megan Twohey was titled "On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama."
Musk has yet to respond to the new allegations. Instead he has directed ad hominem attacks at The Times. He cut off Fox's Peter Doocy, who tried to ask about the drug use story, by deriding the NYT. Then he said "let's move on." Later he wrote on X that the NYT is "pure propaganda." In other words, he's not disputing what the Times reported, he's just telling people to disbelieve the publication entirely.
>> According to this detailed WSJ story about "Trump and Musk's complicated relationship," Trump recently asked aides of Musk's vow to cut $1 trillion, "Was it all bullshit?"
>> Maureen Dowd's conclusion: "Musk brought the Silicon Valley mantra 'Move fast and break things' to D.C. But the main thing he broke was his own reputation."
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>> New from NBC this morning: Tulsi Gabbard is "considering ways to revamp Trump's intelligence briefing," and one idea is to make the briefing "a video that looks like Fox News." (NBC)
>> New from the NOTUS crew: "The MAHA Report Has Been Updated With Fresh Errors" (NOTUS)
>> Speaking of MAHA, The Washington Post detected "patterns of AI use" in the report, and showed the work. (WaPo)
>> Ali Swenson's story about MAGA loyalists feeling restless and wanting to see retribution is on the AP's most-read list this weekend: "Trump has long warned of a government 'deep state.' Now in power, he’s under pressure to expose it." (AP)
>> This headline says it all: "Trump irritated that his team didn't tell him about 'TACO,' sources say" (CNN)
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CBS News officially bid farewell to outgoing boss Wendy McMahon on Friday with a short tribute on the "Evening News." Hours earlier, Semafor's Max Tani reported that McMahon and Bill Owens have been invited to testify in a California State Senate inquiry "into whether the network's parent company has violated state laws against bribery and unfair competition" by trying to settle with Trump. The California hearing is another example of Paramount suffering in the court of public opinion, as I wrote earlier this week. And here's yet another...
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The veteran "60 Minutes" correspondent is resigned to the impending payoff. "I know there's going to be a settlement," she told David Remnick on this new episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour. "I know there's going to be some money exchanged." Remnick asked if Stahl is angry with Shari Redstone, and Stahl said, "Yes, I think I am. I think I am."
Stahl also described Owens' departure as a "punch in the stomach" and said the correspondents talked about leaving with him. "He explicitly asked us not to resign," she said, "because it was discussed that we would leave it en masse."
>> Looking ahead, Stahl said she is hopeful (and is praying) that the new owners "understand the importance of allowing us to be independent and do our jobs."
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"Lester Holt delivered his final report as 'NBC Nightly News' anchor Friday after 10 years at the desk, leaving viewers with words of gratitude and optimism," Variety's Todd Spangler reports. "I’m so grateful for your trust around here," Holt told viewers. "Facts matter, words matter, journalism matters, and you matter." You can watch the six-minute sendoff on YouTube right here.
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Five fantastic weekend reads |
>> Hadas Gold (above) interviewed Curtis Yarvin, the anti-democracy writer "who has gone from fringe to MAGA mainstream." (CNN)
>> Scott Nover's deep dive about the woman dismantling USAGM: "Kari Lake won awards for overseas reporting. Now she has the job of cutting it." (WaPo)
>> Michael Kruse examined a change in Trump's outlook: "The president’s messianic rhetoric has soared since the assassination attempt." The title of his piece: "Does Trump Actually Think He’s God?" (Politico Mag)
>> Alexandra Alter interviewed Molly Jong-Fast about her new "unsparing" new memoir "about life with her famous mother, Erica Jong, and her mother's decline." (NYT)
>> Katherine Eban did a deep dive on RFK Jr.'s right-hand man, Calley Means, a MAHA star in his own right, and unearthed "questions about whether Means has embellished his personal story." (VF)
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Taylor's 'decades of dreams' |
Taylor Swift "is now the proud owner of her entire catalog of music, roughly six years after she protested the sale of her master recordings by her former record label," CNN's Alli Rosenbloom writes.
Sources told Billboard that Shamrock Capital, "the private equity firm that purchased them from Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in late 2020," sold the catalog back to Swift "for an amount relatively close to what they paid for it... around $360 million."
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Netflix is expanding Tudum, its in-person fan event, into a live-streaming variety show. "Viewers will be greeted with sneak peeks and cast reunions," plus a performance by Lady Gaga, the NYT's Nicole Sperling writes in this preview piece. "Think marketing as entertainment." The event in L.A., billed as Netflix's biggest night of the year, streams at 8 p.m. ET tonight.
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'Mountainhead' is out now |
We mentioned this new Jesse Armstrong movie yesterday. HBO decided to release it early on Max, so you can stream it now ahead of the TV premiere tonight. NPR's Linda Holmes says the movie "skewers the tech elite — and it's very satisfying..."
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Weekend box office report |
"It’s a solid weekend following the Memorial Day holiday with all titles driving around $144M worth of business, +117% from the post-holiday doldrums a year ago. Let’s rejoice and take it," Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandro says. |
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