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Megyn Kelly
The first major on-camera interview of Joe Biden sexual assault accuser Tara Reade went not to Fox's Chris Wallace or CNN's Don Lemon — both of whom were slated to talk to Reade but had their interviews canceled at the last minute due to security concerns. Nor did the coveted interview go to anyone else at Fox News, CNN, or NBC News.
Instead, it went to a reporter who has spent time with two of those three giant news organizations. A reporter who is now out on her own, yet managed to land an exclusive sitdown with the biggest non-coronavirus newsmaker in months.
Kelly, thus far, has only released three minutes of the conversation to her social media platforms. Already, though, they've racked up several million views combined, and made a splash in the headlines.
Notably, Reade called for Biden to drop out of the presidential race, and said it was "a little late" for him to apologize. She also told Kelly she would go under oath or take a polygraph to verify her claims.
Kelly has clear standing with sexual misconduct victims, having courageously taken on Fox News and NBC News in the past. The Tara Reade booking is a validation of her platform, and paves the way for others to sit down with her in the future.
Since leaving NBC in January 2019, Kelly has largely been absent from the media scene. Thursday's interview is a signal that she's back in a big way. 6.5.0 |
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 | MEDIA LOSER:
Dave Portnoy
The Barstool Sports founder, it was reported Thursday, has been bleeding cash — both with his company (due to rapidly shrinking ad revenue) and personally (through a series of day trading losses).
The former, of course, is a plight with which the entire media industry can presently sympathize. In a company-wide email, Portnoy warned Barstool employees that the company is on shaky financial ground.
"I just wanna be proactive and remind people to spend time thinking about how we can make money for ourselves so we avoid being forced to make the hard decisions we don’t want to make," Portnoy wrote, later clarifying that those hard decisions potentially include "getting rid of people."
Barstool's struggles alone, though, are not enough land Portnoy in the loser column today. Rather, it's his handling of the adversity which cinches this dubious award.
Robert Silverman, reporting for the Daily Beast, reached out to Portnoy to inquire about the company's finances. The reply he got was far from professional.
"I know who you are d*ckface," Portnoy wrote — an apparent reference to a previous Barstool-themed article of Silverman's which Portnoy deemed unflattering.
However well he thinks he knows Silverman, comments like that serve only to shed light who Dave Portnoy is. 6.5.0 |
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| Victory Lap? President Donald Trump called into Fox & Friends for a surprise appearance Friday morning.
And according to Mediaite’s Aidan McLaughlin, instead of an update on the coronavirus pandemic has left 75,000 dead and shut down the economy, the interview kicked off with a “victory lap” over the DOJ dropping charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Throughout the interview, Trump called the investigation a “disgrace,” floated conspiracy theories, trashed current and former members of his own administration, said he has learned a lot from Nixon, and hailed Fox News as worthy of Pulitzer Prizes for its coverage of the saga. The hosts of Fox & Friends mostly stared. And nodded approvingly. After 20 minutes, they asked about the whole global pandemic thing.
Watch what Trump had to say on that here.
The Wrong Kind of History
During the interview, news broke about historic U.S. job loss in the month of April. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the nation lost 20.5 million jobs last month, and that the unemployment rate now stands at 14.7 percent.
Trump downplayed the dismal news.
“It’s fully expected, there’s no surprise, everybody knows this,” Trump said. He added, “even the Democrats aren’t blaming me for that.”
The president tried hard to sound an optimistic note for a quick bounce back. But over on CNN just after Trump hung up with Fox, one of his leading economists warned that the numbers that the numbers could get dramatically worse. Appearing on CNN Newsroom, Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett projected that the unemployment rate could be 25 percent by the end of May.
Thursday morning’s show with a montage featuring what can charitably be called President Donald Trump’s inconsistent rhetoric on the coronavirus and how his administration has handled it.
The montage culminated in an Oval Office moment from Tuesday—which happened to be National Nurses Day—in which the president snapped at a nurse for saying PPE supplies have been limited and "sporadic" during the pandemic.
The MSNBC hosts then ripped Trump over his reaction and suggested he lacks an "empathy gene."
Confession?
American mercenary Luke Denman, who was captured along with other Americans during a failed coup against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, claimed President Trump commanded the mission in a heavily edited “confession” video that aired on Venezuelan television this week.
Trump has denied having anything to do with the plot to abduct Maduro, which ended as soon as the team of mercenaries landed in Venezuela.
Arrests in Georgia
Two men have been arrested and charged with the murder of unarmed jogger Ahmoud Arbery.
Late Thursday, 64-year-old Gregory McMichael and his 34-year-old son, Travis McMichael, were placed under arrest and charged with murder and aggravated assault in Brunswick, GA.
Jasmine Arbery, the sister of the slain jogger, told CNN's Chris Cuomo that she believes the killing was a hate crime.
"It was one black guy and three white guys," Arbery said. "My brother was jogging."
Perspective from Wuhan
With the first Covid-19 outbreak striking Wuhan, China, David Culver was uniquely positioned to cover the first outbreak as CNN's Beijing-based correspondent -- and his reporting continues now from Shanghai.
Mediaite interviewed Culver to get his insight on how China was changed by the virus, and how they contend with it now that it has spread across the world. In our conversation, we asked Culver about Chinese misinformation, what consequences the pandemic might have on the relationship between China and the U.S., and whether there is proof that the virus escaped from a lab -- as some American officials have suggested. 6.5.0 |
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| X Æ A-12 Explained Celebrities have a storied history of giving their children ... shall we say unconventional names. This week, might have produced the most unusual of all — as Tesla chief Elon Musk and his girlfriend Grimes shared the name of their newborn son: X Æ A-12.
On Thursday, Musk stopped by Joe Rogan's podcast to explain — starting with the pronunciation.
“It’s just X, the letter X. And then the AE is like pronounced ‘ash’…and then A-12 is my contribution.”
Rogan cracked up while listening to Musk try, and largely fail, to talk this thing through.
Chances are, you will too. |
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