“A group of Republican senators want a new TV rating created so parents can block their children from watching shows with LGBTQ characters,” the New York Post reports.
From their letter: “In recent years, concerning topics of a sexual nature have become aggressively politicized and promoted in children’s programming, including irreversible and harmful experimental treatments for mental disorders like gender dysphoria.”
A Newsmax host suggested — without evidence or logic — that future Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson may be responsible for the leak of a draft ruling that would dismantle abortion rights even though she isn’t on the Supreme Court yet, the HuffPost reports.
“Trevor Noah joked about the event becoming a superspreader — and now the cases are rolling in,” CNN reports.
“In the days since WHCD weekend, reporters and staffers from CNN, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, Politico, and other participating news organizations have tested positive for the virus. Most notably, ABC’s Jon Karl, who shook hands with President Biden and who sat next to Kim Kardashian, has fallen ill.”
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Tucker Carlson, the highest rated host in cable news, told Axios he hasn’t read a word of this weekend’s New York Times series about him — “and of course won’t.”
“The White House Correspondents’ Dinner makes its grand return Saturday night, two years after the pandemic shut it down and six years since the last time a commander-in-chief attended the event,” ABC News reports.
“President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden are scheduled to attend the charity event at the Washington Hilton, the first sitting president to do so since 2016. Former President Donald Trump vocally snubbed his three invitations during his time in office.”
New York Times: “In some respects, Mr. Carlson has taken Trumpism away from Mr. Trump. While the former president has urged his followers to get vaccinated and sought to claim more credit for his administration’s efforts to fight Covid-19, Mr. Carlson has continued to promote doubt about the vaccines’ efficacy, even likening mandates to Nazi medical experiments.”
“On the Jan. 6 anniversary, Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, set out to walk back his comments accurately calling the Trump-inspired riot a ‘violent terrorist attack.’ He didn’t apologize to Mr. Trump. He apologized to Mr. Carlson, in a cringing appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
New York Times: “In the years since, Mr. Carlson has constructed what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news — and also, by some measures, the most successful. Though he frequently declares himself an enemy of prejudice — ‘We don’t judge them by group, and we don’t judge them on their race,’ Mr. Carlson explained to an interviewer a few weeks before accusing impoverished immigrants of making America dirty — his show teaches loathing and fear.”
“Night after night, hour by hour, Mr. Carlson warns his viewers that they inhabit a civilization under siege — by violent Black Lives Matter protesters in American cities, by diseased migrants from south of the border, by refugees importing alien cultures, and by tech companies and cultural elites who will silence them, or label them racist, if they complain.”
“Fox News scrapped plans for a Bret Baier-hosted documentary on how former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election,” Insider reports.
“Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Fox’s Sean Hannity exchanged more than 80 text messages between Election Day 2020 and Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration, communications that show Hannity’s evolution from staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump’s election lies to being ‘fed up’ with the ‘lunatics’ hurting Trump’s cause in the days before January 6,” CNN reports.
“Throughout the logs, Hannity both gives advice and asks for direction, blurring the lines between his Fox show, his radio show and the Trump White House.”
Philip Bump: Sean Hannity is exactly who we might have assumed.
Fox News host Sean Hannity promised Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, that he would push an Election Day get-out-the-vote message to his radio show listeners, the Washington Post reports.
Meadows asked for Hannity’s help with messaging, and offered him a slogan to convey to the host’s millions of radio show listeners: “Stress every vote matters. Get out and vote. On radio.”
Hannity responded in the affirmative: “Yes sir. On it.”
New York Times: “The near-instant collapse of CNN+ amounted to one of the most spectacular media failures in years, a $300 million experiment that ended abruptly with layoffs in the offing and careers in disarray. The corporate tug of war over its fate exposed deep philosophical divides about the future of digital media, as executives struggle to navigate a rapidly changing marketplace where technology and consumer habits shift day to day.”
“New York Times reporters Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin say they have more audio of House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy, having already released tape which showed that McCarthy told GOP leaders he would ask for Donald Trump to resign the presidency in the wake of the January 6 riot,” Insider reports.
Said Martin: “We have a lot more on tape from this period, which is at the highest levels of American politics.”
He added: “It is sensitive, it is delicate, and it is high stakes. We have it all on tape, and it’s going to — I think — tell a very different story about this period than the story that many people are trying to tell right now.”
Warner Bros. Discovery is shutting down CNN+ and is expected to provide details to staffers Thursday, Variety reports.
Wall Street Journal: “The move to shutter the service on April 30, merely a month after it launched, comes only a week after CNN’s parent company WarnerMedia was taken over by Discovery Communications. Discovery’s executives were dubious about the strategy of the service even before its deal to acquire the company closed.”
“Former President Donald Trump blasted Piers Morgan as ‘very dishonest’ while walking out of an interview with the TV presenter and Post columnist after being pressed on his claims that he lost the 2020 presidential election due to voter fraud,” the New York Post reports.
A video shows disgraced former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly threatening a JetBlue airline employee and calling him a “fucking scumbag” before a trip to Turks and Caicos, the Daily Mail reports.
“In every episode now they’re gonna have, you know, Mickey and Pluto going at it. Like, really? It’s just like, come on guys, these are kids, and you know, you could always shift to Cinemax if you want that.”
— Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), slamming Disney on his podcast, over the company’s opposition to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.
“Warner Bros. Discovery has suspended all external marketing spend for CNN+ and has laid off CNN’s longtime chief financial officer as it weighs what to do with the subscription streaming service moving forward,” Axios reports.
Jon Stewart’s new show on Apple TV+ “has failed to gain traction in its first season and lags far behind its competitors on broadcast and cable TV,” Bloomberg reports.
“Last fall, about 180,000 U.S. homes saw the show’s first episode within the first seven days… By the fifth episode, which aired in early March, about 40,000 U.S. homes tuned in, down 78% from the season premiere. By comparison, an episode in March of HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver was seen in 844,000 U.S. homes.”
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.
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