| |  | MEDIA WINNER:
Brianna Keilar
CNN's Brianna Keilar has made headlines lately for her fiery interviews challenging various members of President Donald Trump's White House or campaign team, and her recent sparring match with Mercedes Schlapp was no exception.
Schlapp, a senior adviser for the campaign, was attempting to defend the president's recent 180-degree spin regarding mail-in voting in Florida and Keilar shot her down, calling her out for "saying a bunch of crap."
Schlapp fired back with an op-ed the next day, criticizing not just Keilar and CNN, but also a strange attack on Keilar's husband Fernanado Lujan, accusing him of bias because he had worked in former President Barack Obama's administration and tweeted things critical of Trump.
However, Schlapp didn't do her due diligence, and not only missed (or neglected to mention) that Lujan had also continued in his position for the Trump administration, even getting promoted, but she also got the wrong twitter account, blaming Lujan for tweets someone else had written.
Keilar blasted Schlapp in a statement posted on her twitter account over the op-ed "riddled with lies," warning Schlapp: "Don't mess with my family."
For hours, Schlapp remained silent, neither admitting nor correcting her mistake. Finally, the next morning, Schlapp called Lujan to apologize, Real Clear Politics updated the article with a correction, and Brian Stelter reported that "the highest levels of the Trump campaign” had “conveyed apologies to the highest levels of CNN."
Cementing her reputation as a tough interviewer, standing her ground to defend her family, getting an apology from the campaign team of a president who notably disdains apologies as a sign of weakness, plus she and her husband were a good team who handled this with class and grace...it's been a good week for Brianna Keilar.
6.5.0 |
|
|
 | MEDIA LOSER:
Dinesh D'Souza
When you're in a hole, stop digging...and tweeting.
Conservative author Dinesh D'Souza really needs to follow that advice. His appreciation to Trump for granting a pardon for his felony campaign finance law violations is understandable, and it's to be expected that he would remain an ardent defender of the president.
What happened Thursday evening, however, was beyond ridiculous.
Trump had been thoroughly mocked most of the day for his mispronunciation of Thailand as "Thighland" during a speech in Ohio, with the salacious-sounding term trending on Twitter, when D'Souza jumped into the fray with an utterly bonkers defense.
It's the media who's stupid, you see, and truly educated and sophisticated people know that the proper pronunciation is actually "Thighland," D'Souza claimed.
Twitter responded with unrelenting mockery, including a number of people who were from Thailand or who had lived there for an extended period of time. "This is damned false," wrote one. "There's not even a 'th' sound in Thai, Dinesh," wrote another.
He doubled down, claiming next that while it wasn't the Thai pronunciation, he meant that it was how people in England, Australia, and India pronounced it, sneering at his critics as having a "lack of education or travel" that prevented them from sharing his knowledge. This defense flopped too.
Even if D'Souza had been right that this was actually some sort of proper British or Indian pronunciation, that wouldn't have been a defense of Trump, a Queens, New York native who never lived in either of those places. The president made a silly error and all D'Souza did was make it worse. Trump himself had corrected the error a few seconds later, and the story was dying down when D'Souza ran with his best Leeroy Jenkins impression.
Read D'Souza's tweets, and some of the replies we found, here. Or just search #Thighland on Twitter -- D'Souza is competing with Trump to capture the most ridicule on the issue. 6.5.0 |
|
|
|
|  |
| Trump vs. God vs. Biden
The 2020 presidential election took a religious turn on Thursday, when Trump launched a bitter rant against his Democratic opponent Joe Biden, claiming that Biden was a person with “no religion, no anything,” someone who would “hurt the Bible, hurt God. He’s against God."
Biden fired back with a blistering statement decrying Trump's "decision today to profane God and to smear my faith."
Maybe everyone could just try reading Matthew 7:1-5 and Romans 14:1-13 and stop questioning each other's faith, and get back to arguing over who mispronounces more words? That would be great, thanks.
Oprah wants justice
Oprah Winfrey is backing the movement to get justice for Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old African-American woman who was shot to death in her sleep by Louisville, Kentucky police who were executing a no-knock warrant at the apartment she shared with her boyfriend.
The media mogul paid for 26 billboards around Louisville calling for justice for Taylor and also put her photo on the cover of O, The Oprah Magazine — making it the first time in its 20-year history that Winfrey was not on the cover herself.
