Forward

EXEC SUMMARY: Scroll down for a sneak peek at HuffPost's new look, Knight's next investments, the week ahead calendar, and much more...

The X factor

Right now this is the most important X factor in the impeachment fight: Will right wing media protect Trump from being convicted and removed from office?

Evidence is mounting that Trump abused power and possibly broke the law. But Trump just keeps on going -- attacking the process and the whistleblower and other witnesses, perhaps obstructing justice in real time. And the loudest voices on Fox News and talk radio seem A-OK with all of it. Trump along with some right-wing outlets are actively trying to out the whistleblower who exposed the Ukraine scandal. So, are Fox's pro-Trump talk shows the biggest thing standing between POTUS and removal from office?

"Deeply appalling"

Jeffrey Toobin on CNN Sunday night: "‪If Donald Trump were the head of a Fortune 500 company and he was doing what he's doing about this whistleblower, denouncing him, asking him to be unmasked, he would be fired by the board of the company. The way he's talking about this whistleblower is so contrary to all modern law about whistleblowing, it's just a deeply appalling thing."

>> WaPo's Greg Jaffe said this is the "first time I can recall a president encouraging the news media to publish confidential information about his own government..."

Deputy VP Sean Hannity...

CNN's Katelyn Polantz writes: Sean Hannity makes several appearances in the newly released Mueller interview notes -- fleshing out just how entwined the primetime TV personality has become with the Trump political operation.

An example: Then-Trump deputy campaign chairman "[Rick] Gates said, during the campaign, Trump and [campaign chairman Paul Manafort talked to Sean Hannity in their offices often," special counsel's office investigators noted Gates told them in April 2018. Also, according to the notes, Manafort emailed Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and others three days before the election, saying he had briefed Hannity...

>> Previously, Hannity was named in federal court during a proceeding about Michael Cohen, IDing him as one of Cohen's three legal clients..

Thanks to CNN and BuzzFeed...

Worth noting: Saturday's release of some Mueller memos is the direct result of CNN and BuzzFeed News suing the DOJ for access to the witness interview notes. Inquirer columnist Will Bunch gave a shout out to the two news outlets for "relentlessly pushing to gain this information through our Freedom of Information laws."

>> "Per a judge's order, the Justice Department will continue to release new tranches of the Mueller investigative notes monthly to CNN and BuzzFeed," Polantz notes...

Joe Walsh: Fox News viewers 'are being lied to'

The right-wing media's "alternative reality" about impeachment is "an absolute shame" and downright "dangerous," former congressman and conservative radio host Joe Walsh told me on Sunday's "Reliable Sources." Walsh, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, told me he doesn't get booked on Fox anymore. "Most of the people in the conservative media are not going to change," he said. But, he asserted, the polls indicate that "more and more Republicans understand that the president did something wrong." Clare Duffy wrote up the interview for CNN Business...

Fox's newest poll...

...Sparked a presidential complaint on Sunday:

CNN's JEREMY DIAMOND: "Mr. President, according to several recent polls, more Americans want you to be impeached…"

TRUMP: "Well, you're reading the wrong polls. You're reading the wrong polls."
DIAMOND: "…Fox News, NBC…"
TRUMP: "You're reading, let me just tell you…"
DIAMOND: "…the Washington Post…"
TRUMP: "I have the real polls. I have the real polls. The CNN polls are fake. The FOX polls have always been lousy, I tell them they ought to get themselves a new pollster..."

Per CNN's Jennifer Agiesta, "three polls released in the last few days have found that about half of Americans support impeaching Donald Trump and removing him from office. The Fox News poll released this morning found 49% in favor of impeaching and removing the president, 45% were opposed. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll also released this morning found 49% in favor of impeaching and removing the president, 46% were opposed. And the Washington Post/ABC News poll released its findings on impeachment earlier this week and found 49% in favor of impeaching and removing the president with 47% opposed."

