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Friday, December 19, 2025 |
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Happy Friday! Here's the latest on Reddit, Larry Ellison, Ben Shapiro, Elle Duncan, Gerry Cardinale, Robert Caro, Katie Miller, and more... |
This year, President Trump "has tested the limits of the First Amendment time and again." And an excellent new CNN.com feature gathers all those incidents in one place, making it easier to see the scope of his crackdown and suss out connections between them. It's about 3,000 words long, with many examples involving the media, federal workers, universities, law firms, protesters and more.
The Trump administration is "trying to frighten Americans out of exercising their First Amendment rights by denying them benefits if they dare to do something that Trump doesn't like," Burt Neuborne, a civil liberties professor at NYU law school, told CNN's Kaanita Iyer and Matt Stiles.
Neuborne warned that the "net result" would be "a society that is not exercising their First Amendment rights. The First Amendment rights are there, but it's too costly to exercise them."
Check out the timeline here. This week's addition was Trump's lawsuit against the BBC. Today, Vladimir Putin was asked about the suit — by a BBC reporter — and he said Trump is "right" to sue.
As the Freedom Forum's Alex Morey wrote, the case "faces significant legal hurdles." But several First Amendment attorneys told NPR's David Folkenflik "they believe Trump's lawsuit will result in a settlement of some kind." It was this week last year when Disney's ABC settled with Trump, emboldening the president-elect and providing a kind of playbook for him going forward...
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The limits of retribution |
The media obviously needs to record when Trump's power plays succeed, but maybe even more so when they don't. I mean, remember DOGE? And the way Elon Musk's government-slashing campaign captivated so much attention? It was "ultimately an inconsequential failure," Richard Tofel wrote in this year-end column.
"The attacks on a free press, apart from thoroughgoing abuse of the FCC, remain primarily rhetorical," Tofel asserted. "On the other hand, the weaponization of the DOJ "and the dismantling of federal public health, international and domestic public broadcasting, international development assistance and perhaps federal aid to science and education are very much in process."
>> Here's a notable headline from the NYT's On Politics newsletter: "Trump Finds That Retribution Isn't Always So Easy."
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The 'counterterrorism' chill |
This Washington Post piece is a reminder that the Trump admin is pursuing an "expansive effort to root out what it sees as rampant left-wing domestic terrorism," even though "Antifa" is "more of an ideology, not an organization with leadership and structure, according to a number of political scientists."
"Critics warn that the plan signals an impending crackdown on political dissent under the banner of counterterrorism," Eva Dou, Joseph Menn and Will Oremus wrote, potentially chilling "Americans' First Amendment right to protest the administration's policies."
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Sara Fischer broke the news for Axios yesterday: "TikTok has signed a deal to divest its U.S. entity to a joint venture controlled by American investors," and the agreement "is set to close on Jan. 22."
It looks like an incredibly lucrative opportunity for Trump allies like Larry Ellison. But it's not a truly done deal yet. CEO Shou Chew "said in his memo that there is more work to be done before the deal is finalized," CNN's Clare Duffy noted.
Crucially, "the deal is expected to need approval from the Chinese government before closing," and when a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson was asked for comment on Friday, he said, "China's position on the TikTok issue is consistent and clear." Hmmm...
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'Several hundred thousand' Epstein docs coming today |
The "year of the Epstein files" enters its "final chapter" today, Zachary Basu writes for Axios, as the Justice Department is expected to release "the bulk of its unclassified archive on Jeffrey Epstein." Just now, Deputy AG Todd Blanche said on "Fox & Friends" this morning that "several hundred thousand documents" will come out today," and then "over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more..."
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4️⃣ stories you should know about |
>> A post on Reddit from a man named John "helped investigators find Brown and MIT shooting suspect." (CNN)
>> Chris Whipple's bombshell Vanity Fair story, based on his interviews with Susie Wiles, led to "the biggest subscription day for the Condé Nast magazine since 2016." (Status)
>> Hedge fund Elliott Management "is considering taking bookseller Barnes & Noble and UK book chain Waterstones public." A successful offering "would highlight the staying power of bricks-and-mortar booksellers." (WSJ)
>> In the UK "sweeping changes to Downing Street's press lobby system have been criticized by journalists." (The Guardian)
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Ben Shapiro vs. Tucker, Megyn, Candace, et al |
Andrew Kirell writes: Intense MAGA media infighting was on full display last night at a TPUSA event in Phoenix. The two headliners, Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson, acting as stand-ins for their respective MAGA wings, jabbed at one another from the podium.
"The conservative movement is in serious danger," Shapiro said, "from charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty." He went scorched earth, saying defenders of Candace Owens, including Megyn Kelly by name, are "guilty of cowardice." He bashed Carlson for hosting Nick Fuentes, "an anti-American piece of refuse," and implored Carlson to "take responsibility" for his guest choices.
