Anita Dunn

Friday

Cockburn

Fox you, Media Matters!

You’d think Fox Corporation would be sick of lawsuits by now — but there’s life in the old dog yet. The company has sent a letter to Media Matters for America, after the left-wing watchdog spent the week drip-feeding what they’ve brazenly titled “FOXLEAKS.” So far the “scoops” consist of... Tucker Carlson cracking a few jokes between segments.Fox lawyers write that the footage was “unlawfully obtained.” This has ruined Cockburn’s chances of winning $5, because he was sure Fox were the leakers. Cockburn’s second guess was Abby Grossberg, the former Tucker booker suing her old bosses for maintaining a toxic work environment — but a source familiar with the show says they don’t think it’s Abby.

media matters

Monday

Cockburn

TikTok and Democrat-aligned PR firm SKDK part ways

TikTok’s time with the uber-connected Democratic PR firm SKDK is up. According to the Washington Post’s Technology 202 newsletter, SKDK "wrapped up its work for TikTok in recent weeks after assisting with its campaign to bring digital influencers to Capitol Hill." Politico reported that TikTok retained the services of the firm co-founded by Joe Biden’s current senior advisor Anita Dunn on March 9. To Cockburn, it seems like SKDK’s mission is complete. During its time representing the controversial Chinese app, the odds of a full TikTok ban — which seemed all but inevitable following CEO Shou Zi Chew’s disastrous congressional testimony later in March — have dwindled by the day.

tiktok skdk

Friday

Cockburn

‘Not now, Hunter!’ begs White House

Hunter Biden's decision to fight fire with fire in his ongoing laptop scandal is apparently not sitting well with the administration officials who work for his father. The president's son has brought on several street fighters, including famed white-collar defense attorney Abbe Lowell and Media Matters founder David Brock, to defend him against House Republican investigations into the contents of his laptop hard-drive. House Oversight chair James Comer and Judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan are probing whether Hunter traded access to Joe for fat paychecks from foreign corporations. In response, Hunter's attack dogs are resurfacing claims that Comer abused his ex-girlfriend and that Jordan turned a blind eye to sexual abuse when he coached high-school wrestling.

failson hunter biden
tiktok shou zi chew
Matthew Foldi

Congress flattens TikTok CEO. So why won’t Biden ban his app?

Thursday was a sickening day for TikTok. Its CEO Shou Zi Chew came to Congress flanked by low-energy and likely highly-compensated “influencers.” He left looking queasy, like he'd just been force-fed a dish of FDA-condemned “NyQuil Chicken” — the infamous recipe popularized by users of his platform. Time after time, Chew was thanked by both Republicans and Democrats for doing the impossible: making members of both parties on the Energy and Commerce Committee unite against his own company. While TikTok’s fate is still uncertain, the Biden White House’s distance from his fellow Democrats is curious.

Thursday

Matthew Foldi

TikTok’s powerful friends in DC

TikTok’s CEO is gearing up for a grilling in Congress, but he’s got some new, powerful allies in his corner: a political consulting firm whose founder lavished praise on Mao Zedong and is now one of Biden’s top aides — and a socialist congressman who thinks banning the Chinese spyware is racist. Shou Zi Chew, the company’s CEO, is headed for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where Republicans are planning to press him on the national security concerns posed by the video app’s parent company ByteDance’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Chew is an odd person to push back against claims by Republicans — and, increasingly, some Democrats — that TikTok is inextricably linked to the CCP.

jamaal bowman tiktok anita dunn

Monday

Bill McMorris

Anita Dunn and Bob Bauer: meet Biden’s clean-up couple

Joe Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer once berated the commander-in-chief at his Wilmington home. Biden couldn’t get a word in edgewise without the legal giant interrupting. Aides recall the no-nonsense law professor muttering, “Not very smart, Joe,” and “I don’t know why you’d say that,” and “That’s dumb.” Bauer was playing Trump in mock debates at the time. Little did he know that he was standing in the middle of a crime scene, one he and his team of attorneys would be revisiting to quell a scandal of the president’s own making. The discovery of classified material at Biden’s various residences and offices makes for an open-and-shut case, according to former federal prosecutor Joe Moreno.

bob bauer anita dunn