Lowry's take

Brian Lowry writes: I'm a broken record on this, but the interests of the Trump administration and Fox News/conservative radio are not entirely aligned. The latter can do quite well with a few million passionate listeners/viewers. Hannity and Limbaugh don't need to attract anyone who doesn't already agree with them. Speaking exclusively to that constituency politically, by contrast, is perilous to national electoral victories.

>> Case in point: While CNN and MSNBC were covering impeachment in the 8pm hour on Sunday, Fox was running an hour-long ad for its Fox Nation streaming service...

"Americans Hate One Another. Impeachment Isn't Helping."

That's the headline on Emma Green's latest for The Atlantic. While "the country is full of people with mixed identities and beliefs who occupy some point in the middle of the political spectrum," Green says, "their lives are still influenced by the people who listen to talk radio, read partisan websites, and watch MSNBC or Fox News." She spoke with political scientists who "compared people with intensely partisan identities to smokers: Their exhalations shape the environment of the people around them, even those who aren't smokers themselves..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- BREAKING: Four witnesses who are scheduled to testify in the impeachment inquiry on Monday are "all expected to defy subpoenas," Manu Raju reports... (Twitter)

-- View from the left: Jon Favreau asks, "This entire impeachment process is just gonna be all of us knocking down the most offensively stupid arguments from Trump supporters every minute of every day, isn't it?" (Twitter)

-- View from the right: Hugh Hewitt says a few key members of the "commentariat could tip Trump's impeachment one way or the other..." (WaPo)

-- Sunday night's most-read WaPo story: "Mulvaney allies to try to stonewall Democrats' impeachment inquiry, officials say..." (WaPo)

-- Adam Schiff told Chris Cuomo that Trump supporters live in "alternate fact world," and "I think if Richard Nixon had had Fox prime time, he would have never been forced to leave office..." (Daily Caller)

Media week ahead calendar

Monday: Web Summit kicks off in Lisbon...

Monday morning: TIME's Edward Felsenthal and Keith Grossman will ring the opening bell at the NYSE to mark the one year anniversary of Marc and Lynne Benioff buying the media brand...

Monday afternoon: Trump welcomes the World Series champs to the W.H., then heads to Kentucky for a rally...

Monday afternoon: Lester Holt will accept the 2019 Walter Cronkite Award at ASU...

Tuesday: The Roger Stone trial begins...

Tuesday: Seth Meyers' stand-up comedy special debuts on Netflix...

Tuesday night: "Little Mermaid Live" airs on ABC...

Friday: "Doctor Sleep" — Stephen King's "The Shining" sequel — will try scaring up box offices...

Election Day!

November 5 will be "the busiest Election Day between the fall of 2018 and the fall of 2020," The Nation's John Nichols wrote the other day. He suggested that Tuesday could be a "second blue wave." There are important elections happening in communities from coast to coast... Scroll through these Google News results for some examples...

"Triggered" time

Donald Trump, Jr. will be out selling his new book "Triggered" all week long. The subtitle -- "How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us" -- sums up the modern-day GOP's message to voters in eleven simple words. The book is out on Tuesday... The NYT's Maggie Haberman had a first look on Friday, and Bloomberg's Jennifer Jacobs has more here...

>> Jacobs: "The 294-page book reads at times like an extended version of a tweetstorm..."

Will "A Warning" leak this week?

I suspect that it will. "A Warning," by Anonymous, isn't supposed to go on sale until November 19. But the book has already shipped to bookstores... And lots of reporters are trying to get hold of copies...

>> Over the weekend, the NYT's Annie Karni reported new info about how the book came about, and said the first printing of "A Warning" will be 500,000 copies. Absolutely massive...

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- "Trump doesn't think House Democrats' impeachment inquiry should get any media coverage. Meanwhile, he's ravenously consuming news about the subject — primarily through a friendly lens," Daniel Lippman reports... (Politico)

-- Alexi McCammond tweeted her latest: "Sources familiar with the president's iPhone told me and Jonathan Swan that the president maintains a digital portal to the two newspapers he recently banished from the West Wing: the Washington Post and the New York Times..." (Axios)

-- Sunday's best read about Trump's Saturday night trip to MSG: "The President Enters the Octagon" by Jason Gay... (WSJ)

-- The point I made on Sunday's "New Day:" This trip potentially helped Trump's friends, namely UFC chief Dana White and UFC owner Endeavor co-CEO Ari Emanuel, just a few weeks after Endeavor's failed IPO...

