THE DAILY NEWSLETTER  - THURSDAY, JULY 2, 2020  

Media Winners & Losers

MEDIA WINNER:
NBC's Jonathan Dienst, Joe Valiquette, Tom Winter, and Sarah Fitzpatrick

NBC New York's reporting team of Jonathan DienstJoe ValiquetteTom Winter, and Sarah Fitzpatrick deserves kudos for breaking a major story this week: Ghislaine Maxwell, the girlfriend of late sex offender and wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested by the FBI.

Maxwell had been under investigation by the FBI regarding her relationship with Epstein, accused of helping him recruit underage girls to victimize. Maxwell was a former girlfriend of Epstein's, wealthy in her own right as the heir to media baron Robert Maxwell, and she was a close confidante of Epstein's for decades. 

After breaking shock news of the arrest, NBC New York reported that the six-count indictment filed in Manhattan federal court against Maxwell alleges that she helped Epstein groom girls as young as 14 years old, sometimes being present and even participating in their sexual abuse. The charges date as far back as 1994.

Epstein killed himself in prison last year, but questions still remain regarding the girls he abused -- and who else might have been involved. Epstein was known to associate with some of the most rich and powerful people in the world, including Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and Britain's Prince Andrew.

Epstein's connections helped him avoid facing criminal consequences for a long time. He can no longer answer questions, but Maxwell can. The story of how he was able to traffic these young girls for so many years has not yet been completely told, and it's important for media to keep a spotlight on the various people involved. 

 

MEDIA LOSER:
Pretty Much This Whole Darn Fox News Panel

The hosts of Fox News show Outnumbered raised questions that echoed Trump’s baseless claim that Joe Biden had reporters’ questions pre-screened during his Tuesday press conference.

On Wednesday, the show reacted to the shots Biden took at Trump after a campaign speech in Delaware. This analysis involved Kennedy making fun of Biden for slurring his words, Melissa Francis saying the former vice president’s “eyes were kind of empty” and groaning that she “forced myself” to watch despite being “so bored.”

Both Francis and Kennedy openly insinuated that Biden had been given the questions ahead of time, an accusation that Trump had made on Twitter repeatedly.

Marie Harf, the designated liberal commentator for the panel, defended Biden as being the "boring" and "normal" presence that voters were seeking after the tumultuous Trump years, but otherwise the panel was perfectly happy to nod along and amplify the president's ridiculous accusation. A Fox News reporter, it should be noted, was at the Biden presser!

Multiple outlets looked into this allegation and found no basis whatsoever for it, with individual reporters confirming they had not revealed their questions to anyone on Biden's staff.

By the time this panel was discussing Biden's press conference, the news reports were already out with the journalists who asked questions denying their questions had been pre-screened. Insinuating otherwise was lazy and dishonest. 

The A-Block

Some Good News

Another jobs report came out and there's some sunshine peeking through the clouds.

The U.S. economy added 4.8 million jobs in the month of June, as the unemployment dropped to 11.1%, according to data from the Department of Labor.

Another 1.4 million Americans filed for unemployment last week, and many of those 4.8 million jobs added weren't really added, but were workers who were temporarily laid off now returning to work. 

Still, Americans going back to work is a good thing and those 4.8 million newly employed or re-employed people would undoubtedly agree.

That Tulsa Rally Might Not Have Been a Good Idea

The Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma last month generated a slew of embarrassing headlines for the campaign, after noticeably low attendance amid ongoing worries about transmitting the coronavirus. 

It's continuing to cause troubles for the president's campaign team, with campaign manager Brad Parscale self-quarantining at home and other campaign staffers self-quarantining in hotels after cases in Tulsa spiked the week after the rally. 


Coronavirus Convention Conundrums 

The national political party conventions have become a fixture of presidential election years, but both parties are facing challenges in how to manage them in the age of a global pandemic. 

A recent poll highlights this challenge, with the DNC planning a virtual convention but a quarter of Democrats worried that will  “cost them an opportunity to generate enthusiasm and organize supporters."

Meanwhile, the RNC is moving ahead with an in-person convention in Jacksonville, Florida -- and 36 percent of Republicans think that is "reckless and dangerous."

How Do You Say "Yikes" In Portuguese? 

CNN Brasil reporter Bruna Macedo was robbed at knifepoint during a live report in São Paolo on Saturday.

She was reporting on rising water levels at a nearby bridge when a man approached her, wielding a knife. He took two cell phones from her and the station cut the live feed. Macedo was shaken up but physically unharmed.

Those In Racist Glass Houses Shouldn't Throw Tweets

Caleb Hull is a DC-based GOP operative who's worked with some high-profile conservative organizations, and is well-known for being an aggressive pro-Trump brawler on social media. 

That might change. He made his Twitter account private on Thursday, hours before a Mediaite report detailed another secret Twitter account he had with a long list of racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic...well, it's a long, long, very long list of people and groups he attacked, including cancer patients. 

Hull's tweets included multiple uses of the n-word and other slurs, including telling several African-American gamers to go "pick cotton" or "get Ebola."

Hull posted an apology on Twitter for the "vile things" he had written. Many of the incriminating posts had been deleted, but internet archives proved to be his undoing. Remember, screenshots are forever.

Cha-ching! 

The Biden campaign beat Trump in the fundraising contest last quarter, a critical accomplishment in an era where presidential campaigns are increasingly expensive.

On Wednesday night, the Trump campaign reported a $131 million haul throughout June, which brings their overall second quarter of fundraising to $266 million. But hours after the Trump campaign released their figures, the Biden campaign said they drew $141 million from June, and their second quarter is $282 million.

It's a reversal from Biden's somewhat sluggish fundraising earlier in the year, showing that Democratic donors are uniting behind their nominee.

"Republicans Will Be Hunted!" 

Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, posted some completely bonkers tweets on Wednesday, predicting that if Biden is elected, Republicans would be hunted, police would stand down, and "there's a good chance you will be dead within the year."

Our increasingly divisive partisan politics have us expecting intense rhetoric in election years, but this is just plain crazy

Must See Clip

If You Like Shouting and Baseball References, Watch This

Mark Cuban had a fiery back-and-forth segment with Sean Hannity on Hannity's Fox News program on Tuesday.

The two argued over everything from the math behind Obamacare, who was actually paying for the border wall with Mexico, Trump's reluctance to wear a face mask, and the president's troubles answering a "softball question" in a recent interview with Hannity. 

“Sean, you gave Donald Trump the ultimate softball question and he couldn’t answer it!” Cuban said.

Watch the segment, here.

Links We Like

Vanilla Ice to perform Fourth of July weekend concert near Austin as coronavirus cases surge
- via Texas Tribune
A College Degree is No Guarantee of a Good Life
- Arthur Brooks, via The Atlantic
Florida Just Passed the Most Sweeping Occupational Licensing Reform in History
- via Reason
Coronavirus: How 'immunity passports' could create an antibody elite
- via BBC News
Driving Older Cars: Light on Tech, Heavy on Fun
- via New York Times
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