Would A Trump Loss Be Bad For Media Biz?
President Donald Trump often talks about how he is the best thing to ever happen to the media. He claims he is the reason people watch cable news networks and subscribe to papers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. He says TV ratings will plummet and newspapers will disappear when he is no longer president. Is he right?
Three reporters have tested positive for COVID-19 in recent days while covering a White House described as lax, at best, in following basic safety advice like wearing masks. Discomfort only increased Monday with news that press secretary Kayleigh McEnany had tested positive. Above, a member of the cleaning staff sprays The James Brady Briefing Room of the White House on Oct. 5.
Trump’s expected return Monday evening comes as the scale of the outbreak within the White House itself is still being uncovered. Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced she had tested positive for the virus Monday morning and was entering quarantine.
The White House said the visit of “a few days” to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center was precautionary and that Trump would continue to work from the hospital’s presidential suite, which is equipped to allow him to keep up his official duties.
President Donald Trump often makes news on Twitter, but of all the tweets he has ever tweeted, none had the gravity of what he sent out Friday morning.
Trump tweeted news of his test results just hours after the White House announced that senior aide Hope Hicks had come down with the virus after traveling with the president several times this week. The positive test reading for the leader of the world’s largest economy heaps uncertainty onto a growing pile of unknowns investors are grappling with, first among them how it might affect the Nov. 3 election and American policies on trade, tariffs and many other issues beyond then.
Exclusives
FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly said he will be leaving when his term ends (either with the appointment of a successor or by January, whichever comes first) and signaled his supporters don’t need to advocate for keeping him on the commission. The president rescinded O’Rielly’s nomination after the commissioner criticized an effort to regulate social media that Trump supports.
The contest between President Donald Trump and Vice President Joe Biden was chaotic from start to finish. With interruptions and interjections, Trump tried to throw his Democratic opponent off stride. Pleas, increasingly frustrated and loud, were the only tools Wallace had at his disposal to try to maintain control.
Tax records show that The Apprentice rescued Donald J. Trump, bringing him new sources of cash and a myth that would propel him to the White House.
The New York Times has obtained tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization, including detailed information from his first two years in office. He paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750. He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.
President Donald Trump claimed credit Thursday for the Pac-12 Conference restarting its college football season, the week after the Big Ten made the same call. “You’re welcome!!!” the president tweeted, following a unanimous vote by university officials to allow Pac-12 football teams to begin seven-game, conference-only seasons on Nov. 6, as long as they get approval from state and local health authorities.
The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) has condemned President Donald Trump’s latest attack on journalists, which he has long called the enemies of the people and allied with his Democratic opponents to bring down his Administration. WGAE’s more than 4,700 members include staffers in broadcast TV, radio and digital news.
Anchor Joe Donlon will sit down with the president at the White House and the interview will air on Tuesday starting at 8 p.m. ET. The network, which has promised to stick to facts, said it will run the interview in its entirety, with almost no editing.
The correspondent for the Fox Detroit O&O will ask the president about his COVID-19 response, masks, protests and more.
The saga of TikTok had everything: Ominous threats of surveillance. A forced fire sale. Threats of retaliation. Head-spinning deal terms that morphed by the hour. Dark horse bidders and a looming deadline. Now, as the dust settles on the weeks of drama over the social media app, investors and others are asking what it was all for. The answer? A cloud computing contract for the Silicon Valley business software company OracleT, a merchandising deal for Walmart and a claim of victory for President Trump.
The coziness between the TV executive and Donald Trump is a Frankenstein story for the cable news era. But then the monster got away.
Trump said the proposed deal between Oracle and Walmart will result in a new company likely to be based in Texas. “I have given the deal my blessing,” he said. “If they get it done, that’s great. If they don’t, that’s OK too.”
