“I had no problem with conservative opinion any more than I do with liberal opinion. But what I do have a problem with is conspiracy and lies. The truth is non-negotiable.”
— Chris Wallace, explaining to Mediaite why he left Fox News after nearly two decades.
“A new movie about young Donald Trump hits theaters Friday, despite Trump trying to block its release. It paints an unflattering portrait of his rise as a real estate mogul — and Republicans are calling it election interference,” Axios reports.
“The Apprentice film is a dramatization of Trump’s tutelage under controversial lawyer/political fixer Roy Cohn — and includes scenes of Trump’s character allegedly raping his first wife, Ivana, and having scalp reduction and liposuction procedures.”
“Vanity Fair journalist Gabriel Sherman wrote the ‘fact-based’ script, which stems from his research, biographies of Trump and Cohn, video from the 1970s and 1980s, and interviews with people who knew Trump as a child.”
Brian Stelter: “After the third and maybe final debate of this year’s election cycle, it can definitively be said: The Commission on Presidential Debates is a relic of the past.”
“The Democratic and Republican campaigns for president bypassed the commission this year, negotiated with individual TV networks, and – despite all the doubts and concerns – it worked. CNN, ABC and CBS produced their own debates and received kudos for doing so.”
“Networks vigorously competed to line up candidates; partisans bickered about the rules and formats; but the resulting debates were a public service. And in a rare and welcome show of solidarity, all the major networks televised their rivals’ events. Maybe it will work this way again in 2028?”
“Donald Trump is turning up his nose at ‘60 Minutes‘ once again,” Variety reports.
“The former president, who walked out of an interview with correspondent Lesley Stahl in 2020 amid the last presidential campaign, has cancelled an exchange he was scheduled to make on a special edition of the venerable CBS News newsmagazine for Monday night — after previously committing to do so.”
Axios: “With Trump saying it’s ‘too late’ for another debate with Harris, the show could have been a final chance for both candidates to reach a mass audience, 29 days before Election Day.”
The Dispatch: “It’s a question you hear a lot around Washington, D.C., where the former Fox News star is usually referred to by his first name alone, not because of his fame—like Hillary or Oprah—but because pretty much everyone had some personal contact with him. Tucker was such a man about town and media fixture that, in 2021, 16 reporters told the New York Times that he was a great source for Trump White House gossip and news.”
“Pretty much everyone, including those who knew him well, remains perplexed by his transformation in the Trump era…”
“What happened to Tucker is that he went from being a P.J. O’Rourke libertarian in the 1990s to an Alex Jones nationalist in the 2020s. Why did it happen? There are various theories—fame, ego, power, money, ideology, lunacy. But none is satisfying by itself.”
New York Times: “A QR code — the checkerboard-like, black-and-white box that can be scanned by a smartphone — will appear onscreen for long stretches of the CBS telecast. Viewers who scan the code will be directed to the CBS News website, where a squad of about 20 CBS journalists will post fact-checks of the candidates’ remarks in real time.”
“The code will appear only on CBS; viewers who tune in on a different channel will not see it.”
“Donald Trump supporters appear to have quit Netflix en masse after one of the online streaming giant’s co-founders publicly threw his backing behind Kamala Harris,” the Daily Beast reports.
“Reed Hastings, chairman of Netflix and a longtime Democratic supporter, announced his endorsement on July 22, later telling The Information he’d also donated some $7 million to the Harris campaign.”
Bloomberg: Netflix cancellations spiked after Reed Hastings donated to Kamala Harris.
“Over the past week, Americans were more likely to hear news about former President Donald Trump than about Vice President Kamala Harris, according to The Breakthrough, a CNN polling project that tracks what average Americans are actually hearing, reading and seeing about the presidential candidates throughout the campaign,” CNN reports.
“Brian Williams may have found his next TV-news job… except it won’t be on traditional TV,” Variety reports.
“The veteran NBC News and MSNBC anchor is in late-stage discussions to host a live Election Night special on Amazon Prime Video.”
CBS News said that the vice presidential candidates’ microphones will not be muted, but later clarified in a press release that it “reserves the right to turn off candidate microphones.”
“Conservative cable network Newsmax on Thursday settled a defamation lawsuit brought by voting-machine company Smartmatic, narrowly avoiding a high-profile trial over the airing of 2020 election falsehoods,” Axios reports.
“Jury selection is set to begin Thursday in a closely watched defamation trial pitting voting technology company Smartmatic against the right-wing cable network Newsmax, in a high-stakes case over the airing of false 2020 election claims,” CNN reports.
“Barring a last-minute settlement, which is common in cases like these, both sides are girding for a showdown in Delaware Superior Court, where a similar lawsuit between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems was famously settled last year for a record $787 million.”
New York Times: “Election Day is the news industry’s biggest night, when voters rely on media outlets to declare state-by-state winners and keep score in the Electoral College.”
“But as presidential polls project a razor-thin finish that could take days to determine — and as baseless claims about voting fraud run rampant — news executives acknowledge that the onus is on them to help viewers understand the nuances of the vote-tallying process.”
“As a result, almost every major news organization is putting contingency plans in place to push back against a gale-force storm of misinformation and ensure that audiences trust their coverage. Their efforts will probably stretch far beyond Nov. 5, as absentee ballots are counted and close races potentially face legal reviews.”
Related for members: Democrats Will Run Up the Score in Early Voting
“Starting in June, the New York Post began publishing stories on the presidential, Senate and congressional races in Wisconsin as part of an initiative on battleground states,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
“But the Post — a right-leaning newspaper owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch — picked a reporter for the project with strong ties to Republicans and conservatives in Wisconsin.”
“In fact, Amy Sikma was paid twice last year by the state Republican Party for consulting work.”
Jonathan Last writes about conservative journalist Byron York, saying “you can learn a lot about how Trump happened and where the Republican party is headed by understanding the career of this one guy.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.