"If all this comes to pass, it will cement [Bari] Weiss as a key figure in shaping the national news environment, just five years after her much publicized resignation from the New York Times..."

"... over what she characterized as a censorious and hostile workplace. This came in the wake of the resignation of the editorial page editor, James Bennet, after a staff uproar over the publication of Senator Tom Cotton’s opinion piece calling for military intervention against Black Lives Matter protesters.... If Paramount’s acquisition of the Free Press goes through, Weiss will probably be in a position to recruit a network of snitches and rightwing thought police, both from within existing CBS staff and from her own publication, ensconced throughout one of the four largest US media conglomerates. CBS staffers are reportedly 'apoplectic' at the news of her impending role.... When Trump first ran for office, Weiss positioned herself as a 'Never Trumper'.... [Later] she saw the left’s 'overzealous, out-of-touch, hysterical reaction to him' as 'extraordinarily authoritarian and totalitarian in its impulses'.... ... Trump could never operate in the kinds of spaces where Weiss has been able to flourish.... [S]he is uniquely well-suited to champion the prerogatives of those in academia, media, publishing and similar sectors who feel threatened by progressive social movements."

From "Disgruntled NYT journalist to ‘anti-woke’ power grab: how far can Bari Weiss go?/After leaving the New York Times, she turned her Substack into an unshakable pro-Israel voice. Now as Paramount eyes acquisition of her company, Weiss is poised to become Trump’s ally among media elites" (Guardian).

The Wall Street Journal's aggressive effort to get Trump with the Big Bawdy Birthday Letter backfired, according to the NYT.

I'm reading "How Trump Deflected MAGA’s Wrath Over Epstein, at Least for Now/By tapping into other grievances, President Trump managed to turn one of the most fractious moments for his base into a unifying one."

That's an amazingly pro-Trump headline for the NYT. Let's read:

Mr. Trump turned one of the most fractious moments for his base into one of the most unifying by tapping into other MAGA grievances: the deep mistrust of mainstream media, the disdain for Rupert Murdoch and the belief that the president had been unfairly persecuted by his political foes.... 

Stephen K. Bannon, a former White House adviser to Mr. Trump and influential leader of the MAGA base, said that the dynamics were shifting in part because the reporting in the story seemed “phony,” and because the paper decided not to show Mr. Trump a copy of the letter.

“The Murdochs’ bizarre assault on the president galvanized his base because of both content and process,” Mr. Bannon said. “Now we are united as Trump goes on offense — against the Murdochs, the courts and the deep state.”...

It seems less a matter of Trump managing to turn things around as the press behaving badly and suffering the predictable consequence.  

Now doesn't Bill Clinton need to sue The Daily Mail... or is that exactly what he must not do?

I'm reading "Bill Clinton sent 'warm and gushing' letter for Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday - as Trump sues over claim he also wrote a 'bawdy' note for paedophile's half-century" in The Daily Mail.

Bill Clinton wrote a 'warm and gushing' letter which was included in Jeffrey Epstein's infamous 50th 'birthday book', The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The former US president was one of hundreds who contributed to a heavy leather-bound, gold-embossed album of letters that Epstein's ex-lover Ghislaine Maxwelltook more than a year to compile leading up to the landmark date.

Is this Book of Bawdy letters real or not? The Wall Street Journal, by presenting it as real, attracted a $10 billion lawsuit from Donald Trump. Wouldn't you think that would make The Daily Mail more careful about asserting that the book exists and that it contains a letter that is really from the person who purportedly wrote it?

Why is the Wall Street Journal's big story on Trump behind a paywall?

Are they trying to destroy him or not?

Here's the link if you want to try to use it. I found a way last night, but it's not working for me now. I was going to quote the part about Donald Trump supposedly drawing the figure of a woman with 2 big curves for breasts and the scribbled signature "Donald" as the pubic hair.

Is that in the article or just the detritus of a bad dream? I don't know. There's that paywall. If you want to take down Trump — save the world from the marker-wielding fiend — you've got to show what you've got to everyone, not exploit the occasion for subscriptions.

And if I remember correctly from last night — or was it a dream? — you didn't even show us the drawing. I want to see this famous historical drawing that brought down a President. Has there ever been a drawing like this? 

Here's what I prompted Grok: "Imagine a contest where you have to do a drawing that is supposedly by another American President that would reveal something this bad about him. What would be some entries in the contest? That is, what would it have been possible but terrible for Abe Lincoln to have sketched, etc." I'm sure you could think of funnier ideas that Grok described.

