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Monday, November 24, 2025 |
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Hey, good morning. President Trump is concerned about the FCC's ownership cap review, RFK Jr. is on the cover of The Atlantic, and Google's Gemini 3 model is the talk of the tech industry. Let's get to it... |
The AP is back in court today |
The Associated Press continues to challenge the Trump administration in court over President Trump's attempt to bar the newswire from events unless/until it agrees to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America."
A federal judge sided with The AP back in April, citing the First Amendment, but the Trump admin appealed, and a US Court of Appeals panel paused the order. That's why The AP's lawyers are back in court this morning for oral arguments before a new appeals court panel. AP executive editor Julie Pace says they're fighting "for the right of the press and public to speak freely without being targeted by their government based on its preferences."
"We strongly believe this case could have much wider implications, not only for other news organizations, but for anyone in America," Pace writes in a new op-ed that hit the wire this morning.
It's an example of a news industry leader fighting instead of folding — though the fight is not without risks; an adverse ruling could further embolden the Trump White House.
"It is unclear when the court will issue a ruling," the NYT's Erik Wemple notes. In the meantime, AP photographers continue to see Trump frequently, while AP reporters have much less regular access. The president wants the photos, but not the pesky questions...
>> Further reading: Fox's Brian Flood previewed the arguments and interviewed Pace for this story. He quoted a White House spokesperson claiming the "changes to the press pool have all been additive."
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BBC chair is about to be 'grilled' |
BBC chair Samir Shah, conservative board member Robbie Gibb and others will appear before the House of Commons' Culture, Media and Sport Committee later today. The British papers are predicting that Shah will be "grilled" by MPs. The Q&A will stream live here at 10:30 a.m. ET.
Last Friday, a BBC board member, Shumeet Banerji, resigned, and the BBC's Katie Razzall reported that Banerji "was known to be angry that Shah was — in his view — weak in not challenging a number of other board members and their assertion about systemic bias at BBC News." Razzall's headline: "Is time running out for BBC chair Samir Shah after latest resignation?"
>> This morning's top headline in The Guardian: "BBC to overhaul standards panel as fallout from bias row continues." Michael Savage says the planned changes will ensure that "no voice dominates the forum," and thus "dilute the influence" of Gibb, who has been "accused of trying to sway its political impartiality."
>> During last Friday's meetup with Zohran Mamdani, Trump was asked about the status of his threatened BBC lawsuit, and didn't answer the question. (Trump had predicted that he would "probably" file it last week, but didn't.)
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Daily Mail bids for The Telegraph |
The owner of the Daily Mail has struck a roughly $650 million deal to buy The Telegraph, a deal that "would redraw the traditional lines of Britain’s Fleet Street, creating one of the largest UK media groups and a dominant voice in rightwing politics," the FT's Daniel Thomas and James Fontanella-Khan scooped over the weekend...
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'We were taken by surprise' |
Olivia Nuzzi's "American Canto" is still more than a week away. It is "likely to result in more argument, more content, possibly more revelations," the NYT's Ginia Bellafante pointed out.
Nuzzi's ex, Ryan Lizza, published "Part 2" about Nuzzi's relationship with RFK Jr. over the weekend (though this time the blog post is paywalled). "Part 1," alleging a fling with Mark Sanford, led Nuzzi's new employer, Vanity Fair, to say "we were taken by surprise, and we are looking at all the facts." Natalie Korach has the latest on the VF of it all over at Status.
I'm of the view that RFK's role (despite his denials) is the most newsworthy part of this story, because he is in a position of power. Otherwise, as Kathleen Parker wrote, "these salacious affairs are great for gossip and terrible for America."
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New cover story about RFK |
Speaking of RFK, he is the subject of The Atlantic's January 2026 cover story, out this morning. Author Michael Scherer says: "When I first met with RFK Jr. for this story, he told me his staff thought it was a bad idea. A few months later, he accused me of being a scorpion who had tricked him. But we kept talking." Here's the piece, which notes Kennedy "declined comment" about Nuzzi...
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Will 'Political Industrial Complex' catch on? |
Marjorie Taylor Greene used the phrase twice in her resignation letter on Friday, and again in a tweet on Sunday, as she shot down speculation about a 2028 presidential run. "America you are lied to every single day to keep you distracted from the fact that our government is broken beyond repair and the Political Industrial Complex is the problem," she wrote.
The phrase — which presumably includes major media, right, left and center — points inside toward a perceived problem and keeps her squarely on the outside...
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Who's skewing the polls for POTUS? |
"I HAVE JUST GOTTEN THE HIGHEST POLL NUMBERS OF MY 'POLITICAL CAREER,'" Trump claimed over the weekend. No one seemed able to figure out what numbers he was talking about. CNN's Poll of Polls shows Trump in the weakest position of his second term.
Jake Tapper brought all this up to National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on Sunday's "State of the Union," then quoted Kamala Harris saying that Joe Biden's top aide Mike Donilon "would filter the data from the polls and present the numbers in soothing terms." Tapper's question: "Is that happening with President Trump too? Is he only getting the most positively skewed polling information?" Hassett dodged, but it's a question worth asking every time lies about the polls...
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"Most Americans say Trump describes things with prices and inflation as better than they really are," according to the CBS News polling unit's latest survey. Fully 60% said he makes things sound better than they really are re: prices, while 13% said he makes things sound worse. (I'd like to meet those people!)
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FCC chair will have to convince Trump to raise the 'cap' |
In a little-noticed post on Sunday, the president picked up on a Newsmax story about the FCC's expected loosening of broadcast TV ownership rules. FCC chair Brendan Carr seems intent on lifting the ownership "cap" — something Nexstar, Sinclair and other station owners are banking on. But Carr (and those station owners) evidently have to persuade the president.
"If this would also allow the Radical Left Networks to 'enlarge,' I would not be happy," Trump wrote before railing against ABC and NBC and saying "they should be viewed as an illegal campaign to the Radical Left."
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X's new location transparency feature thrilled American users over the weekend, as some prominent political agitators were shown to be based outside the US. Accounts with names like "MAGA NATION" and "MAGA Beacon" were discovered to have been created in Eastern Europe and South Asia, respectively. While progressives focused on those, conservatives crowed about leftie accounts from outside the US.
>> Some influencers expressed thanks for the transparency. "We cannot talk about or fix any of our problems with a mob of foreigners constantly barging into the conversation," conservative podcaster Matt Walsh wrote.
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>> Tatiana Schlossberg chose The New Yorker, and the anniversary of her grandfather's assassination, to share her terminal cancer diagnosis. Reading the essay will break your heart. (New Yorker)
>> "Trump is using his new connections at Paramount for an important cause," lobbying Larry Ellison "to revive the Rush Hour franchise," Max Tani reports. (Semafor)
>> MAGA media influencers didn't know what to say about the Trump-Mamdani meeting. (NYT)
>> Speaking of Mamdani, alt-podcaster Adam Friedland snagged the mayor-elect for a "special episode" streaming today. (Instagram)
>> Jeremy Barr highlights the role of Daniel Suhr, the head of a conservative legal group called the Center for American Rights, which keeps filing FCC complaints that are right up Brendan Carr's alley. (Guardian)
>> A victory for Trump ally Viktor Orbán: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty shut down in Hungary on Friday. (Reuters)
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A must-read about ChatGPT |
"It sounds like science fiction: A company turns a dial on a product used by hundreds of millions of people and inadvertently destabilizes some of their minds. But that is essentially what happened at OpenAI this year."
That is the outstanding lead of Kashmir Hill and Jennifer Valentino-DeVries' NYT story about "what OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with realit |
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