Carlson, speaking an hour later, dismissed Shapiro: "That guy is pompous," he said, adding that he "laughed" backstage while watching Shapiro's speech. "To hear calls for, like, deplatforming and denouncing people at a Charlie Kirk event, I'm like, what?! This is hilarious."
>> As Politico's Andrew Howard reports from Phoenix, Erika Kirk also spoke and "addressed the MAGA movement’s fractures, while casting her late husband as a rare unifier and pleading with the crowd to embrace disagreement."
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The #1 fact about the Kennedy Center's name... |
...is that Congress designated the name in 1964. As for the board's vote yesterday to rename it the "Trump Kennedy Center," "there is absolutely no way they can do this legally," David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law who specializes in legislation, told CNN. However, "the administration is not concerning itself with laws unless it has a realistic prospect of getting sued."
News stories initially focused on the vote itself, then added the crucial context about the federal law that makes the name change legally dubious. Fox's Bret Baier asked Senate majority leader John Thune about it, and he said, "We'll take a look at it..."
>> The Bulwark's Sam Stein said he was "trying to envision the Fox News coverage if Barack Obama had the Kennedy Center named after him."
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'David and I would like an answer' |
Roger Cheng and Lucas Manfredi's question over at TheWrap: "Can a rejected Paramount still win over Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders?"
Gerry Cardinale says yes. The RedBird Capital founder went on Matt Belloni's "The Town" to press Paramount's case. Cardinale claimed, "David Ellison has done more for Warner Bros. shareholders in three months than David Zaslav has done in three years. Think about that."
Belloni asked, "Why not just raise it a few dollars and say to Netflix, OK, we're up to $32, $33?" Cardinale: "That would be a little odd, given that we haven't gotten a response yet on our sixth offer. So why would I come in and up my seventh offer?" he asked. "David and I would like an answer" to the sixth offer, he added. I suspect WBD would say the response is evident...
>> Related: "Once a pariah, Saudi Arabia is now Hollywood's hot cash source," the LAT's Stacy Perman, August Brown and Samantha Masunaga write.
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>> John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois signed off the "CBS Evening News" by emphasizing the importance of "following the facts, not opinions," all while Bari Weiss is getting press for planning a series of opinionated dialogues. (CBS)
>> ESPN anchor Elle Duncan's deal is done: She's now Netflix's "first on-air sports host." (Variety)
>> End of a Discovery era: David Leavy is leaving WBD. "To witness the company's extraordinary evolution and global growth over the past 25 years has been incredible," he says. Cheers, DL! (Variety)
>> CNN has renewed "Have I Got News for You" for a fourth season. (Deadline)
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>> Anna Merlan charts how Benny Johnson "went from BuzzFeed plagiarist to MAGA's chief content creator." (Mother Jones)
>> Tess Owen dives deep into Katie Miller's efforts to launch a MAGA podcasting career and be known as the "Trad-Wife in Chief." (Slate)
>> Christopher Rufo argues "the liberal mind is influenced by the New York Times, the conservative mind by the X algorithm—for now." (City Journal)
>> David Gilbert highlights new research that shows "the most powerful politics influencers barely post about politics." (WIRED)
>> Carlos Lozada connects the dots between Olivia Nuzzi, Karine Jean-Pierre and Eric Trump's "grievance memoirs." (NYT)
>> James Rainey writes about the Santa Barbara News Press coming "back from the dead." (LAT)
>> John Herrman writes that it’s not just authors, musicians, and filmmakers who are stressed about AI: Gamers are "extremely mad" too. (NY Mag)
>> Tyler Cowen says "goodbye to the age of the book." (The Free Press)
>> Nika Khutsieva says the Russian ban on Roblox has stirred debate about "the utility of bans in a world where children can bypass limits with a few clicks." (Reuters)
>> Bill Carter wants NBC to let Americans watch "SNL UK." (LateNighter)
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>> The WSJ website's most popular story right now: "We Let AI Run Our Office Vending Machine. It Lost Hundreds of Dollars." Joanna Stern says Anthropic still viewed it as a success... (WSJ)
>> Meta "is developing a new image and video-focused AI model code-named Mango alongside the company's next text-based large language model." (WSJ)
>> YouTube "has terminated two prominent channels that used artificial intelligence to create fake movie trailers." (Deadline)
>> "Apple is expanding the number of ads that appear in App Store search results." (9To5Mac)
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Entertainment notes and quotes |
>> Taylor Swift and Disney+ "are moving up the final two episodes of her six-part End of an Era docuseries." The episodes will now air on Dec. 23. (THR)
>> Jimmy Kimmel tearfully thanked his viewers after his, um... eventful... year. "You literally pulled us out of a hole," he said. (Variety)
>> I missed this intriguing news the other day: Robert Caro's "The Power Broker" might "be heading towards its first screen adaptation. Matthew Rhys is in talks with Netflix about the project." (Deadline)
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