But let's see if I can get Grok to draw that picture Trump supposedly drew but the WSJ did publish (perhaps out of fear of getting "Rathergated"). Oh, no: "Unfortunately I can't generate that kind of image."

ADDED: If you were trying to play up to someone you knew was a pedophile, why would you emphasize a woman's pubic hair? It seems more like a way to call out and needle a pedophile. Try that interpretation, Trumpsters, if the letter turns out to be real.

"CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump..."

"... a deal that looks like bribery. America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons."

Tweets Elizabeth Warren, showing us this clip of Colbert critiquing the $16 million deal:

CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump – a deal that looks like bribery.

America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.

Watch and share his message. pic.twitter.com/Rz7HcWFLYM

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) July 18, 2025

AND: From last night's show:

He wasn't complaining. He was cogently critiquing.

I'm reading "Donald Trump’s latest Nobel peace prize effort? DRC and Rwanda/Foreign ministers from the feuding east African nations joined the president on Friday after he complained last week that he would not receive an award" (London Times).

What a misreading! Trump is vindicated when he doesn't win the prize, especially as he racks up more achievements.

And headlines like that one also vindicate him, by the way.

How about an article that's not about his imagined effort to win the prize but on his ostensible effort to end a war? Isn't "war" the right word? Or does the London Times regard wars between African countries as "feuding"?

As Trump described it: 

"Because you — and I mean specifically YOU, the press corps — because you cheer against Trump so hard, it's in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump..."

"... because you want him not to be successful so bad, you have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes, you have to hope maybe they weren't effective, maybe the way the Trump administration has represented it isn't true. So let's take half truths, spun information, leaked information, and then spin it, spin it in every way we can to try to cause doubt and manipulate... the public mind, over whether or not our brave pilots were successful. How many stories have been written about how hard it is to, I don't know, fly a plane for 36 hours? Has MSNBC done that story? Has Fox? Have we done the story how hard that is?... There are so many aspects of what our brave men and women did that — because of the hatred of this press corps — are undermined because you people are trying to leak and spin that it wasn't successful. It's irresponsible...."

Once again, we've got alternating pro- and anti-Trump headlines at Real Clear Politics.

I blogged a screen grab like this 2 days ago, here, so let's take a look today's image of distanced balance:

Once again, I'll use my time-saving method of picking one of each:

On the anti side, I'm going with Judith Levine, "Trump is waging war against citizens in LA. This is a dangerous new era/In its first months in office, the Trump administration enacted what could be called soft authoritarianism. Now we are in a second phase" (The Guardian):

"I don't even know what the hell that is. Get yourself a real job."

TRUMP: Who do you work for?

REPORTER: NOTUS

TRUMP: I don't even know what the hell that is. Get yourself a real job. pic.twitter.com/pzyw54LAB5

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 20, 2025

What's NOTUS? Not us??? It's — as distinguished from SCOTUS and POTUS — News Of The United States. 

Trump on "Meet the Press."

Watch the whole thing. I did.

I thought it was good, balanced sparring and that he said nothing that surprised or shocked me. How about you?

ADDED: Kristen Welker likes to needle Trump with questions in the form of "What do you say to people who say....?"

"Later today I will be meeting with, of all people, Jeffrey Goldberg, the Editor of The Atlantic, and the person responsible for many fictional stories about me..."

"... including the made-up HOAX on “Suckers and Losers” and, SignalGate, something he was somewhat more 'successful' with. Jeffrey is bringing with him Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker, not exactly pro-Trump writers, either, to put it mildly! The story they are writing, they have told my representatives, will be entitled, 'The Most Consequential President of this Century.' I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it’s possible for The Atlantic to be 'truthful.' Are they capable of writing a fair story on 'TRUMP'? The way I look at it, what can be so bad – I WON!"

Writes Trump, at Truth Social.

I like this. Trump is reminding me of Bill Maher — as Maher approached his dinner with, of all people, Trump.

Except it is a bit different... and what is "a competition with myself"? Perhaps Trump is of 2 minds, one which believes Goldberg can't write a fair story and one that is allowing for the possibility. You have to go through with the meeting to find out which side of your own mind is right, and since both are you, you necessarily win. I get the sense Trump thinks his "I WON" logic is quite funny.

