'The Apprentice: Davos'
Once a reality TV host, always a reality TV host.
President Trump “took world leaders at the World Economic Forum on a roller coaster” yesterday, as the NYT’s Sam Sifton put it. Announcing a “framework” of a deal with NATO over Greenland was his way of getting off the ride. France 24 called it “The Apprentice, Davos edition” last night.
This morning, he started a new episode: “Board of Peace.” He played to the cameras as he held a signing ceremony (attended by fewer than 20 countries).
Stoking conflict. Sounding tough. Claiming to make a deal. Coming up with a tidy conclusion to the episode. Trump puts the show in showmanship. And it helps audiences to analyze it accordingly.
It can be disorienting — destabilizing, even — when a man who governs like he’s producing a reality-TV show forces the rest of the world, including longstanding allies, to play along.
So I have long agreed with what TV critic James Poniewozik wrote in 2019: “The ‘Donald Trump’ who got elected president… is a decades-long media performance. To understand him, you need to approach him less like a psychologist and more like a TV critic.”
As Poniewozik wrote: “The taunting. The insults. The dog whistles. The dog bullhorns. The ‘Lock her up’ and ‘Send her back.’ All of it follows reality-TV rules. Every season has to top the last.” This column has really aged well…
Coverage notes and quotes |
>> Fox News hosts generally took yesterday’s twists and turns at face value, sometimes expressing excitement bordering on glee about all the news, and rarely injecting much skepticism. “This was classic Trump!” Byron York said on “Special Report.” >> On MS NOW, James Clapper said the man whose best-known book was titled “The Art of the Deal” could write another titled “The Art of Distraction.” >> “Remember the Weekly World News? Trump is following a tabloid playbook while indulging authoritarian goals,” Trump biographer Tim O’Brien wrote in his latest Bloomberg column. >> Longtime TV critic Bill Goodykootz concluded, “It’s all about appearances and reviews” with Trump, which is “fitting for someone who owes his job to reality TV, even though at times what went on Wednesday seemed unreal. But not unusual.” |
Denying what we all heard him say |
This happened almost 24 hours ago, but I still want to note it, lest we all get totally numb to it. Karoline Leavitt attempted to deny reality after Trump’s Davos speech, telling a NewsNation reporter on X that Trump “didn’t” repeatedly refer to Greenland as Iceland, even though we all heard him do it. “His written remarks referred to Greenland as a ‘piece of ice’ because that’s what it is,” she wrote. “Yes, he did refer to it as a piece of ice. He also referred to it as Iceland,” Kaitlan Collins said on CNN last night. “What was in his written remarks is not always what generates the headlines, as we know…” More on all this in a moment… |
Credit where it’s due: The Associated Press obtained a highly sensitive ICE memo showing that “immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant.” Read Rebecca Santana’s full story here. The revelation about the memo steered news coverage back toward Minnesota last night and into this morning. >> Mike Rothschild, who has written two books about conspiracy theories, wrote on X, This literally “used to be the far right’s worst nightmare: federal agents empowered to kick down anyone’s door for any reason.” |
‘China, US sign off on TikTok US spinoff’ |
That’s the headline on Semafor’s scoop just now. “The US and China have signed off on a deal to sell TikTok’s US business to a consortium of mostly US investors led by Oracle and Silver Lake, capping off a yearslong battle between the social media app and the two superpowers,” Liz Hoffman and Reed Albergotti report… |
‘Sinners’ sets an Oscar noms record |
The Academy just announced this year’s Oscar nominations, and “Sinners” just set a record. With 16 noms, it is “the most nominated film in Academy Awards history. That’s two more than Titanic, All About Eve, and La La Land,” The Ringer’s Sean Fennessey noted. “One Battle After Another” was close behind with 14 noms. CNN has the full list here… |
🎞️ Sundance starts today |
“The Sundance Film Festival begins for the last time in Park City, Utah before heading to Boulder, Colo., next year,” NPR’s Mandalit del Barco writes in this curtain-raiser piece. “It’s a bittersweet finale for the country’s premier independent film festival, founded by Robert Redford in 1978. With a gala, the festival plans to pay tribute to the late actor and director, who died of natural causes in September.” |
Kimmel’s take: ‘We didn’t come to them, they came to us’ |
“This is a notification I got on my phone today: ‘Trump says he will not use force to acquire Greenland.’ I want you to imagine yourself reading this, even just a year ago. You would assume it was The Onion or something. Now, it’s our daily reality,” Jimmy Kimmel said last night. “Now, when this happens, the stock market goes up,” he said. “You know, people sometimes ask why our comedy show is all politics now. I would argue that politics is all comedy now. The politics — we didn’t come to them, they came to us.” At another point in his monologue, Kimmel told viewers, “We are once again getting threatened by the FCC. I might need your help again.” Now, about that… |
The FCC’s ‘equal opportunity’ threat |
FCC chairman Brendan Carr rolled out an announcement yesterday that had TV insiders wondering: Just how important is this, really? “Trump’s FCC plots crackdown on ‘The View’ and ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’” was the headline at Raw Story. “FCC to crack down,” Fox News said. Trump posted a link on Truth Social to an LA Times story about the matter. “For years,” Carr wrote, “legacy TV networks assumed that their late night & daytime talk shows qualify as ‘bona fide news’ programs — even when motivated by purely partisan political purposes. Today, the FCC reminded them of their obligation to provide all candidates with equal opportunities.” Okay. Theoretically, this could impact how shows like Kimmel operate. But the lone Democratic commissioner at the FCC, Anna Gomez, said Carr’s notice was misleading: “The FCC has not adopted any new regulation, interpretation, or Commission-level policy altering the long-standing news exemption or equal time framework.” |
‘The threat is the point’ |
Liam Reilly writes: A source at the FCC told CNN that “nothing has changed” and that “once again here, the threat is the point.” “The point is to force shows and networks to second-guess their decisions in light of this ‘new’ guidance,” the source added. >> Here’s some more context from THR’s Alex Weprin: News interviews have long been exempted from the “equal time” requirement, “but the FCC under Carr is pursuing a novel argument that late night and daytime talk shows are biased to the extent that they shouldn’t qualify…” |
Of course, the complaint from Carr and his allies is that late-night TV skews way to the left. To that point, Jane Fonda highlighted her restoration of the Committee for the First Amendment on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” last night. She started by thanking Colbert for his courage. “You are so brave,” she said.