The Commerce Department said President Trump’s proposed ban of the apps WeChat and TikTok will go into effect Sunday, Sept. 20, to “safeguard the national security of the United States.” The order follows weeks of dealmaking over the video-sharing service TikTok. President Donald Trump has pressured the app’s Chinese owner to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations to a domestic company to satisfy U.S. concerns over TikTok’s data collection and related issues.
ABC News will present The President and the People, a 90-minute town hall with President Trump Tuesday night from 9 to 10:30 p.m. ET. George Stephanopoloswill moderate the 90-minute special—under the 20/20 banner—featuring Trump and voters ABC says are uncommitted.
Fearing a coming cash crunch, President Trump’s campaign has pulled back from television advertising over the last month, ceding to Democratic nominee Joe Biden a huge advantage in key states and sparking disagreements over strategy within the president’s senior team. Republican officials have been inundated with calls from worried activists and donors who complain about constant Biden ads in their local media markets, with very few paid Trump responses, according to people familiar with the conversations.
Ben Smith: President Trump will try to put the media on the ballot, and reporters face the increasing temptation to posture for those most eager to oust him.
President Trump said late Friday that he planned to reverse Pentagon budget cuts that would have permanently closed Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper that has both informed and spoken for American troops over the decades. The reversal came as the president was in full defensive mode over reports that he had disparaged military personnel.
Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper that has both informed and spoken for American troops over the decades, will cease print and online publication by the last day of September, expanding the Trump administration’s war on news media to include those paid by the government to cover the military. A group of senators said the Pentagon should find money in its huge budget to continue funding.
Having someone around to clean up any problematic comments is why Trump has given more interviews to Fox News than any other outlet as president.
Joe Simons has come under White House pressure for resisting the president’s fight against alleged political bias in social media.
ABC News will host a town hall with President Donald Trump and undecided voters on Sept. 15. George Stephanopoulos will anchor the event, which will take place in Philadelphia and will held in accordance with state and local government COVID-19 regulations and guidelines set by local health officials. The event will air at 9 p.m. ET on the network and ABC News Live.
The party is promising a more traditional in-person spectacle with President Trump speaking every night. Coming into this weekend, major TV networks had only a foggy idea of what to expect. Two producers of The Apprentice, where Trump rose to TV stardom, are involved in the planning. Sadoux Kim, a longtime deputy to Apprentice creator Mark Burnett, is a lead consultant on the production. Chuck LaBella, a former NBC entertainment executive who helped produce The Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump, is also on the payroll.
President Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee have spent more than $1 billion combined since the beginning of 2017, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Most of that spending — nearly $625 million — was spent since the beginning of the 2020 election cycle in 2019. By comparison, at this point in the 2012 election cycle, former President Obama’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee had spent about $481 million.
The administration said in a high-court filing Thursday that Trump’s @realdonaldtrump account with more than 85 million followers is his personal property and blocking people from it is akin to elected officials who refuse to allow their opponents’ yard signs on their front lawns.
Joe Biden’s presidential campaign is asking several TV stations in Pennsylvania to stop airing an ad from a pro-Trump Super PAC that the campaign says inacurately represents Biden’s position on fracking.
Dubious Grounds For The FCC’s Restriction Of Section 230
FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly saw his nomination withdrawn by President Trump for having the temerity to question whether the FCC has the authority to adopt rules to limit the scope of Section 230 of the Communications Act. All clear legal signs point to the fact that it doesn’t.
President Donald Trump ended his press conference on Saturday after being pressed by Paula Reid of CBS News on the claim that his administration passed the Veterans Choice health care law.
Jessell | O’Rielly’s Firing Ominous Turn For FCC
President Trump’s withdrawal of FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly’s nomination isn’t just a breathtaking punishment for a perceived lack of loyalty. It presages a potential Trump second-term FCC that would advance any of his desires and punish any FCC-regulated company he targets.
Michael Depp and Harry Jessell unpack the abrupt withdrawal of FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly’s renomination by President Trump this week and discuss the pandemic’s reckoning on broadcasters’ quarterly earnings.
