Good morning. I'm publishing a little late today because I wanted to spend some quality time with my kids this morning. Here's the latest from Melania Trump, Weijia Jiang, Oprah Winfrey, and many more... |
Whatever you're feeling about Saturday night's shooting, it's understandable.
There are many layers to the press dinner panic and the aftermath. It was both a shooting, outside the ballroom, and a huge scare, inside the ballroom. It was a line-of-succession emergency for the US government. It was a security breakdown, or maybe not, depending on who's opining. It was another threat to President Trump's life and another test for the increasingly distrusted political system.
If you were at the Hilton, you're probably processing the traumatic stress from the event, whether you realize it or not.
If you were far from the hotel, you might be wondering what all the fuss is about. Consider this: When the president was rushed off stage, there was a total information vacuum. People wondered if he was hurt. Even thirty minutes later, the WH press pool reporter said he'd received "no information on POTUS' whereabouts or condition," though CNN reported well before then that the president was safe.
Inside the ballroom, it felt like an active shooter drill. Attendees heard loud sounds and voices yelling "get down." Weapons were pointed out at the crowd. There were a dozen different ways that the incident could have ended in tragedy.
Fox's Trey Yingst made a great point I hadn't thought about: "Thirty minutes before the shooting, thousands of guests entered the ballroom through a single hallway. Had the gunman attacked at that moment, this would have been a very different story. Many high profile guests were in the area attending pre-parties."
This morning Zachary Basu of Axios wrote that Trump and the press shared a "brush with death," and critics on social media said the statement was hyperbolic, but like I said up top, differing feelings are valid.
The incident was frightening, full stop. Even within the ballroom, different people had different reactions based on where they were sitting and what they were hearing. Some feared a bomb, Others, a stampede. Others, a shootout.
I wrote yesterday that I couldn't remember the first ten seconds of the incident. Yesterday afternoon, the memories flooded back. And I kept thinking about other communities that have been jolted by gun violence – in many cases, actual shootings, not just attempted attacks that were foiled by security personnel.
In DC, dinner attendees have been checking in with one another and expressing support. There is an element of privilege here: Employees at places like CNN have access to Employee Assistance Programs and counselors. Kids in schools who have to hide during lockdowns, might not.
If you're feeling like the DC-centric media has myopia, focusing intently on its own house and missing the bigger story, I hear you.
If you're feeling like all of this seems like a setup to help Trump, well, it's not, and the conspiracy theories about the incident being "staged" are offensive and dangerous.
But those theories are going viral, especially on the left, and it's reflective of a complete breakdown in trust.
"It is so dangerous in our society now that we have so little trust that the two sides don't talk to each other," CNN anchor Elex Michaelson told me last night. "Part of the whole point of the White House Correspondents' Dinner is to have a time where multiple sides can actually talk to each other. I know some people slam that concept online. But what's the alternative, Civil War, where we don't talk to each other? And the way you build trust is by having relationships where you work together and build trust."
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Breaking: First Lady pressures ABC to punish Kimmel |
Last week ABC's Jimmy Kimmel delivered a dinner-style roast of the president on his show, making light of the fact that the White House Correspondents' Association decided to book mentalist Oz Pearlman instead of a comedian. One of Kimmel's comments was about First Lady Melania Trump: He said she had the glow of an "expectant widow."
Just now the First Lady weighed in on X: "Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy – his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America. People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate. A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him. Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC's leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community."
So, in other words, we're right back to where we were last September, with the government pressuring ABC to punish Kimmel. It's not really fair to say "ABC had no immediate reaction" since the First Lady only tweeted a few minutes ago, but we'll be covering this all day long on CNN.com...
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Trump does what he does... |
I purposefully did not lead today's newsletter with the president's latest bit of media criticism because it's not novel or surprising. Of course he called Norah O'Donnell a "disgrace" and said "you're horrible people." That's who he is, that's what he does.
The novel, surprising thing was the president's calm, respectful tone toward the press on Saturday night. I'm catching some flack from liberals on social media for highlighting his niceties, but it was newsworthy because it was unusual.
But as CNN's Liam Reilly pointed out, Trump's last post on Truth Social before the dinner was deriding The New York Times. So on "60 Minutes," he picked up right where he left off.
"One uncomfortable question was all it took for President Trump to resume hostilities with the Washington press," the aforementioned Zachary Basu wrote.
Trump allies are arguing that O'Donnell shouldn't have read the words of the alleged gunman's manifesto to Trump. But it seemed appropriate to me. If you missed the one-minute exchange, here's the video.
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3 key points about the '60 Minutes' interview
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One: The "60" interview showed that nothing is going to change in the push-and-pull between the press and the president. The president wants attention but he resists accountability. The press is going to keep up the accountability, so the relationship is going to remain tense, and that's OK.
Two: Critics like Rob Flaherty, who spoke on his new "Nobody Knows Anything" podcast, surmised that Trump talked to CBS because "it's a home game" given Paramount's cozy relationship with POTUS. (Paramount just hosted a private dinner with Trump last Thursday.) Flaherty said "clearly this was supposed to be the soft, unifying interview." But O'Donnell did her job and asked hard questions.
