| | | | | Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Reliable Sources newsletter! I'm Tom Kludt, pinch-hitting for the vacationing Brian Stelter. We begin tonight with a disturbance in the pro-Trump media ecosystem... | | Tuesday began with a fresh report in the Washington Post that said President Trump was curious how his ongoing attacks against Attorney General Jeff Sessions would land in conservative media.
I'd say Trump has gotten his answer -- loud and clear. After all, it isn't every day when you read a sentence like this on Breitbart:
"President Trump's decision Tuesday to attack Attorney General Jeff Sessions over Sessions' 'position' on Hillary Clinton's various scandals only serves to highlight Trump's own hypocrisy on the issue — and is likely to fuel concerns from his base who see Sessions at [sic] the best hope to fulfill Trump's immigration policies."
Your eyes might have hovered over "hypocrisy" for a beat there, but don't sleep on the last part of that sentence. Sessions really might be something of a sacred cow to Breitbart and its ilk, and attacking him would seem to only alienate a wing that was so crucial to Trump's win last year.
Oliver Darcy wrote all about this for us today. He emails: Trump's attacks on Sessions have touched off a firestorm of outrage inside the pro-Trump media universe where Sessions is revered as a conservative icon. Not only is Breitbart calling the president out -- a source at the website told me some writers are furious -- but heavyweights like Rush Limbaugh and Tucker Carlson have expressed dismay. Even the Drudge Report got in on the action. The banner headline warned of a Republican "CIVIL WAR" and linked to a McClatchy story that said Trump is "getting a bitter Washington lesson when he messes with Jeff Sessions -- you don't pick a fight with one of the Senate's guys."
Oliver adds: That said, Trump does have his defenders. Jim Hoft, publisher of the far-right Gateway Pundit, told me Sessions "never should have recused himself" and argued Trump is "right to be angry." And Sean Hannity was noticeably quiet about the Trump-Sessions dust up on his television show last night.
Read Oliver's full story here... | | Will Trump and Sessions reach a detente? | | Trump has, so far, been undeterred by the pushback from conservative media. He kicked off Tuesday with a tweet saying that Session took a "VERY weak position" on Hillary Clinton's "crimes." And later in the afternoon, Trump was quoted in an interview saying that he was "very disappointed" in his attorney general while declining to say whether he will fire Sessions.
Speaking of that interview... | | Trump talks to the Wall Street Journal | | Trump spoke to the Wall Street Journal for 45 minutes on Tuesday -- nearly a week after the president's eye-popping interview with the New York Times.
The interview was considerably less explosive than Trump's sit-down with the Times. The biggest development to emerge from the conversation with the WSJ was probably Trump's continued criticism of Sessions.
In the interview, Trump also told the Journal that he'd prefer Republicans to pass a health care bill that both repeals and replaces Obamacare. "The problem with [straight] repeal is you'll have millions of people out there -- you'll have people out there who will say, 'How do we know we're going to have health care?'" Trump said. "And I hate to do that to people. I'm always concerned about that. I don't like it from that standpoint."
The Journal's Peter Nicholas noted the White House staffers who attended the interview: Anthony Scaramucci, Reince Priebus, Gary Cohn and Hope Hicks.
At one point in the interview, Nicholas said that Ivanka Trump entered the room.
"Thanks, honey," the President told her, before inviting her to join them in the room. She then took a seat on the couch, Nicholas reported.
| | The Mooch wants heads to roll | | Scaramucci said he wants to "deescalate the tension" between the Trump administration and the news media. But in the halls of the White House press offices, the tumult might only be starting to build.
When he was asked Tuesday morning how he intends put a cap on the leaks that have roiled the White House, Scaramucci was blunt: "I'm going to fire everybody -- that's how. You're either going to stop leaking, or you're going to get fired."
On Tuesday, Scaramucci delivered on that promise... | | Today in: how not to fire someone | | Jeremy Diamond has the story on the shake-up that Scaramucci has undertaken at the White House press shop. The house-cleaning began Tuesday morning with news that Michael Short, the assistant press secretary, had gotten the axe. But that story quickly turned into a rolling calamity, or perhaps a case study on firings gone wrong.
Here's how it went down on Tuesday:
--9:15 AM: Politico's Tara Palmeri breaks the news, reporting that Scaramucci himself confirmed Short's dismissal.
--10:05 AM: Shortly after Palmeri's story published, Short reveals that it came as news to him. "No one has told me anything and the entire premise is false," he told Diamond.
--11:00 AM: Scaramucci tells reporters at a gaggle that the "leak" about Short's firing "really upsets me as a human being and as a Roman Catholic" -- glossing over the fact that he confirmed the news to Palmeri!
--12:43 PM: Jonathan Swan of Axios gets a text from Short: "I have resigned."
