Welcome to Wednesday. Here's the latest on Jake Tapper, Alex Thompson, Kari Lake, HuffPost, Laura Ingraham, Alex Cooper, "The Price Is Right," Drake, and much more...
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A troubling turning point |
Yesterday was a turning point in the already-tense dynamic between the Trump White House and the press corps. By stripping the White House Correspondents' Association of pool organizing duties, the White House is clearly trying to exert more control over who asks the president questions and what they ask. Hadas Gold has a full report on the change here.
I know New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker didn't say this lightly: "Having served as a Moscow correspondent in the early days of Putin's reign, this reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access."
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded on X with a clown emoji and called Baker a "left-wing stenographer" posing as a journalist. That's profoundly unfair to Baker, but it reaffirmed that the Trump White House wants to have this fight, even as Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich warns that Republicans will regret it someday.
Heinrich told a Trump promoter on X, "if you think MAGA benefits from this in the long term, you’re dead wrong. You would not have trusted [a] Democratic admin to pick its own pool – but now that door is open."
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WH adds pro-Trump outlets to the pool |
Overnight we learned how the new press pool plan is being implemented. The AP remains banned, and a Reuters wire reporter was also cut from the Wednesday rotation. Staffers from two pro-Trump outlets, Newsmax and The Blaze, were added. And perhaps most tellingly, HuffPost was taken out of its planned Wednesday spot as the print pooler, and replaced by Axios. HuffPost reporter S.V. Dáte has been a thorn in Trump's side for years, and Trump bristled at his questions the last time he was in the pool.
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HuffPost calls it 'cowardly' |
HuffPost's new editor Whitney Snyder, on his first day (!) in the job, said in a statement, "HuffPost condemns this egregious violation of the First Amendment. Americans deserve fair and honest reporting on their president. The White House must stop this cowardly behavior and restore HuffPost’s place in the press pool immediately."
But that's not going to happen. The White House will continue to tighten its grip. "The administration is operating something of a pincer movement, applying pressure to all possible vulnerabilities," NPR's David Folkenflik wrote this morning.
Leavitt and company claim they're trying to expand access to a greater number of media outlets, but that's disingenuous at best, since these actions are punitive in nature. For example: Katie Miller, a top adviser to Elon Musk and DOGE, replied to Baker and Leavitt last night and said "guess he won't be a pooler anytime soon 🤷🏻♀️."
From the Pentagon to the press briefing room, the plan is obvious: Punish traditional journalists who ask tough questions and promote a parallel pro-Trump media apparatus. By propping up right-wing content creators (who opine rather than report) "the administration has created a swell of flattering media coverage, a gauzy bubble around its every decision, no matter how destructive or incoherent," Anna Merlan wrote for Mother Jones yesterday.
It's important to note, as Baker did, that "none of this will stop professional news outlets from covering this president in the same full, fair, tough and unflinching way that we always have." But it will stop some Americans from believing professional reporting. Then again, the notion of a shared reality in America was shattered a long time ago...
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Since waking up this morning, Trump has, on Truth Social:
– Derided the Wall Street Journal for editorials he doesn't agree with.
– Talked about opening a museum to honor far-right Fox host Mark Levin.
– Posted a clip of border czar Tom Homan on "Fox & Friends" and shouted "AMERICA LOVES TOM HOMAN!!!"
– Complained about "Fake books and stories," probably in reaction to Michael Wolff's recent release. "At some point I am going to sue some of these dishonest authors and book publishers, or even media in general, to find out whether or not these 'anonymous sources' even exist, which they largely do not," Trump wrote. "They are made up, defamatory fiction, and a big price should be paid for this blatant dishonesty. I'll do it as a service to our Country. Who knows, maybe we will create some NICE NEW LAW!!!"
All of this is related. It's all of a piece. This HuffPost headline from Igor Bobic sums it up best: "Donald Trump’s Revenge Tour Is In Full Swing."
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Political media notes and quotes |
>> During yesterday's briefing, Leavitt quoted "a report from the Associated Press, even though the White House [had just] labeled the news organization 'fake news,'" Ted Johnson noticed.
>> I appeared on the PBS "NewsHour" last night for a segment about Trump's press restrictions, and I pointed out that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went to Gitmo without the Pentagon press corps, but did bring along his former Fox colleague Laura Ingraham.
>> "Court proceedings have emerged as a key source of information on what Elon Musk and DOGE are up to," Bloomberg's Zoe Tillman observed.
>> Aidan McLaughlin noted that incoming FBI deputy director Dan Bongino is still hosting his podcast, and he kicked it off yesterday "by hawking ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine."
>> "Most politicians generally treat social media like a bulletin board in the sky. They post and then ghost." But VP JD Vance "is often a reply guy." Philip Wegmann penned this great piece about the VP's X habit.
>> Kari Lake has been named an adviser to the Voice of America's parent, the US Agency for Global Media, "as she awaits process to become VOA's director," the aforementioned David Folkenflik reported.
>> The #1 show on cable news last weekend was the premiere episode of Lara Trump's Saturday night Fox News show.
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New book about Biden 'cover-up' |
The day after Trump won the election, CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios correspondent Alex Thompson decided to co-author a book. "We wanted to know more about what we all just lived through," Tapper told me. "More than 200 interviews later, Alex and I have a much better idea. And soon you all will too."
