Media

Thursday

Kara Kennedy

The ubiquitous Lara Trump

"Sorry, super busy,” replies someone from Lara Trump’s media team, after I texted to ask for an interview. "I’m working on her music stuff.” The Trumps love to multitask and, in the President’s first 100 days, King Donald’s favorite (that is, only) daughter-in-law has been showing off how hard she can work. Since the inauguration, and now free from the burdens of campaign politics, Lara has released a song called “No Days Off” with the rapper French Montana; a Saturday night show on Fox News; and an activewear collection in the color “MAGA red,” alongside her already established podcast, The Right View. Unfortunately, she has a different press person to dodge questions over each venture.

Vance
Roger Kimball

Vance Derangement Syndrome

Bret Stephens has come a long way in his estimation of Donald Trump. Back in 2016, when Trump was first running for the presidency, Stephens wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “the candidacy of Donald Trump is the open sewer of American conservatism.” As the election season progressed, Stephens mostly dropped the sewer talk, sliding into its place evocations of Trump’s “darker antipathies” and warnings that his “candidacy is manna to every Jew-hater.” A “Trump administration,” he explained,“would give respectability and power to the gutter voices of American politics.” At one point he giddily announced that Trump’s chances of victory were “next to nil.

Monday

Aidan McLaughlin

How the fashion industry is adapting to Trump 2.0

On the night of the inauguration, as revelers filed into the Commander-in-Chief Ball to await the arrival of the new president of the United States, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro was buzzing. Donning a ballgown and speaking on air with Sean Hannity, she marveled at the elegance of Melania Trump. “She is an icon. And it’s about time America — you know the magazines, the designers — recognize she is one of the most magnificent first ladies,” Pirro said. “She’s so far past Jackie O at this point. We’ve got four years of spectacular elegance, class and a real love for fashion.

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Friday

Ben Domenech

How the legacy media became powerless

It was nearly 2 a.m. on the East Coast in the middle of election night when CNN’s Jake Tapper stood across from professional virtual-map operator John King and asked a simple question: “Are there any places where Kamala Harris overperformed from where Biden did?” Tapping away from a view of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, King zoomed out to a view of the entire United States and hit a key to show a comparison to the 2020 election. The map instantly turned a solid dark gray, without a single county highlighted. “Holy smokes,” Tapper gasped. “Literally nothing? Literally not one county?” “Literally nothing,” was King’s somber reply. The video, shared widely and instantly on X, has been viewed more than 13 million times.

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tennis
Adrian Brune

On the front line of the tennis magazine wars

The issue appeared without fanfare at the 2017 US Open giftshop: a bright-red background offset an Impressionist yet unmistakable painting of Yannick Noah hitting a forehand, dreadlocks flaring. And with that, publisher Caitlin Thompson and editor-in-chief Dave Shaftel — an unlikely journalism pair who had met bonding over the poor state of tennis media — announced the launch of Racquet magazine, a journal that would explore the lifestyle, culture, history and zeitgeist behind modern tennis. In his first editor’s letter, Shaftel more or less laid out his and Thompson’s grand plans. “We don’t think of the game as a country club sport lumped in with golf and healthy only in the suburbs,” Shaftel wrote.

Wednesday

Stephen L. Miller

Welcome to the era of personality media

Several high-priced journalists have begun experimenting with selling themselves instead of a corporate media brand. Chris Cillizza and Mark Halperin have both started Substack ventures without having the branding back-up of CNN or Bloomberg. The pair follow in the footsteps of Megyn Kelly, who has been enormously successful in launching her own brand. Don Lemon has been confined to social media as well.Last year, Washington Post tech reporter Taylor Lorenz left corporate media behind to create her own outlet, although I would argue her audience and branding were separate from that of the Post.

Thursday

Scott Jennings

My top 2024 takeaways by Scott Jennings, CNN’s ‘Black Sheep’

New York "Black Sheep.” Not a nickname I expected, but my friends and family get a kick out of the Daily Mail’s moniker for me following a series of viral CNN moments. It’s more accurate than “Lonely Scott,” which Bill Maher applied after watching our network’s coverage of the Democratic National Convention. I am anything but lonely these days. In the wee hours following Donald Trump’s win over Kamala Harris, I impatiently wait my turn on CNN to explain what happened.