-- Ellen L. Weintraub, chair of the Federal Election Commission, proposes a middle path: "Don't abolish political ads on social media. Stop microtargeting." (WaPo)

FIRST LOOK:

HuffPost to debut new look and tagline

Oliver Darcy emails: HuffPost is getting a facelift. The website is being treated to a redesign that updates its look and navigation to showcase the range of stories it publishes and breadth of reporting it offers. The redesign will also offer readers more opportunities to engage with reporters and editors, and it will allow staff an added ability to engage in return. The new look debuts Monday morning, so check it out then...

"It's personal"

Darcy adds: Along with a new look, HuffPost is getting a new tagline: "It's personal." In a note EIC Lydia Polgreen will share on Monday, she explains, "At HuffPost, we put people first. This means we believe that real life is news and news is personal." Polgreen adds, "What unites our journalism is our dedication to serving you, and putting your life at the heart of our journalism. Welcome to the new HuffPost, where everyday, it's personal."

YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST...

Knight invests $3.5 million

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation just announced "more than $3.5 million in funding to support new, independent research into issues at the forefront of national tech policy debates." The funds are being shared with 22 universities, think tanks and advocacy organizations. Knight VP Sam Gill says "these issues are moving faster than we can evaluate and analyze them," so "we need to close the knowledge gap, if our society is going to make smart decisions about how to ensure technology strengthens democracy rather than weakening it..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- Someone who supports the former staff of Deadspin still seems to have control of the website's Twitter account... On Saturday, @Deadspin posted lots of links critical of G/O Media management, including a link to this LA Times piece: "Deadspin's audience numbers don't support 'stick to sports' mandate..." (Twitter)

-- A fascinating piece by Joshua Benton: "'Data voids' on the web have opened a door to manipulators and other disinformation pushers..." (NiemanLab)

-- Peter Osnos, Random House's point person for "The Art of the Deal," reflects on the experience... (The New Yorker)

Hats off to the NYT for this project...

No summary of the NYT's deep dive into @realDonaldTrump's feed can do it justice. Read all three parts:

-- "How Trump reshaped the presidency in over 11,000 tweets... "1,308 of those posts attacked news organizations...

-- "Conspiracy-mongers, racists and spies" show up in Trump's Twitter feed. He "absorbs and amplifies a noxious stream of disinformation..."

-- "What happens when ordinary people end up in Trump's tweets..."

Trump's avalanche of absurd Twitter typos

On Sunday's "Reliable Sources," we shared some Trump Twitter research of our own. We wanted to look at Trump's serious problem with spelling, but couldn't find a comprehensive list of his typos, so producer Marina di Marzo asked the Factba.se website to come up with a count. The researchers went a step further and looked at misspellings by Trump; members of Trump's family; and the 2020 presidential candidates who want Trump's job.

Two things make Trump's errors stand out: The quantity and the absurdity. Factba.se counted nearly 200 misspellings since Trump took office, versus just a handful for most other public figures. The misspeller-in-chief should "turn on autocorrect," said Bill Frischling, the CEO of FactSquared, who led the project. Read di Marzo's recap, along with the methodology, here...

>> Here's the main point I sought to make: Everybody makes spelling mistakes. But Trump makes a lot more of them than most people. It's not the biggest thing in the world, but it still matters. Accuracy always matters...

>> Read/watch the details here...

Trump lies about CNN at Mississippi rally

On Friday, for at least the eighth time, Trump told a lie about the lights on TV cameras turning off as he criticizes the media. CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale says it's an example of "the president looking his supporters in the eye and telling them that something in that very room, that they are all sharing together, is happening -- when it's not. I think this is egregious lying." Watch our conversation about it here...