So, uh, what the hell happened? According to Palmeri, "Scaramucci was supposed to tell Short at 9:15am but was delayed to deal by legal protocol." | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
--Francisco Cortes, the former Fox News Latino executive who was accused of sexual assault, is filing his own lawsuit against 21st Century Fox claiming he was made to serve as a "useful scapegoat." (THR)
--Snopes met its $500K crowdfunding goal in one day. (Poynter)
--Twitter is shutting down SnappyTV, offering instead a TV clipping tool in its Twitter Media Studio product geared towards media companies. (Digiday)
--The future is now: Nielsen added Hulu and YouTube skinny bundles to its TV ratings. (WSJ) | | Capitol cops to reporters: Delete your photos | | After protesters disrupted Tuesday's health care vote in the Senate, a disquieting scene began to emerge from reporters on the scene.
Andrew Desiderio, a reporter for The Daily Beast, tweeted that Capitol Police "made me delete the video I recorded." HuffPost's Jennifer Bendery shared a similar account, saying that reporters were "blocked from Senate halls," where protesters were being arrested. Bendery said she heard cops telling reporters to delete their photos.
If this seems off to you, you're not alone. Mickey Osterreicher, the general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, took to Twitter to assert that the police had committed "constitutional violations" for barring photos in a public place where the reporters had a legal right to be.
I left a couple messages with the Capitol Police but have not heard back. Watch this space for more updates… | | Strong earnings from AT&T | | The Wrap has the rundown on what was a strong second quarter for AT&T ahead of its proposed merger with Time Warner:
"AT&T reported revenue of $39.8 billion and earnings of 79 cents a share for the three months ended June 30 [sic]. That compares with the $40.5 billion in revenue and earnings of 72 cents a share the telecom giant earned in the corresponding period last year. Analysts had expected the company to report revenue of $39.8 billion and earnings of 74 cents a share."
Read more here... | | News & Doc Emmy noms announced | | Nominations for the News & Documentary Emmy Awards were announced today, and I'd be remiss if I didn't tip my cap to the home team. CNN Worldwide hauled in a total of 18 nods, a record for the network. PBS led all comers with 48 nominations, followed by CBS with 43.
The awards will be presented October 5 in NYC.
Read about all of the nominees here. | | 'Russia Week' is a ratings win for Colbert | | | Frank Pallotta emails: The Late Show's "Russia Week" was a ratings winner for Stephen Colbert and company. The CBS late night broadcast beat his main rival, Jimmy Fallon and "The Tonight Show" by 450,000 viewers, or 19% last week. That's the largest margin for Colbert over Fallon since Colbert's premiere week in September 2015. The Late Show's "Russia Week" featured segments that Colbert recorded while he was in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and putting the host in the field looked like it worked for the him. | | By Lisa France:
--2017 MTV Video Music Awards nominations were announced Tuesday and Kendrick Lamar led with the most.
--Barbara Sinatra, widow of Frank Sinatra, died Tuesday at the age of 90. She was the singer's fourth and longest wife. After his death in 1998, she wrote a book about their life together and continued her focus on philanthropy.
--Netflix has announced a new animated show with "Simpsons" creator, Matt Groening. "Disenchantment" will begin airing in 2018 with 10 episodes.
--A new "James Bond" movie is scheduled to hit theaters in 2019, but the announcement wasn't accompanied by news that Daniel Craig will be starring in it.
Two more, courtesy of Frank Pallotta:
--Michael Caine, one of Christopher Nolan's favorite actors, popped up in Nolan's "Dunkirk." But he was heard, not seen. (Vulture)
--Steven Spielberg's classic "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" returns to theaters on September 1 for its 40th Anniversary with a remastered 4k director's cut. (THR)
And a couple more, via Megan Thomas:
--T.J. Miller is OK with people thinking of him as a "villain" for leaving "Silicon Valley." (Vulture)
--Here are some details on "The Secret Lunches of Chelsea & Ivanka." (THR) | | Gabe Sherman leaves NYMag for Vanity Fair | | Hadas Gold broke the story on this major move in the world of media reporting: Gabe Sherman, whose reporting on Fox News and Roger Ailes has been second-to-none, is leaving New York Magazine to join Vanity Fair.
Sherman has been at NYMag for the past nine years, where he's broken an untold number of stories on all the turmoil and drama that has consumed the Fox universe. His 2014 book on Ailes, "The Loudest Voice in the Room," remains essential reading for any follower of conservative media.
--Dream team? The move gives Vanity Fair a murderer's row on the media beat. Sherman joins fellow Fox whisperer Sarah Ellison and NYC media maven Joe Pompeo, who joined the magazine this month. | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
--BuzzFeed faces a $5 million lawsuit from an immigration bond company who accuses them of reporting a story "full of false and defamatory statements." (Courthouse News)
--Meet Charles Sommer, the man who has been covering conservative news longer than the rest of us. (Poynter) | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Email us... we're at reliablesources@cnn.com... we appreciate every email. | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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