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Wednesday, October 29, 2025 |
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Good morning. Here's the latest on Paramount, Campbell Brown, TBPN, "Morning Joe," Michael Daly, Disney, "A House of Dynamite," and much more... |
A free speech story we all need to follow
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There is a man sitting in jail in Tennessee right now over a Facebook meme he posted in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination.
Free speech lawyers say Larry Bushart's incarceration makes no sense. Bushart's son says it's an "egregious violation of his First Amendment rights."
But the sheriff at the center of the case defended the arrest in an interview with the CBS affiliate in Nashville yesterday.
The Intercept's Liliana Segura gave the "absurd prosecution" national media attention last week. She described Bushart as a former police officer and a progressive keyboard warrior who, after Kirk's death, "posted furiously, repeatedly, about why the right-wing activist did not deserve to be lionized — and warning about the escalating assault on free speech."
One of Bushart's memes resulted in an arrest warrant for "threatening mass violence at a school," though he didn't do that; the meme merely quoted President Trump's words after a previous school shooting. He is still in jail more than a month later because bail was set at $2 million, "a shocking amount, wildly beyond his financial capacity," Segura wrote.
Adam Steinbaugh, a senior attorney at FIRE who has been monitoring the case, told me he kept thinking "there must be something more to it," but every piece of further information, from the warrant application to the screenshotted Facebook thread, "suggests it's just a sheriff overreacting."
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'Facebook Jail' isn't supposed to be real |
The sheriff, Nick Weems, who posted about "evil" being right around the corner in the wake of Kirk's death, sat down with the eminent Nashville TV correspondent Phil Williams and admitted that "the meme does not actually contain any threatening words that led investigators to think it was a real threat." But Weems insists that Bushart "violated the law set forth by our legislators." Check out Williams' full NewsChannel5 report here.
Among other things, this case is a reminder that the brief burst of online energy around cancelling Kirk critics is having long-lasting consequences. (Eli Saslow's recent NYT story is another reminder.)
You don't have to approve of Bushart's anti-Trump meme to object to his imprisonment. As the Cato Institute's Matthew Cavedon wrote in this column, "Facebook Jail" "isn't supposed to be a real place." Cavedon's message: "Honor Charlie. Free Larry."
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'Based on what I read, I guess I'm not allowed to run' |
How notable is it, really, that Trump said overnight that it's "pretty clear" the US Constitution does not permit him to run for a third term? "Based on what I read, I guess I'm not allowed to run, so we'll see what happens," he told reporters.
Trump's comments support those who say he's just trolling with the "Trump 2028" merch. Then again, his attitudes and arguments change from day to day. His answers about 2028 have deviated wildly in the past. And if the past decade has taught us anything, it's that "I guess I'm not allowed to" is never where it ends for Trump. It's certainly not going to end the chatter. In a new essay for The Atlantic, J. Michael Luttig warns, "It seems abundantly clear that he will hold on to the office at any cost, including America's ruin."
People close to Trump dispute that, as this excellent CNN story makes clear; one of the sources called the third term idea "catnip" for the media and Democrats, ginning up the type of attention Trump enjoys, and distracting from his lame-duck status.
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'Local immigration court ousts reporters from hearings' |
I want to highlight this story out of Hyattsville, Maryland, in part because of the shutdown twist: "Federal officials ordered two reporters out of immigration court on Tuesday and barred them from observing future proceedings until they get permission from the Trump administration." But the two reporters can't get permission "because the Department of Justice employee who processes these requests is on furlough" due to the shutdown.
The two reporters are from the Capital News Service, the incredible student-staffed newswire from the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism. Here are all the details...
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How the shutdown could help Disney |
Disney "may soon be free to close its acquisition of FuboTV," a deal that has been on pause since April, Puck's Eriq Gardner reports: "That pause, I’m told, is about to expire," and "thanks to the standoff on Capitol Hill, many Antitrust Division staffers have been furloughed, meaning deadlines could lapse with regulators quite literally out of office. In short, Disney's Bob Iger could get lucky."
>> Gardner points out that Disney's other pending deal, with the NFL, is also before the DOJ...
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📱 'New era' of CNN subscriptions |
I remember what it felt like at The New York Times when we introduced online subscriptions. This week feels like a similar turning-point moment at CNN.
Yesterday's rollout of the All Access streaming service in the US got lots of press, and for good reason — it's "a new era" for CNN, as Deadline's Dade Hayes wrote here.
I'm still working on replying to all your individual notes about All Access. I answered many of the most common questions in this CNN.com Q&A.