Three: As Bari Weiss and co. think about overhauling the newsmagazine, Sunday night yet again showed the power of the brand, the format, and the time slot.
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Fastest '60' turnaround ever? |
Most "60" segments take weeks to produce. The Trump interview was taped in the 1 p.m. hour and edited for broadcast by 7 p.m. ET, which is why TV producers call this type of piece a "crash." Folks at "60" cannot recall rolling on a same-day interview as late as noon before. It was definitely one of the fastest turnarounds in the newsmag's history – probably the fastest... |
Latest updates on the fallout |
>> Cole Tomas Allen, the suspected gunman, "is expected to be arraigned in federal court today" and "faces two charges in connection with the incident," CNN's Catherine Nicholls reports.
>> Andrew McCabe told Audie Cornish on "CNN This Morning" that "we should hear some additional details from the prosecutors about what’s been uncovered in the investigation so far."
>> In a message allegedly sent by the suspect, he wrote that "he intended to target administration officials and expressed his political anger, while noting, 'I don’t expect forgiveness.'"
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Trump wants a redo — but is there any appetite for that? |
This year's WHCA president Weijia Jiang received a big round of applause from her CBS News colleagues during the network's morning editorial meeting today.
"It was an incredibly difficult night," she said during the meeting, "and it was made much easier when I looked out and saw my CBS News family right there with me."
Jiang and the WHCA board will be meeting "to assess what happened and determine how to proceed," per a statement yesterday. I hear the meeting will take place sometime early this week.
Trump says he wants the dinner to take place in the next month. But to use a dinner analogy, I'm not sure if there's much appetite for a do-over. Writing for Axios, Sara Fischer laid out reasons for skepticism.
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Andrew Kirell writes: Last night in Austin, Bruce Springsteen adjusted his political tour's opening speech to address the shooting and railed against political violence. "We begin tonight with a prayer for our men and women in service overseas, we pray for their safe return," he began.
"We also send out a prayer of thanks that our president, nor anyone in the administration, nor anyone attending, was injured at last night's incident at the Press Correspondents' Dinner," he said. "We can disagree. We can be critical of those in power, and we can peacefully fight for our beliefs. But there is no place in any way, shape, or form for political violence of any kind in our beloved United States." Here's the video.
Let me briefly turn to a few other stories...
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Oprah and Amazon strike a deal |
"If you needed more proof that video podcasts are the new talk show, here it is: Oprah Winfrey is coming to Amazon," the NYT's Nicole Sperling reports. "The tech giant said on Monday that it had reached a multiyear licensing deal" with Winfrey for twice-a-week video podcasts and other content, including "the 25-season library from The Oprah Winfrey Show." Sperling has the full story…
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Ahmed has left Kuwait, reunited with family
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Liam Reilly writes: Ahmed Shihab-Eldin has left Kuwait and has been reunited with his family, international counsel for Shihab-Eldin's sisters announced on Saturday. The family expressed gratitude "for everyone's patience and respect for their privacy as they focus on their brother and his safe return," per the attorneys. |
>> Last week, "security services in Moscow took their crackdown on the literary world a major step further, raiding one of the largest and most influential publishing houses in the country, and briefly detaining several of its senior executives," Polina Ivanova writes. (FT)
>> Europe's biggest broadcasters have "warned EU regulators that a planned law to curb unfair digital practices should target Big Tech, not publishers and broadcasters already heavily regulated, citing risks to media business models and pluralism," Foo Yun Chee reports. (Reuters)
>> iHeartMedia "is holding talks about a possible sale to Sirius XM," Ashley Carman, Lucas Shaw, and Michelle F Davis scooped on Friday, noting that "the talks are preliminary and there’s no guarantee any deal will happen." (Bloomberg)
>> Axel Springer "did not complete due diligence on the Telegraph before sealing its 575 million pound takeover, with sources saying the German media company could struggle to recoup its eye-watering investment as the titles shift toward less-profitable digital subscribers," Mark Sweney reports. (The Guardian)
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Elon Musk vs. Sam Altman trial begins today
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"Elon Musk's lawsuit against ChatGPT maker OpenAI and its leaders, including CEO Sam Altman, heads to court" later today in Oakland, CNN's Hadas Gold writes in this curtain raiser.
Gold says "the trial comes at a precarious time for OpenAI, with a blockbuster IPO on the horizon and frenzied competition among rivals." OpenAI's IPO ambitions "may fall apart if Musk wins the case." Gold will be in court covering it all...
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>> "China has moved to block Meta’s $2 billion acquisition of Chinese-founded artificial intelligence startup Manus, a decision that reflects Beijing’s concerns that it could lose key technology to the United States amid an intensifying tech war," CNN's John Liu reports. (CNN)
>> "OpenAI and Microsoft have reached a truce," write Keach Hagey and Berber Jin, reporting that the pair "have forged a new deal that offers OpenAI more freedom to partner with Microsoft's rivals, caps the amount of revenue it must share with the software giant through 2030 and removes a controversial clause in prior agreements," while Microsoft "will retain access to the startup’s models and products." (WSJ)
>> Spotify "is now offering workout classes from Peloton to premium subscribers, marking the music streaming pioneer's first major foray into fitness content."(Bloomberg)
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