THE DAILY NEWSLETTER - FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2022

Media Winners & Losers

MEDIA WINNER:
Greta Van Susteren

Greta Van Susteren, the veteran cable news anchor whose career has included stints at CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, is in talks to join Newsmax, sources tell Mediaite.

It's not known yet whether Van Susteren will host her own show for the conservative network, but she's been a frequent sight on their airwaves in recent weeks. Earlier this month, she delivered a report for Newsmax from a field hospital in Ukraine, and next week she’s expected to moderate the Republican Senate primary debate in Pennsylvania for the network.

Newsmax has sought to position itself as a competitor with Fox News, benefitting from a surge in viewers who defected from Rupert Murdoch's network in the aftermath of the 2020 election to seek more stridently pro-Trump alternatives. Fox News is back on top of the cable news ratings, but adding Van Susteren to Newsmax's roster could bring some gravitas to their reporting. The network has had some missteps and legal headaches, including ongoing defamation lawsuits from Dominion and Smartmatic.

Since leaving Fox News in 2016 after a bitter contract dispute, she spent 6 months at MSNBC, and then worked as a host at Gray TV and Voice of America. Getting back on a cable news network would certainly be a win for Van Susteren, and she'd be joining a number of her former Fox News colleagues who are now at Newsmax.

MEDIA LOSER:
EWTN's Owen Jensen

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and other reporters in the briefing room went back and forth with EWTN reporter Owen Jensen for shouting over them, shutting him down over his very vocal objections.

At Psaki’s briefing Thursday, Jensen — who regularly tangles with Psaki over the issue of abortion rights — made four separate attempts to muscle his way ahead of other reporters, and complained bitterly when Psaki and other reporters in the room scolded him.

In the first exchange, Jensen interrupted White House Correspondent for Bloomberg News Jordan Fabian and drew scolding from Psaki, Fabian, and another reporter who rebuked him as “very disrespectful."

Jensen interrupted three more times, drew more scolding from Psaki on his final attempt, and shouted his question at her as she left the room.

The reality is that there isn't time for Psaki to call on everyone in the briefing room, or call on Jensen every day. But interrupting and shouting over his White House Press Corps colleagues isn't the answer -- especially when he's already asked a similar question in the past.

Jensen wasn't just rude, he was ineffective, causing disruptions and taking up time without getting a question answered.

The A-Block

Sadison Cawthorn

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) is not having a good time.

A former aide has filed a labor complaint against the congressman and slammed him as "just a bad person." He got caught carrying a loaded gun in an airport, for the second time in less than a year. House leadership is openly expressing concern about his behavior.

The photos Politico published of Cawthorn drinking and wearing lingerie on a cruise turned out to be only a sample of the embarrassing photos and "salacious" stories that would emerge, which the freshman North Carolina rep has tried to dismiss as a "coordinated drip campaign" against him.

His fellow Republicans have turned against him after he called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a "thug" and made wild claims about cocaine-fueled orgies.

Perhaps most damaging, longtime North Carolina GOP fixture Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) endorsed Cawthorn's primary opponent, State Sen. Chuck Edwards.

Tillis continued to strongly denounce Cawthorn in an interview with Politico's Burgess Everett published on Thursday, slamming the congressman for his "temperament and judgment issues" and for having personal "political ambitions [that] exceed his ambitions for his constituents."

Tillis specifically called Cawthorn out for attempting to campaign on bringing broadband to his western North Carolina district when he had voted against the infrastructure bill that provided the funding for it.


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In Other News...

Pentagon Spox Kirby Says Putin Should Absolutely Not Be 'Welcome' at G20: Inappropriate to Keep Treating Russia 'As If Things Are Normal'

Kyrsten Sinema Brags Cleavage Has 'Extraordinarily Persuasive Effect' on 'Uptight' GOP Colleagues

Trump Finally Posts to TRUTH Social After Months-Long Hiatus: 'I'M BACK! #COVFEFE'

MSNBC Follows DeSantis to Las Vegas, Finds Supporters Gambling on 2024 Merch: ‘We Really Hope He Runs Because We Have, Like, 2,000 of These’

PERRY: Is It Curtains For Foreign Correspondents? Not Exactly


RATINGS: Fox News Sweeps in the Demo Across All Hours

Must See Clip

'You're a Liar!'

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) dodged CNN anchor Jim Acosta questioning her on Thursday about her 2021 text pointing out that members of Congress were calling for former President Donald Trump to declare martial law following the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol.

“In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law [sic],” Greene texted then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Jan. 17, 2021. “I don’t know on those things. I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!”

CNN first reported this week on thousands of text messages sent between Meadows and GOP lawmakers and the Trump supporters.

“Did you send a text in asking for the president to declare martial law?” asked Acosta, walking with Greene outside the U.S. Capitol. “Did you do that?”

Greene didn't appreciate the question, initially sticking with her "I don't recall" line about the texts but then calling Acosta a "liar" and demanding that he read what her texts actually said.

So he pulled out his phone, looked up the text messages, and attempted to read them to her.

Watch the feisty exchange here.

Links We Like

Stop Using Legislation To Virtue Signal
- Steven Greenhut, Reason
'I Want You to Know Something': Memories, Personal and Political, of Orrin Hatch
- Jay Nordlinger, National Review
How One Florida Woman With Twitter Problems Plunged Us Into a Nightmarish National Conversation About “Grooming”
- Ben Mathis-Lilley, Slate
How to Stop Freaking Out
- Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic
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