Umm, no, that's not okay Trump has raised eyebrows in the past when he's said that people who exercise their First Amendment rights by burning the American flag or kneeling during the national anthem should be jailed or fired, but former Trump adviser Seb Gorka took it to a whole new level on his radio program.
A caller suggested that the athletes kneeling during the anthem should be executed, put "against the wall with the firing squad" and Gorka not only didn't object, he thanked the caller. Listen to the bizarre segment here.
Not going so well for Falwell
Jerry Falwell, Jr. raised eyebrows for posting a scandalous-appearing (and now deleted) Instagram photo from a yacht party with his arm around a woman not his wife, both of them with their shorts partially unzipped. His defense made little sense and drew criticism for being hypocritical behavior from the president of an evangelical Christian college.
Now, Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC), a member of Liberty University's board and former professor there, is calling for Falwell to resign.
Personally, we just never want to see that creepy photo ever again.
Surely he has an opinion
Dr. Anthony Fauci has become almost as famous for his disagreements with Trump as his scientific knowledge, despite his insistence that he doesn't want to get dragged into political arguments. But his refusal to answer a basic question in a Washington Post interview was a silly dodge.
Reporter Jacqueline Alemany asked Fauci multiple times about whether people with risk factors for the coronavirus (pre-existing conditions, being over 75 years of age, etc.) should consider voting by mail, but he refused to answer directly.
Trump's objections to mail-in voting are well known, and Fauci was clearly trying to avoid another week of headlines but there's no way he doesn't have an opinion about the potential efficacy of safety precautions that could be taken at polling stations. This pandemic is new to all of us, and advice from scientists and medical professionals is needed for people to make the best decisions for themselves and their families. Fauci's silence didn't protect Trump and didn't help anyone else -- and it didn't save him from headlines.
A win for Tucker and Hannity
Hannity and Tucker Carlson Tonight topped all of cable news in total viewers and A25-54 viewers on Wednesday, respectively. Both programs also had more overall viewers [Hannity with 3,968,000 viewers and Tucker Carlson Tonight with 3,880,000 viewers] than CBS' season 22 premiere of Big Brother, which had 3,642,000 viewers in its first night back.
 Fox News Channel again took the advertiser-coveted demo in prime time, early morning, and total day, as well as overall viewers. Read the rest here, along with lots of other exclusive, ad-free content at our premium service, Mediaite+.
Tlaib's in trouble
Friday morning, the House Ethics Committee ordered Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) to repay $10,800 she took from 2018 campaign funds, Friday, ruling however that the congresswoman didn’t intend to “unjustly enrich herself.”
This closes the matter, but the timing of a credible ethics complaint may have contributed to making her primary election a bit of a tougher battle. Tlaib won a narrow victory over a challenger earlier this week.
Good deed by Massie
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has announced he tested positive for coronavirus antibodies in July — but never knew he had the virus, and believes he may have contracted it as early as January.
Massie also shared that he is donating convalescent plasma to aid Covid-19 research. As the FDA's website explains, convalescent plasma is being studied as a potential treatment, and anyone who has fully recovered from the virus is being encouraged to donate to assist the research efforts. Learn more here.
Presidential paintings
The love for portrait painting that former President George W. Bush found in his retirement has endeared him to many people, regardless of their political views, and he's preparing to release a new collection of his work.
Bush announced on Instagram that he would be releasing a book and new exhibit at the Bush Center in Dallas featuring portraits he had painted of immigrants. The book, called OUT OF MANY, ONE, will be available for pre-order and released in March 2021. 6.5.0 |
|
|
| FML? LOL
Sometimes live television can go awry, and countless reporters have been caught over the years dropping an inadvertent profanity.
It's an entirely different level of error when the spicy language is in a pre-recorded segment, though. But that's exactly what happened to Lana Murphy, a reporter for a Melbourne, Australia television station.
Delivering a report about people being caught violating pandemic lockdown rules, Murphy stumbled over her words in one of the takes, pausing to try again, saying "F*** my life."
The wrong version got submitted, the network failed to fully preview it before airing, and the rest is history.
Fortunately for Murphy, the network took it all in stride and she won't lose her job, a fact she acknowledged in a grateful tweet apologizing to her audience.
"2020 though am I right?" tweeted Murphy, expressing what we're all thinking. Watch the clip here. |
|
|
|
|
|
