THE DAILY NEWSLETTER  - WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

Media Winners & Losers

MEDIA WINNER:
Wolf Blitzer

CNN's Wolf Blitzer had a wide-ranging interview with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner on Tuesday, pressing the president's son-in-law over the Trump campaign’s recent indoor rally, the maskless, Middle East peace deal signing event, and President Donald Trump's retweet of a post falsely accusing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden of being a pedophile. 

Trump held an indoor rally on Sunday in Nevada, with mostly-maskless attendees crowded closely together. The White House also did not require mask-wearing or social distancing at its signing of normalization treaties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Blitzer called Kushner out for these events. “Once again, the president sets an example for the American public. Don’t you think to save lives he should be doing more as an example?”

“So what we’ve seen now is I think mortality’s at about 30% on a daily basis of what it was at its peak,” Kushner cooly responded.

“A thousand Americans a day are dying, Jared.”

Blitzer also confronted Kushner about Trump retweeting someone who used the hashtag “#PedoBiden," calling it " a very, very disturbing ugly message."

Kushner brushed off Blitzer's critique, saying that he hadn't seen the tweet and promising to pass the comments on to Trump. “I will relay to him your concern."

Kushner has a unique level of access to the president with his job and as a member of the First Family, and Blitzer got him on the record about the administration's thinking regarding several relevant topics. It was a solid interview and conducted in a cool and professional manner. Blitzer deserves kudos for his journalistic work here.

MEDIA LOSER:
Jared Kushner

Yes, we're using the same photo for Winner and Loser today. 

The president's son-in-law gets to be the Loser side of Blitzer's Winner coin, not just for his cold-hearted sounding answers dismissing America's coronavirus death rates and shrugging off Trump's retweet of a false and ugly accusation that Biden is a pedophile, but for some media shenanigans he engaged in today.

Kushner was supposed to be interviewed by MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell today. The appearance was booked several days ago and the cable network had widely promoted it. Instead, Kushner bailed mere hours before he was scheduled to appear. 

“This morning, the White House informed us Mr. Kushner’s schedule has been reshuffled and he had to cancel," said Mitchell at the opening of her noontime show.

Mitchell noted that Kushner had done "at least six other television interviews yesterday," and while they had not been given a reason for the cancellation, did not that it came "only after the president’s appearance on that ABC town hall last night with George Stephanopoulos."

Adding insult to injury, Kushner then popped up on Fox News barely an hour later, to be interviewed by Harris Faulkner, and discussing the same topics that Mitchell said she had planned to bring up with him. 

Kushner agreed to an interview with Mitchell at that time, has yet to offer a justifiable explanation for his last-minute cancellation, and one is unlikely to exist considering his ability to appear on Fox News. Mitchell is a veteran journalist not known for on-air hysterics or an overly combative interview style. She would have asked tough but fair questions that any White House senior adviser should be ready, willing, and able to answer for the American people, especially considering Kushner's high involvement with the White House's pandemic response. 

The A-Block

Wait, who's the president right now?

The Trump town hall in Philadelphia featured some challenging questions from real people, which he couldn’t immediately dismiss with an insult and had to address politely and reasonably. One such question asked the president point-blank why he didn't support a national mask-wearing mandate, or wear a mask more often himself.

Trump responded by bizarrely attempting to deflect the blame to...Biden, who is definitely not president right now. Biden himself responded on Twitter later that night.

Tone deaf

Trump was also asked by an African-American pastor at the town hall about his campaign's MAGA slogan.  “When has America been great for African Americans in the ghetto of America? Are you aware of how tone deaf that comes off to the African American community?” Read Trump's response here.

Woodwardpalooza

Bob Woodward continues to be a headline-generating machine, continuing to make TV appearances and release new snippets from his hours and hours of recorded interviews with the president. 

Among the latest tidbits: Woodward telling CNN's Anderson Cooper that he's not sure if Trump understands "what is real and what is unreal," saying that America is "living in an Orwellian world," that Trump has “very little idea what’s going on with race issues in this country," describing Trump's boasting about what a "good time" Kim Jong Un had with him, saying Trump has a very poor understanding of the race issues in this country, and calling the Trump presidency a "staggering, monumental tragedy across the board."