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Some notable new programming |
All Access enables people to watch CNN without a traditional cable login, but the service also includes exclusive content:
>> There are brand new shows, like "The Enten Scale" with Chief Data Analyst Harry Enten and "Devoted" from Senior Correspondent Donie O’Sullivan.
>> And there are catch-up-on-the-news videos and explainers, like this Hadas Gold video about Elon Musk's launch of Grokipedia.
>> THR's Alex Weprin reports that the streaming library includes "never-before-streamed" specials from the late Anthony Bourdain. Details here.
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Paramount layoffs will hit CBS News hard |
The new Paramount is beginning to lay off about 10% of its workforce, achieving some of the cost savings that CEO David Ellison promised investors when he took charge of the company. Ellison said in a memo this morning that "we are addressing redundancies" and "phasing out roles that are no longer aligned with our evolving priorities." Paramount has suffered cut after cut in recent years, and this one is going to be especially severe.
>> Puck's Dylan Byers reports that "nearly 100 jobs" at CBS News will be eliminated. I'm told the news division cuts were planned before Bari Weiss arrived earlier this month, so in other words, this is not related to Weiss requesting memos from staffers. More to come later today...
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Another leak about stopping leaks |
Military officials involved with Trump's "expanding operations in Latin America have been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements," Phil Stewart reported for Reuters yesterday, citing three anonymous US officials as sources. He said the development "raises new questions about a military buildup that Venezuela fears may lead to an invasion." It's also yet another leak about the Pentagon's attempts to stop leaks.
CNN's Natasha Bertrand said in response that she "cannot emphasize enough how commonplace these NDAs are now" under Pete Hegseth, as officials "have to sign them for the most highly classified work down to the most mundane controlled unclassified material."
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Who's impersonating Bill de Blasio?!? |
It seemed too good to be true. And that's because it was. The Times of London, a Rupert Murdoch paper, had former NYC mayor Bill de Blasio on record criticizing Zohran Mamdani's policy ideas — a juicy story, considering BDB's public support for the likely next mayor. Murdoch's New York Post quickly ran with the story.
Except those quotes were a "complete fabrication," de Blasio told the NYT's Emma G. Fitzsimmons. He never spoke with the paper at all. The Times of London deleted the story and apologized to de Blasio "after discovering that our reporter had been misled by an individual falsely claiming to be the former New York mayor," a rep said.
>> Vital City said it best: "This might have been a low-tech trick, but journalists are going to have to figure out verification standards going forward. We have not only deepfakes (including realtime video call avatar deepfakes) but the ability to spoof voices with AI. Scary world."
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>> The "Morning Joe" crew is starting an afternoon newsletter with a clever name: "The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe." (Fast Company)
>> YouTube TV "is adding two channels from Bloomberg Media to its lineup." (Variety)
>> Andrew Kirell writes: Daily Beast special correspondent Michael Daly, one of the great columnists of our time and an even greater colleague, was awarded the Searchlight Award by the Citizens Union of NY, with John Avlon describing him as "the soul and the conscience of New York journalism." Hear, hear! (Beast)
>> Punchbowl's Andrew Desiderio witnessed this funny moment at the Capitol: "Lindsey Graham whispered something into his phone and then Siri responded with full volume: 'Calling Sean Hannity mobile.'" (X)
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>> A big booking win for TBPN: Satya Nadella's first interview about Microsoft's new deal with OpenAI was the streaming tech talk show. (CCLCT)
>> A new Adobe study surveyed over 16,000 creators and found that 86% of them are "now actively using creative generative AI." (Adobe)
>> Campbell Brown "has raised $3 million in seed funding for a new company called Forum AI, which will assess 'how major AI models perform on complex and nuanced topics.'" (THR)
>> Sens. Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal announced a bipartisan bill "that would ban AI chatbot companions for minors." (NBC News)
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>> If you haven't streamed "A House of Dynamite" on Netflix yet, today's the day. Jake Tapper interviewed screenwriter Noah Oppenheim about the film. (CNN)
>> "South Park" is debuting a new episode on Halloween, "this time taking on Donald Trump‘s demolition of the East Wing of the White House." (Deadline)
>> "Disney+ has exited its 'Doctor Who' partnership with the BBC, which made the streamer the worldwide home of the sci-fi series outside the U.K. and Ireland." The BBC "says it's committed to continuing the show." (THR)
>> Last but not least, "One Battle After Another" has picked up a record six nominations from the Gotham Film Awards. (THR)
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