Three key segments from Sunday's "Reliable"

-- Debating the role of pro-Trump voices on CNN: I asked Aisha Moodie-Mills, Colby Hall and Irin Carmon about Sean Duffy and his appearances on this very network...

-- The panel also discussed the pros and cons of political ads on social media... Moodie-Mills said Facebook is "literally spreading lies, misinformation, propaganda, and it's clear that Mark Zuckerberg and the gang care more about profit than they do about principle..."

-- I'll have much more on this in Monday's newsletter, but let me just note, Sunday's most important "Reliable" segment was about the journalists who covered Ground Zero who are getting sick... Here's the segment...

"Whimpering" and "crying"

Peter Baker and Eric Schmitt's big story over the weekend: "The 'Whimpering' Terrorist Only Trump Seems to Have Heard."

The takeaway: All the available evidence indicates that Trump invented his claims about Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi "whimpering" and "crying." His own administration can't confirm what he told the country about the terrorist's final moments. Naturally, right-wing media attacked me for bringing up these discrepancies. Some websites accused me of defending al-Baghdadi's reputation, which is ludicrous. This really has nothing to do with an evil terrorist. The point is entirely about the president's complete lack of credibility. We shouldn't get used to this...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- The NYT's team says that Trump's White House DVRs "are set to record Lou Dobbs Tonight on Fox Business Network; Hannity, Tucker Carlson Tonight and The Story With Martha McCallum on Fox News; and Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN..." (NYT)

-- Axios is out with its list of "what matters for 2020 and beyond," and thus what will guide its coverage. No. 1: "Mind manipulation on social media is a defining topic of this era..." (Axios)

The "Jeopardy!" Tournament of Champions is here

People mag's Jodi Guglielmi writes: "James Holzhauer is making his grand 'Jeopardy!' return! Holzhauer, who made history with 32 straight wins on the Alex-Trebek-hosted game show, is set to participate in the show's most competitive and prestigious event: The Tournament of Champions." The tournament begins on Monday... Holzhauer's first round of competition airs on Wednesday... "The winner will then go on to compete in the semifinals the following week..."

"SNL" loves Warren

Kate McKinnon as Elizabeth Warren opened "SNL" on Saturday, as Frank Pallotta wrote here.

"Saturday Night Live's treatment of Warren through the campaign has been as close as the show gets to an endorsement — and last night's cold open, blunting the most intense week she's faced so far, could almost be re-cut as a campaign ad," The Atlantic's Edward-Isaac Dovere tweeted...

Tough start for new "Terminator"

"The 'Terminator' franchise may not be back," the NYT's Brooks Barnes writes: "The moviegoing masses in the United States and Canada spurned the sixth chapter in the science-fiction movie series over the weekend — the fifth and fourth installments were box-office misfires, too — calling into question the future of the 35-year-old property, which has also been mined over the years for television shows and video games. The latest film, 'Terminator: Dark Fate,' cost at least $185 million to make, not including tens of millions of dollars in marketing expenses. While it was No. 1 in North America, ticket sales in North America fell well below expectations: $29 million, according to Comscore. Paramount Pictures, which distributed the movie, had been expecting about $40 million." Read on...

Lowry's reaction

Brian Lowry emails: I must confess to surprise over "Terminator: Dark Fate's" tepid boxoffice reception, and the plethora of explanations — sequel fatigue, too many bad sequels in this series, even the movie's politics — downplay other possible factors, like a questionable release date and poor marketing campaign...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- Showtime's "The Affair" aired its series finale on Sunday... And the reviews make me want to catch up on the past few seasons... (Google)

-- "Can Apple Become the Google of Television?" Joe Adalian says "the tech giant isn't just making TV shows. It wants to be your streaming home page..." (Vulture)

-- Rick Ellis on an overlooked aspect of the subscription biz: "Streaming Services And The Theory Of Perceived Value..." (All Your Screens)

-- Sandra Gonzalez has a brand new dispatch from one of the advance screenings of "Bombshell..." (CNN)

-- ICYMI: BBC America is adopting a new name, Wonderstruck, on Saturdays only... (CNN Business)

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