The resulting book is titled "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again." It's coming out on May 20 from Penguin Press.
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Tapper and Thompson write: "What the world saw at Joe Biden’s one and only debate was not an anomaly — it was not a cold, it was not someone who was under or overprepared, it was not someone who was just a little tired. It was the natural result of an eighty-one-year-old man whose faculties had been diminishing for years. Biden, his family, and his team let their self-interest and fear of another Trump term justify trying to put an at times addled old man in the Oval Office for four more years. What was the extent of it? Was it a cover-up? Was it a conspiracy? We will let the facts speak for themselves."
The rest of the book is subject to a strict embargo, as is often the case with forthcoming releases that contain big scoops. Here's the preorder link...
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Video: The 'DEI' blame game (is not a game at all) |
As airline close calls continue to shock the country, I worked with CNN's Zoë Todd, McKenna Ewen and Channon Hodge to examine the MAGA media blame game. Fox's Laura Ingraham pushed the DEI-causing-crashes idea again last week, tapping into awful old prejudices. But if Ingraham really wanted answers to her supposed questions, she would reach out to someone like Tennessee Garvey, chairman at the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals. So that's what we did. Hear from Garvey in this new digital video...
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>> New York Public Radio will cut 21 full-time roles, around 7% of its staff, and axe seven open positions as it continues to "struggle with a financial shortfall," Katie Robertson reports. (NYT)
>> "Payload, a digital media startup focused on the business and policy of space, has raised an additional $1.4 million," Sara Fischer reports. (Axios)
>> "Almost every U.K. daily newspaper title gave over its print front and website home pages to a campaign against government proposals to create a copyright exemption for artificial intelligence companies,” Bron Maher reports. (Press Gazette)
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The fallout at MSNBC continued yesterday, as Chris Hayes talked about the "shakeups" on the air and praised both Joy Reid and Alex Wagner. He said "dozens and dozens of people" in off-air roles are "freaked out, uncertain about their future," due to the show cancellations and ensuing layoffs. According to the union representing the network's writers and producers, "99 of their number are slated for cuts," THR's Katie Kilkenny wrote. (Staffers are being encouraged to apply for a raft of new jobs at MSNBC.)
>> Quoting from the union's statement: "The news of layoffs comes against the backdrop of the President of the United States making direct threats against MSNBC, among other news outlets, and at a time when it has never been more crucial to have a fully staffed newsroom to cover a democracy under attack."
>> Michael Steele hosted the 7 p.m. hour last night.
>> Eugene Daniels is leaving Politico to "co-host a weekend roundtable show" on MSNBC.
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>> Apple says it is fixing a "bug" on some iPhones "in which its text-to-speech transcription software is sometimes replacing certain words with an 'r' consonant — including 'racist' — with 'Trump.'" (WSJ)
>> YouTube is working on showing "fewer mid-roll ads that it thinks will interrupt sentences or action sequences, and more at 'natural break points' like pauses or transitions." (The Verge)
>> Dow Jones "has quietly built an A.I. marketplace for publishers to license their content to corporations." (Axios)
>> Apple shareholders have voted "against dismantling its DEI initiatives, rebuffing a conservative think tank's recommendation." (NBC News)
>> OpenAI has rolled out its deep research feature, a "web browsing agent that creates thorough reports," to paying customers. (TechCrunch)
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As we mentioned yesterday, Puck reported the Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy is expected to step down by the end of the year. But Kennedy isn't confirming anything yet. A source familiar with the matter told CNN's Liam Reilly that "there's nothing there right now," and any retirement plans will be made "public" when "actual decisions are made."
>> Regardless, within hours of the reports, execs and mega-producers "were scrambling to get on the radar" of Bob Iger, Variety notes...
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Lewinsky sits down with Alex Cooper |
.CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister scoops: Alex Cooper — the most popular female podcaster in the world — sat down with Monica Lewinsky on her "Call Her Daddy" podcast for an hourlong conversation about her affair with then-President Bill Clinton. Nearly 30 years later, Lewinsky says Clinton should’ve resigned from office, when reflecting on how the White House handled the global scandal.
Lewinsky (who is promoting her own new pod) is the latest "get" for Cooper, who has a massive reach through her mega SiriusXM deal...
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Across the entertainment world |
>> Warner Bros. Discovery has restructured its video game division and shut down three game studios. (THR)
>> Alix Earle's "Hot Mess" podcast "has been dropped by Alex Cooper's Unwell Network," Tatiana Siegel reports. (Variety)
>> "Disney/Lucasfilm is re-releasing ‘Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith’ on April 25 for its 20th anniversary," Anthony D’Alessandro reports. (Deadline)
>> "A judge has allowed the estate of Michael Crichton to pursue its lawsuit over the Max show ‘The Pitt,’ which the estate argues is an unauthorized reboot of ‘ER,’” Gene Maddaus reports. (Variety)
>> All 21 tracks from "$ome $exy $ongs 4 U," Drake's latest album with PartyNextDoor, debuted on the Hot 100. (Billboard)
>> And last but not least, happy 10,000th episode to "The Price Is Right!" I'm going to tune in this morning to celebrate the occasion. (Variety)
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