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WaPo gets a win in Natanson case |
Yesterday, The Washington Post went to court seeking an order blocking the federal government from opening up Hannah Natanson’s phone and computers, which were seized in last week’s FBI raid. A judge almost immediately granted the motion for a “standstill order” and said “the government must preserve but must not review any of the materials” until the court weighs in. Oral arguments are scheduled for Feb. 6. As Natanson said, rather simply, “I need my devices back to do my job.” Here’s my full story with Liam Reilly… |
Three killed in Israeli military strike |
Three journalists — “Mohamed Qishta, Anas Ghneim and Abdel Raouf Shaat, a freelance cameraman who was a contributor both to CBS News and the French news agency Agence France-Presse” — were killed in an Israeli military strike on Wednesday, WaPo reports. The trio was killed while on assignment “as they traveled in their car south of Gaza City” on assignment “for the media arm of a relief committee run by the Egyptian government.” Read on… >> This just in: “Ahead of a hearing by Israel’s Supreme Court on Monday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called on dozens of governments to support independent, unimpeded media access to Gaza in a letter to members of the Media Freedom Coalition.” |
>> Bloomberg Government’s Giuseppe Macri is joining Politico as the new editor of Playbook. (Politico) >> This morning Paramount “filed preliminary proxy materials in anticipation of a proxy fight, and extended its deadline for WBD shareholders to tender their shares to the company for another month to Feb. 20.” So far, only 6.5% of WBD shares have been tendered. (THR) >> Speaking of Paramount, the company “is taking a big advertising swing by bringing guaranteed programmatic placement to live sports.” (Adweek) >> Months after Teen Vogue was folded into Vogue, the publication named Mi-Anne Chan as Teen Vogue’s new creative editorial director and Alyssa Hardy as digital director. (X) >> Belle Burden’s “Strangers” debuted at #1 on the NYT best sellers list. (NYT) |
Yesterday, I wrote that Snap had settled a tech addiction lawsuit, thereby avoiding what would have been a landmark trial. That second part is true for Snap, but there might still be a trial. That’s because, as CNN’s Clare Duffy reports, the same lawsuit is still pending against TikTok, Meta and YouTube, “and the trial is scheduled to begin next Tuesday in Los Angeles.” Duffy says “the trial will mark the first time social media giants must testify before a jury about claims that their platforms have harmed young people, following years of concerns from parents, experts and tech workers” — that is, unless the other companies settle first… |
>> Apple “plans to revamp Siri later this year by turning the digital assistant into the company’s first artificial intelligence chatbot,” Mark Gurman reports. (Bloomberg) >> Speaking of Apple, Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu report that the company is working on an “AI wearable pin,” something the same size as an AirTag, “only slightly thicker.” (The Information) >> Meta is “expanding ads on Threads to all users globally.” (TechCrunch) >> In YouTube CEO Neal Mohan’s annual letter, the platform shared that “in December alone, more than 1 million YouTube channels used the company’s AI creation tools daily.” (TheWrap) >> More from YouTube: It will soon “let creators make Shorts with their own AI likeness.” (TechCrunch) |
A few more Hollywood headlines |
>> “Chris Pratt’s sci-fi thriller ‘Mercy’ will aim to knock down the James Cameron juggernaut ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ at the weekend box office,” Rebecca Rubin writes. (Variety) >> Lisa Respers France’s latest: “The legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni has a new star and it is Taylor Swift.” (CNN) >> Swift, Alanis Morissette, and Kenny Loggins are among the members of the Songwriters Hall of Fame’s 2026 class. (Variety) |