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok: Tell me about the phrase "I've got half a mind to...." and compare it to the phrase "I'm of 2 minds about...." (And here's the long answer.)

Stephen Miller goes into a long Trumpish "weave," and the reporters don't turn and walk away.

I guess they're still waiting and hoping that they'll be the one to wedge in a question that will somehow stymie the man who's never going to stop:

I am SO GLAD the Trump administration decided to completely UNLEASH Stephen Miller on the media.

He regularly displays a masterclass in debunking their lies.

"Guys - do you know the difference between a deportation order and a withholding order? Do you know the difference? Any… pic.twitter.com/sDmzpLtiyu

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 14, 2025

What a dysfunctional relationship! Miller will take any question and return to the tortured, raped, and murdered women and girls who rule his world. The reporters cling to the hope that the plight of the deportees will seize the hearts of America. If only Miller would say something sufficiently inhumane about them, but every answer is the same: Think of their victims — the women and girls!

"DOGE: Looks like Radical Left Reuters was paid $9,000,000 by the Department of Defense to study 'large scale social deception.' GIVE BACK THE MONEY, NOW!"

Writes Trump on Truth Social, here.

This is also Trump on Truth Social: "DOGE: Why was Politico paid Millions of Dollars for NOTHING. Buying the press??? PAY BACK THE MONEY TO THE TAXPAYERS! How much has the Failing New York Times paid? Is this the money that is keeping it open??? THEY ARE BUYING THE PRESS!"

Is he saying there's an obligation to give back the money, that it was fraudulently obtained? Perhaps it's more of an appeal to give the money back as a gift, now that the taxpayers are seeing what happened and disapproving.

Trump doesn't take much care with these "truths" — that's what the press secretary calls them, "truths." He wrote "How much has the Failing New York Times paid?" when he must mean "How much has the Failing New York Times been paid?" He took the trouble to add "Failing" (idiosyncratically capitalized), but he omitted a word and left the meaning reversed.

"THE LEFT WING 'RAG,' KNOWN AS 'POLITICO,' SEEMS TO HAVE RECEIVED $8,000,000"

Donald Trump is all-caps-ing — at Truth Social — about the biggest scandal of them all:

LOOKS LIKE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE BEEN STOLLEN AT USAID, AND OTHER AGENCIES, MUCH OF IT GOING TO THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA AS A “PAYOFF” FOR CREATING GOOD STORIES ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS. THE LEFT WING “RAG,” KNOWN AS “POLITICO,” SEEMS TO HAVE RECEIVED $8,000,000. Did the New York Times receive money??? Who else did??? THIS COULD BE THE BIGGEST SCANDAL OF THEM ALL, PERHAPS THE BIGGEST IN HISTORY! THE DEMOCRATS CAN’T HIDE FROM THIS ONE. TOO BIG, TOO DIRTY!

ADDED: I don't know what's been going on lately, but I blogged this on September 6, 2022: 

"We want to prove that being nonpartisan is actually the more successful positioning."

Said Mathias Döpfner, quoted in "Politico’s new German owner has a ‘contrarian’ plan for American media/Mathias Döpfner has global ambitions for what he calls a more ‘nonpartisan’ kind of journalism — even as his own politics are hard to pin down" (Washington Post).

"How's everything going? Good? Everybody happy? You're getting a little bit more access to your President than you did the last time. Slightly. Like by about 5,000 percent."

Our tireless President, on Air Force One last night:

 

It's hard to listen through the plane noise, but let me pick out a few things. Responding to a comment that he'd been "so nice" to Governor Newsom ("you know, 'Governor Newscum,'" he said:

I decided to be nice. It was nice that he came to the plane, honestly... and in the end you know we have the same goal. We want to take that catastrophe and make it as good as possible. We disagree on some things I guess he's not so set on water. I like water for putting out fires. I find it to be extremely good. A little old fashioned, but about the best thing that God has ever created for putting out fires....

Asked about the First Lady, who "seems to be taking a more public facing role," he said:

She felt badly about North Carolina. She felt very badly about California. Los Angeles. Got a lot of friends. I have a lot of friends in North Carolina and both, and she has a lot of friends in California, so she wanted to be with me.

 About TikTok:

As you know, I have the right to sell it or close it depending on what I think is best for the country....

Pushed on "a report... that you are putting together a deal with Oracle and outside investors to help them buy TikTok," he said:

The performance of power in the arena and in the Oval Office.