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Karoline
Grace Curley

Talk radio is perfect prep for being press secretary

Sometime after running for Congress in New Hampshire and before being named President-elect Trump’s White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt was nice enough to fill in for me on The Grace Curley Show during my maternity leave. I wouldn’t claim that those three months led Karoline — whose résumé includes work for Kayleigh McEnany, Elise Stefanik and Trump — to the White House. But I would argue that hosting a talk show is great preparation for the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. First off: she knows that if you lose your temper, you lose. Throughout summer 2023, Karoline heard from listeners about a host of issues, including the Republican primary candidates. A lot of listeners were thrilled at the prospect of former President Trump’s vying for a second term.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Has the election made Republicans love the government?

As Americans, we aren’t exactly famous for our love of the government. But how is the reelection of Donald Trump affecting our attitudes?In what they are touting as the first such poll released since the presidential election, GW’s Graduation School of Political Management and Schoen Cooperman Research are revealing “shocking findings about the state of Americans’ trust in the government and media” — namely, that nearly 40 percent of the public says they trust the government less going forward.

Thursday

Spectator Editorial

Democracy on the ballot

Democracy won, apparently. More than 73 million people voted for Donald J. Trump, who won 312 Electoral College votes and the popular vote, making him the 45th and 47th president of the United States. In the end, it wasn’t particularly close, and the exit polls from the night paint a pretty bleak picture for Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party. By now, you will have read most of the breakdowns — she lost ground with Hispanics, whites, blacks, married people, non-college-educated people, et cetera. In fact, the only demographic group that she gained ground with was college-educated white women — she even somehow managed to lose ground from 2016 and 2020 with black women, a stunning and impressive feat. Tim Walz lost his home district in deep-blue Minnesota.

Democracy
podcasts
Aidan McLaughlin

How podcasts swayed the 2024 election

Around 2:45 on the morning of November 6, Donald Trump beckoned Dana White to the lectern to address the sea of MAGA-hatted supporters assembled to celebrate the former president’s election victory. In his brief but animated remarks at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, the CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship made sure to thank a cadre of figures who might just have been the key to Trump’s shocking triumph. “I want to thank the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, Bussin’ With the Boys,” White said, “and last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan!” You would be forgiven for not knowing who all these people are. No doubt many of the faithful assembled to cheer Trump were perplexed as well.

Trump
Joseph Moreno

How the lawfare campaign against Trump backfired

The effort to bankrupt, disgrace and banish Donald J. Trump to a jail cell in Riker’s Island has instead helped pave his road right back to the Oval Office. The unprecedented abuse of the American legal system fueled plenty of cable news coverage, but it also alienated the electorate. As with President Joe Biden’s mental decline, voters trusted their own eyes over the tale being told on their screens and delivered a decisive verdict against an eight-year politically-motivated lawfare campaign — exit polls showed that Trump voters were more likely to say democracy was under threat.

Monday

Dave Seminara

It’s not too late for the press to start doing their jobs

One night last week I got a robocall asking me to participate in a candidate town hall. “If you’d like to ask Ed Montanari a question, press star three,” a female voice instructed me as I joined the call to satisfy my curiosity. Though I had previously not given any thought to the Florida District 60 state House race, I spent the next hour listening with interest as Mr. Montanari, a Republican challenger, fielded questions from voters. At one point, I pressed one to ask a question. I told the screener my question was about crime, and fifteen minutes later I was connected to the candidate to ask my question. Isn’t this how democracy is supposed to work?

Thursday

Amber Duke

The rise of BlueAnon

Someone call the disinformation police! Left-wing conspiracy theories and attempts to manipulate the media are spiraling out of control ahead of the 2024 election. From tall tales about former president Donald Trump staging his own assassination attempt to the lower-stakes speculation that Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance is wearing guyliner, “BlueAnon” has reemerged in a big way. BlueAnon is a blanket term coined by some conservatives to describe liberal and left-wing conspiracy theories. It intentionally rhymes with QAnon, the arguably better-known right-wing conspiracy, and mostly arose in response to what many regard as the Russian collusion hoax, the idea that Trump colluded with the Russian government to win the 2016 presidential election.

