THE DAILY NEWSLETTER - TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2022

Media Winners & Losers

MEDIA WINNER:
John Avlon

CNN's John Avlon hit at Democrats for playing a "dangerous game" in the upcoming midterm elections.

In a “Reality Check” segment, Avlon highlighted multiple instances of the Democratic Party “meddling” in Republican primaries by dumping money into ad buys that promote Donald Trump-backed candidates over moderate conservatives.

The strategy banks on the thought that Trump loyalists will be easier to beat in a general election, yet Avlon warned that it might ruin Democrats' chances in the upcoming elections.

“There’s a lot of righteous talk, especially from Democrats, about how we need to build the biggest possible coalition to defend democracy,” Avlon stated.

Avlon went on to point to the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump as “profiles in courage," arguing that such Republicans get ostracized by their own party as well as by Democrats.

He noted that these Republicans, including Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and Liz Cheney (R-WY) have been taking a lot of fire from both the left and right this year.

Avlon then turned to Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI), who voted to impeach Trump, calling him a "man whose independent-minded, common sense conservative principles perfectly fit the district once held by Gerald Ford."

"But yesterday, with one week until his primary, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee decided to drop more than $400,000 ad buy in his district to boost the name of his Trump-backed far-right primary opponent because they believe he’d be much easier to beat in a district that Biden won in 2020," Avlon continued.

The reporter proceeded to condemn Democrats participating in these political shenanigans against “honorable outliers," arguing, "Our Democratic Republic depends on people putting country over party."

“But our usually zero-sum political system rewards the opposite, and in Washington D.C.,getting reelected is held in higher regard than trying to do the right thing," Avlon concluded.

"You say you value putting country over party? Act like it."

MEDIA LOSER:
Greg Gutfeld

Greg Gutfeld declared the Jan. 6 hearings a “show trial” that actually made Donald Trump more “electable” ... only to be reminded that newspapers owned by Fox founder Rupert Murdoch have branded Trump as the exact opposite. 

On Monday’s edition of The Five, Gutfeld tore into the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. 

“The discontent is getting louder because Jan. 6th floundered, it ended up accidentally exonerating Trump,” Gutfeld said.

“They showed no planned coup, no criminality, they had to move the goalpost into the parking lot.”

Gutfeld noted that the latest hearing focused on Trump’s 187 minutes of inaction during the riot, proceeding to downplay the evidence presented by the committee.

He then went on to hit at lawmakers on the committee for resorting to the narrative that Trump “took too long” to comment on the Capitol attack.

"Why is it that he seems more electable now? Is it because the public saw that it was a show trial and that they didn’t sympathize?" he continued.

"They actually sympathized with the other side -- with the Congress, they saw them as a bunch of drama queens?"

Despite Gutfeld's claim, several outlets have reported on how the hearings are wounding the former president -- including Rupert-owned Wall Street Journal and New York Post. 

Gutfeld's Fox News colleague Jessica Tarlov responded to the comment by pointing to the outlets' recent op-eds. 

"First, on the Jan. 6 committee – not a show trial, we even had The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post saying that Trump was unelectable again, that it was a dereliction of duty," Tarlov said.

"He sat by and watched [the riot] for hours."

While Tarlov was met with laughter from her colleagues, her pushback was entirely valid, as the editorial boards at the WSJ and the NY Post have respectfully declared Trump “utterly failed” and “unfit for office."

The A-Block

'Really big deal'

Marc Short, former Chief of Staff to then Vice President Mike Pence, appeared last week before a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Marc Short was caught by an ABC News camera departing D.C. District Court on Friday alongside his attorney, Emmet Flood,” ABC added.

Short’s appearance before the grand jury would make him the highest-ranking former Trump official to cooperate with the federal investigation.

Pence became a primary target of the mob on Jan. 6 as then President Donald Trump claimed Pence had betrayed them by refusing to not certify the election results.

CNN’s Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin declared Short's testimony as a "really big deal" on Tuesday morning.

“The Justice Department has been criticized by a lot of people because it has apparently only focused on the relative minor players in the January 6th story, the hundreds of people who went in the Capitol,” Toobin explained.

“This suggests that the Justice Department is now criminally investigating the White House.”

Short also sat down for an interview with ABC News’ Linsey Davis on Monday night, but refused to disclose any information about his grand jury testimony beyond confirming its existence.

He did, however, predict that if rioters had gotten any closer to Pence on Jan. 6, “there would have been a massacre that day in the Capitol.”


In Other News...

Key Jan. 6 Member Jamie Raskin Says ‘Con Man’ Trump ‘Has Met His Match’ With Committee

‘Go Ahead’: Fauci Dismisses Rand Paul’s Threat to Launch Investigation on Him if GOP Wins in November

J.D. Vance Suggests Abused Spouses Should Stay Married Because Divorce ‘Really Didn’t Work Out for the Kids in Those Marriages’

Donald Trump, Mike Pence Will Hold Dueling Speeches in D.C. to Mark Ex-President’s First Return Since the Capitol Riot

RATINGS: Cable News Ratings Friday July 21: Daytime Shows Beat Prime Time on CNN, Fox and MSNBC

Must See Clip

'I don’t want to answer that question.'

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) ended an interview early after she was asked if she’d like to see President Joe Biden seek a second term in office in 2024.

“Do you want to see Joe Biden run for a second term?” Mark Maxwell, the political editor for KSDK, asked Bush on Monday. 

A person Maxwell identified as one of Bush’s aides interrupted, saying the representative had to go.

“I don’t want to answer that question because we have not – that’s not – yeah, I don’t want to answer that question,” Bush responded. “I mean, he’s the president, he has the right to run for a second term, absolutely.”

Bush continued, “I don’t want to – I’d rather you not do that answer and question.”

Links We Like

- Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics
Chris Rock jokes about Will Smith and cancel culture
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Can Ford close the electric vehicle gender gap?
- Morgan Meaker and Aarian Marshall, Wired
Rolling Stone's 200 greatest dance songs of all time
-Jon Dolan, Julyssa Lopez, Michaelangelo Matos and Claire Shaffer, Rolling Stone
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