Trump had a busy day yesterday, but let's focus on the showmanship in the signing of all those orders. First, on a little red-carpeted stage in the Capitol One Arena, he is literally The Man in the Arena (as Theodore Roosevelt put it):

 

He's got the people surrounding him, watching him sign papers at a tiny table, and they're fully engaged in the show he's putting on, as if it's a big boxing match going on there in that little square in the center of the arena. Whoever thought of dramatizing order-signing like that and getting a rowdy crowd to cheer as if it's a sport? 

Later, in the Oval Office, he signed more orders, this time in front of the press elite, and when they ventured questions, he answered — calmly, chattily, seriously, and easily. Joe Biden couldn't even answer one question from the press or get to the end of a single sentence without stumbling, and here's Trump, signing orders — take that, Paris Agreement — and holding a press conference at the same time... and showing no strain, even at the end of a long day of events, and with the Inaugural Ball yet to come:

Is it dangerous — reprehensible? — this showmanship in the exercise of power? Those who hate him and who hate the substance of those orders will, I presume, denounce the theatricality. It's cruel! But he's out there in the open, letting the people see him do his work, using the power he asked them to give him, and doing what he said he would do. What a contrast to Biden who campaigned hidden away in 2020 and who occupied the position of President without ever letting us see that — if! — he was the one doing the work.

After 4 years of The Man in the Basement, we have, once again, The Man in the Arena.

ADDED: Here's how Biden looked, signing his first executive orders — yay, Paris Agreement! — in the Oval Office in 2021. Scroll to 2:30 to hear — muffled behind masks — the first questions from the press. Biden answers one question as we hear aides hustling the reporters out of the room:

"No, Trump Did Not Hold the Bible Upside Down at Lafayette Square."

That's a NYT headline from September 18, 2020.

Video and photographs clearly show that the Bible wasn’t upside down, as fact checkers at PolitiFact and Snopes have noted. But that hasn’t stopped the claim from spreading on social media, an example of how speculation on the internet can morph into a zombie claim that refuses to die.

But just now on CNN, as Trump entered the church, the historian chosen to provide depth and context— Timothy Naftali — repeated the longstanding and long-discredited misinformation.

"You know, in his farewell address, President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military-industrial complex...."

"Six days — six decades later, I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well. Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power."

Said President Joe Biden, in his farewell address last night. 

There's a big difference between "military-industrial complex" and "tech-industrial complex." Eisenhower's phrase warns about the government and not merely private business. Biden's phrase only warns about private business. The "abuse of power" Biden identifies takes place outside of government, and he looks to government as a victim of abuse by private actors — citizens, speaking — and, potentially, as a cure — government, regulating speech.

The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.

What about all the lies you told for power and for profit?! 

We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families and our very democracy from the abuse of power.

What about your abuse of power squeezing the "social platforms" to follow the narrative that served your interests?

MEANWHILE: On the NYT home page, we see Trump swooping in as the savior of TikTok:

"The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would take up TikTok's appeal challenging a federal law that could ban the popular social media app by next month."

NBC News reports.

The court acted just a day after TikTok filed its appeal and will hear oral arguments on Jan. 10 before issuing a decision on whether to put the law on hold. At issue is a bipartisan measure passed by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden that would go into effect on Jan. 19, the day before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The law, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, would require TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the platform to an American company or face a ban. TikTok has challenged the law, saying it violates its free speech rights under the First Amendment....

By the way, Trump talked about TikTok at his press conference on Monday. Asked "How do you plan to stop the ban on TikTok next month?," he said:

"As someone who practiced press law for more than twenty years, and served as a senior executive of news organizations for just as long, I was shocked by the decision of ABC News last week..."

"... to pay $16 million to settle Donald Trump’s libel case over George Stephanopoulos’s This Week broadcast in March. The shock came, and still lingers, because I—and every experienced press lawyer not involved in the case with whom I have discussed it—considered the case one in which ABC was likely to eventually prevail. The decision to settle has been greeted by a lot of commentary, but almost no reporting of new facts. Understandably, that’s generated a good deal of hand-wringing about corporations 'bending a knee' or gloating about the humbling of legacy media or an arrogant press getting its comeuppance. But such speculation does little to explain what happened...."

Writes Richard J. Tofel, in "Questions ABC News Should Answer Following the $16 Million Trump Settlement/The decision to cave and apologize has unnerved American journalists. The network owes them an explanation" (Columbia Journalism Review).