BlueAnon
Bet-David
Aidan McLaughlin

Inside the unlikely success of Patrick Bet-David

A right turn off Montauk Highway onto a leafy street in the Hamptons town of Water Mill brings you to a wooden gate, behind which sits a 12,000-square foot modernist estate that rents, with staff, for $75,000 a week. At the moment it’s the vacation home of Patrick Bet-David, an unlikely character to find in this area of New York. Over the last two years, Bet-David has improbably emerged as one of the most prominent voices in right-wing media. His prodigious influence is belied by the fact that around here, he’s more undercover heretic than acclaimed celebrity.

assassination
Drew Holden

Forget about the Trump assassination attempt

Someone attempted to kill a former president of the United States. Live on camera. The would-be assassin failed, but the moment did produce one lasting, indelible image: Donald J. Trump, fist raised, blood streaming down his face, an American flag soaring triumphantly overhead. The effort to minimize the assassination attempt started moments after the shots rang out. CNN’s initial headline was “Secret Service rushes Trump off stage after he falls at rally.” Why did he fall, out of the blue? Who knows! NBC described Trump being evacuated “after popping noises [were] heard” at the rally. The Los Angeles Times said Trump was “whisked off stage after loud noises rang through the crowd.” USA Today said it was after “loud noises startle[d] [the] former president.

Thursday

Ben Domenech

Kamala Harris’s Frankenstein campaign

Welcome to Thunderdome. When the decision was made to shift from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris, the campaign staff was totally blindsided, with the entire Delaware operation shocked to learn about the president’s decision via social media — leading to the now infamous unnamed Democrat staffer’s line: “We’re all finding out by tweet.” It’s a sign of just how insular the Biden operation was, and how confined to the upper echelons of close, trusted staffers known for their tight lips and protective nature toward the old man. The Harris operation in 2020 was anything but that — leading to her epic collapse as a candidate and strewing numerous back-stabbing comments from staffers across the media on the way out the door.

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Harris
Stephen L. Miller

Don’t expect much from Dana Bash’s tag-team Harris-Walz interview

The last time the country saw Kamala Harris give a meaningful live interview, she was sent out as cannon fodder to clean up Joe Biden’s disastrous debate night. She has yet to explain to the country which she is hoping to govern, in any capacity, what she knew beforehand of Biden’s clear cognitive decline due to age or some other undisclosed ailment. That is the kind of question she should have to answer when she speaks to the media… but don’t expect that, or much else, when she sits for a tag-team interview with her running mate Governor Tim Walz tonight. The entire point of being interviewed as a pair is to blunt and neutralize any remotely tough or revealing question with which CNN’s Dana Bash might present them.

Monday

Roger Kimball

The ‘real’ Kamala

I write at the end of July, just on the threshold of the “silly season,” “the months of August and September, when newspapers supply the lack of real news by articles or discussions on trivial topics.” I think the season may have come a bit early this year. That, anyway, is how I am interpreting the sudden tsunami of gossip, prognostication, animadversion and speculation about certified female-of-color Kamala Harris. By the time you read this, some of the frenzy surrounding Harris may have abated. But for the time being the news is full-to-gagging with puppies and unicorn stories about how strong, dynamic and potentially transformative she is. Also, it may not be amiss to point out, she is not Donald Trump. Watching the makeover has been partly amusing, partly alarming.

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kamala
Amber Duke

What did Kamala actually do to address the ‘root causes’ of migration?

Nearly two decades ago, District Attorney Kamala Harris of San Francisco launched a criminal justice reform program called “Back on Track” that attempted to keep low-level drug dealers out of prison. San Francisco resident Amanda Kiefer learned the hard way that the program was open to illegal aliens: she suffered a fractured skull during a purse theft by a man released from lock-up under Harris’s program. Kiefer describes herself as a liberal turned Trump supporter: “When a policy negatively affects you, you wake up,” she told ABC News in July. Harris claimed in 2009 that the inclusion of illegal aliens in the “Back on Track” program was a “flaw in the design.” She has not commented on it since.