Well played, Cap

Actor Chris Evans' name was trending on social media all weekend after he posted an NSFW photo on Instagram. The photo was quickly deleted but not before the internet was treated to screenshots of, ahem, Captain America's flagpole fully raised. Evans was a good sport about the mishap in an appearance on the Tamron Hall show, joking that sometimes you just “gotta roll with the punches," and taking advantage of the attention to tweet a reminder to his supporters to go vote in November.

"A very stupid comment"

CNBC’s Jim Cramer apologized on Mad Money Tuesday night for referring to Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “Crazy Nancy” in an interview earlier in the day.

His explanation was that he was attempting to joke about the "harsh tone of the negotiations in Washington" but it "fell completely flat."
 

Trump reacts, predictably

Of course, Trump had to comment on the whole kerfuffle, posting a tweet admonishing Cramer for the apology and for "pandering." Read it here.

Celebrities boycotting their own Instagrams

You won't be able to count on some of your favorite Hollywood celebrities for online entertainment today, as several big names are taking the day off as part of a protest called #StopHateForProfit, intended to draw awareness to how Facebook has been profiting from "hate, racism, and violence" being shared on their social media platforms. 

Will it make a difference if Kim Kardashian doesn't post a photo wearing an outfit that costs more than most Americans spend in a year on clothes? That remains to be seen, but you can read all about the effort here.

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Objectively opinionated

Mediaite's Rudy Takala has a detailed review of several recent reports exposing "instances of political activism and lapses in journalistic integrity" at CNN. The incidents include a recording of CNN President Jeff Zucker talking to former Trump attorney Michael Cohen saying that Trump should do a weekly show on CNN if he lost the election and giving Cohen other advice for Trump, more audio with anchor Chris Cuomo chatting with Cohen, Jake Tapper texting with a Republican congressional candidate, "caustic opinions" being expressed in the network's news chyrons, and several other examples.

"CNN has engaged in Herculean contortions to present itself as an unbiased news network and to hide the obvious — that much of its content is opinion journalism," writes Takala. Read his take here, and see if you agree.

"Have a FANTASTIC SEASON!"

The Big Ten college conference announced Wednesday morning that they were reversing course and would start their football season in October -- drawing a triumphant tweet from Trump. Quelle surprise -- he claimed credit for the decision

"Does anyone at your magazine believe in Jesus?"

Kanye West continues to generate concerning headlines. The rapper-turned-presidential-candidate gave a series of interviews through calls and texts to the New York Times that the newspaper described as "erratic," ranging from thoughtful policy proposals intended to reduce abortions and provide care for families, to demanding that a Times reporter answer him, "Does anyone at your magazine believe in Jesus?" West has also apparently instructed his campaign staffers to stop "fornicating" outside of marriage. 

He also tweeted a video showing one of his Grammy awards in the toilet as he appeared to urinate on it, and doxxed a Forbes editor, posting a screenshot of his phone number and accusing the man of being a white supremacist, referred to himself "Baby Putin" and called the music industry "modern day slavery." 

Who you gonna believe, me, or your lying ears?

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany laughably tried to claim that Trump "has always supported mask-wearing," less than 24 hours after he again had voiced doubt in them. Watch CNN's Kaitlan Collins drop the receipts on McEnany here

Must See Clip

"I'm under siege...They're going to have to kill me."

Health and Human Services spokesman Michael Caputo dropped a truly bonkers rant complaining about being "under siege" from the media -- an understandable onslaught after it was reported that he had been pressuring CDC scientists to change their reports to match Trump's narrative on the virus -- but still boasting of still having the president's support. 

Caputo also accuses Democrats, the media, and "deep state scientists" of wanting to "keep America sick through November," and brags that when a vaccine is ready, he'll be able to be one of the first to get it.

Oh yeah, he also predicts that he might be killed by some unnamed enemy plotting his demise.

Watch the hot mess here, and read about Caputo's emergency staff meeting and apology here.

Caputo just announced that he's taking a 60 day leave of absence. Probably for the best.

Links We Like

A Surprising Minnesota Poll
- via Jim Geraghty, National Review
How Fox News Became a Language
- via Megan Garber, The Atlantic
The GOP failed to heed the decline of California’s Republican Party
- via Kurt Bardella, LA Times
How to make Zoom calls more like real life: We’re closer to holographic meetings than you think
- via Vox
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