THE DAILY NEWSLETTER - TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2022

Media Winners & Losers

MEDIA WINNER:
Brian Kilmeade

Brian Kilmeade took Donald Trump to task over his 2020 election claims and declared that the former president lied about Arizona’s election audit.

Trump has falsely claimed that the 2020 election was rigged against him in multiple states.

Kilmeade fielded a call on his radio show on Monday afternoon from a man named Logan, who described himself as a Trump supporter who is concerned about the former president’s obsession with 2020.

The host agreed and explained he spoke with two of Trump’s friends about the issue.

According to Kilmeade, they said that “after the Arizona rally, they called him up and said that was the worst speech you ever gave.”

Kilmeade said nobody cares about that topic, and listed many pressing issues that concern Americans every day.

He said Trump has genuine accomplishments that he could tout instead of the 2020 election, and referenced a claim Trump made about an Arizona audit initiated by the Republican-controlled state legislature, which confirmed Joe Biden won the state in 2020. But Trump claimed the audit found the opposite.

“That’s an outright lie, and please stop wasting our time with that, because he’s capable of doing so much more," he said.

Telling the truth to a caller — that Trump lied — is not something you hear on right wing radio too often. Some folks just don't want to tick off their audience, no matter what.

Kilmeade bucking that trend stands out. And the fact that it was an important truth to stand on, and one so central to Trump's identity, makes it all the more notable.

MEDIA LOSER:
Joe Rogan

Trevor Noah went off on Joe Rogan after a supercut of him “dropping the N-word like he bought it in bulk at Costco” began making the rounds over the weekend.

While The Daily Show host praised Rogan for his response to those leaving Spotify over the Covid-19 misinformation on his podcast, Noah seemed to backtrack his support over the supercut and Rogan's apology video attempting to explain it.

“If there’s ever a video of you saying the ‘N-word’ that many times, you’d better pray one of two things,” Noah said Monday. “Either you’re a Black person or you’re a dead man from history. Because then the worst thing they can do is take your statue down and move it into a museum.”

Noah pointed out another clip in which Rogan compared a Black neighborhood to the Planet of the Apes, joking it was so bad, it made him “miss the ‘N-word’ video.”

“First of all, he said he would never say that Black people are apes, but he said that! That’s literally what he said!” Noah exclaimed. “It’s not just racist. That’s O.G. racism. That’s the original, old-school racism. That’s on the Mount Rushmore of racism. ‘Black people are apes’ is right next to burning crosses and every Bugs Bunny cartoon from the 1940s.”

“Just because something is a joke doesn’t mean it can’t be something else as well,” he said. “Someone can find it funny, but the laughs don’t mean that there’s no racism.”

That's really the heart of it. This newest Rogan controversy isn't some proxy war over who gets to do disinformation. This was something else, far over the line, past discourse, even past 'shock jock." That artists or anyone wouldn't want to be associated with that is in no way a difficult concept to understand.

The A-Block

Cancel, cancel, cancel.

Former President Donald Trump commented on embattled podcaster Joe Rogan Monday, and advised him to stop apologizing to the media and to the “Radical Left maniacs and lunatics.”

In the latest round of fire directed at Rogan's podcast, a video of Rogan using the N-word over the years in various conversations went viral online — leading to an immense backlash against Spotify and an apology from Rogan.

On Monday evening, Trump weighed in with a statement saying Rogan has "got to stop apologizing to the Fake News and Radical Left maniacs and lunatics."

"How many ways can you say you’re sorry? Joe, just go about what you do so well and don’t let them make you look weak and frightened." Trump wrote. "That’s not you and it never will be!"

On Tuesday Trump felt differently about boycotts and cancellations when he put out a new statement on the subject of OAN and AT&T.

"If AT&T/DirecTV cancels OAN, I hope that everyone will boycott and cancel DirecTV," he wrote. "Instead of being allowed to grow, their voice is being shuttered. Don’t let it happen, cancel DirecTV."

The tone in this statement - it's pretty different..


In Other News...

'You Don't Need to Raise Your Voice': State Dept. Spox. Rebukes AP Reporter in Fiery Clash Over Iran

Psaki Grilled by FIVE Different Reporters: Why Doc Wasn't Fired Per Biden's 'On the Spot' Promise

Dan Abrams Questions Brian Stelter’s Defiance of John Malone: 'Either Incredibly Brave or Incredibly Reckless'

RATINGS: February 4 - Tucker Wins the Demo as The Five Pulls in the Most Total Viewers

Must See Clip

‘I’m Perfectly Trustworthy!’

Comedian, actor, and podcaster Russell Brand went after CNN and Brian Stelter in a video that went viral in more than one format over the weekend, tackling the subjects of Joe Rogan, Spotify, and how the media is covering those things.

The video of Brand’s take on CNN’s take on the controversy has been racking up views in more than one format. On YouTube, the full 12-minute clip has 1.5 million views. Not unheard of on Brand’s channel but on the high end. That full version also has over 35,000 views on Rumble.

The clips of Brand’s Stelter voice went wild on social media. On Twitter, more than one version has seen monster engagement, including this tweet from the account @BoschAnonymus, which at the time of this post was already over 1.1. million views.

It's definitely a weird "impression," and the overall clip is worth seeing, too.

Links We Like

Why Newspapers Refuse to Correct Errors
- J. Peder Zane, RealClearPolitics
Facebook, Other Tech Giants Censor Inconvenient Facts About Climate Change
- Bjorn Lomborg, New York Post
Spotify’s Problems Are Bigger Than Joe Rogan
- B. Steele, Engadget
CBS News: Enrique Acevedo Goes to Tijuana for In-Depth and Poignant Report on a
Surge in Murders of Journalists

- CBS Mornings
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