Upon reflection…
President Trump’s crazed claims about the Reflecting Pool were a ready-made Fox News story, repeatedly embraced by hosts like Jesse Watters.
But now the story has fallen apart, and Fox is barely interested.
It’s a pattern: MAGA media outlets will take a Trump claim really seriously even if it’s silly or spurious; then, when the claim is disproven, MAGA media outlets will barely touch it. Trump devotees are left with incomplete (at best) information.
This time, it started with a blame game over the Reflecting Pool woes. Trump alleged “great damage due to the Vandals and Radical Left SCUM that hate our Country.” There were investigations and indictments and all the loud noises that make for fiery cable news segments.
When former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was charged with felony vandalism, none other than Jeanine Pirro, a Fox alum now in charge of the US Attorney’s Office in DC, held a press conference and said “he damaged the pool.” Pirro went on with Watters and scoffed when he said “a lot of people, when this first happened with the pool, didn’t believe the president that there was vandalism.”
Didn’t believe the president?! Pirro looked outraged. “Someone was intent on doing incredible damage to the pool,” she insisted.
Last Friday, her office dropped the case against Hearn and at least two other people and said the Interior Department wasn’t forthcoming with the office about the reality at the Reflecting Pool — which was “a botched installation and not vandalism.”
I get that this bungled beautification project is a relatively low-stakes story. It’s been like a reality TV plot line this summer — “a source of memes, a conversation starter, a form of escapism from heavier headlines about global conflict and climate change,” NPR’s Rachel Treisman wrote.
All that attention raised the stakes. As CNN’s Aaron Blake wrote, “In the end, this appears to be exactly what it looked like in real time: A bunch of people straining to avoid the evidence right in front of their eyes in order to turn the president’s politically expedient fantasy into a reality.”
They did it “just to prevent embarrassment for the president,” Ron Brownstein remarked on CNN overnight.
Perhaps Fox is trying to prevent embarrassment too. According to SnapStream searches, the network has mentioned the DOJ dropping charges just five times, just briefly and gingerly, without any scrutiny of Trump or Pirro’s credibility. During the same timeframe, CNN and MS NOW have brought up the story dozens of times.
If you’re Hearn or his attorney Norm Eisen, you might conclude that Fox’s approach is “Shoot first, and don’t ask questions at all.” I wonder if Watters will follow up tonight…
Trump said of Pirro, “I don’t know what she was thinking?” But her office’s filing explained her thinking very clearly. Evidently the president didn’t read it.
Trump’s reaction led Chuck Todd to ask: “How much info is being shielded from him? Serious question.” Todd wrote on X, “He may truly not know how unpopular he’s become (no chance he sees bad polls from his walking printer). He may not know how ineffective the public has decided his presidency has become. If he’s only fed headlines that make him feel better, it might explain why he seems so shocked when obvious reality-driven decisions get made.”
>> It’s really happening: Trump’s media company “is now offering early access to his Truth Social posts in a move that has been seen as corruption benefitting a sitting president,” Marina Dunbar writes. (The Guardian)
>> Jeremy Barr chronicles how “prominent Fox News hosts have expressed concern, bewilderment and frustration over US objectives in Iran.” (The Guardian)
>> CNN published a significant new leak this morning: “US military asks troops for ‘creative and unconventional’ ideas to punish Iran,” Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen report. (CNN)
>> A Sunday show interview still making news on Monday: RFK Jr.’s sit-down with Dana Bash. (CNN)
New this morning: Columbia Journalism School dean Jelani Cobb announced that Sharyn Alfonsi and Scott Pelley “have been appointed Journalists in Residence for the 2026–27 academic year.”
“Their distinguished track records in investigative reporting highlight the amazing opportunity our students will have to learn from them, and we look forward to having Sharyn and Scott with us this year,” Cobb said…
Valerie Bauerlein, Jared Mitovich and Hannah Critchfield’s long read about Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance is the WSJ’s most-read story right now. Here’s a gift link. The story is full of distressing detail about missteps in the investigation.
At the six-month mark, “there is plenty of blame to go around, but there is growing pressure to solve this case,” a source close to the investigation told Axios’ Mike Allen.
Meantime, I want to second what Savannah Guthrie said about true crime influencer types who are exploiting her family’s pain. She wrote on Instagram: “If you are following this story for entertainment or for profit, you are not on her side — you are part of the harm perpetrated against her.”
“Paramount Skydance Corp. asked a federal judge to hold a trial Nov. 4 in a lawsuit by a group of states challenging its planned merger with Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., while the states that sued said that April 5 is a better date,” Bloomberg Law’s Erik Larson writes.
But the dates are just “suggestions,” and now Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín will set a timeline. Deadline’s Ted Johnson has more on both sides’ arguments here. Of note: All the parties agree that they’ll need at least 12 trial days. The state AGs and writers guild want more…
This weekend read by the WSJ’s Jessica Toonkel and Joe Flint had lots of news nuggets from inside Paramount. Among them:
>> CEO David Ellison and chief legal officer Makan Delrahim “talk several times a day,” “discussing potential concessions, political appeals or other chess moves.”
>> “Paramount executives have talked in internal meetings about their belief that the suit is politically motivated because Ellison’s father is close to President Trump. Paramount hasn’t made such an allegation in court.”
>> Ellison has “consulted with a number of people, internally and externally, about how he should organize its news division. The company is discussing whether to bring CNN and CBS together or operate them separately.”
>> Ellison “still trusts” Bari Weiss, “the people familiar with the matter said.”
“The host of ‘Last Week Tonight’ says he long ago learned to keep his head down when, as he puts it, ‘prospective business daddies’ weigh the future of his employer,” THR’s Mikey O’Connell writes. “So, as his current contract is due to expire at year’s end, late-night’s reigning Emmy magnet is staying the course. He just picked up the option to extend his contract by another year, keeping him at his hit show through 2027.”
Over the weekend, the NYT revealed a journalist subpoena fight that’s been playing out in secret for months.
Back in February, the Justice Department subpoenaed freelance journalist Matthew Cole to “force him to reveal his sources for a New York Times article about a failed top secret mission in North Korea,” Devlin Barrett reported. Cole is resisting the court order, and The Times says it is “providing a legal defense” for him. Read more here (gift link)…
In response to the Cole news, Reporters Committee president Bruce D. Brown said, “In the last 25 years, there have only been three attempts in national security leaks cases to force reporters to name their sources and now we have four attempts — that we know of — in the space of a few months, two of them directed at news stories published in the Times.”
“Whether the investigative journalism the public relies on comes from staff reporters, or from solo newsletter writers, this news of yet another grand jury subpoena, this one served on freelancer Matthew Cole, makes it very clear that the protections that shield the institutional press from government snooping into confidential source relationships are equally vital for independent journalists,” Brown added.
On Sunday’s “Face the Nation,” Margaret Brennan spotlighted the Pentagon’s attempts to control information, including about the Iran war. Past US wars “were beamed home by reporters embedded with ground troops,” she said, “but in this military campaign, dominated by air and long-range missile strikes, there is no such reporting. Government-produced social media videos are our only snapshot of what is happening.”
Army vet David French cheered the segment, credited the reporters who embedded with him in Iraq, and wrote on X: Now “we have to rely on the most dishonest administration in modern American history for the ‘news,’ and when reporters finally do get access to independent information, we find out that much of the administration’s ‘news’ was fake from the beginning.”
It’s still unclear why Adam O’Neal, the Washington Post’s Opinion editor, resigned Friday after just a year on the job. The Jeff Bezos-owned publication touted his hire as restorative for the embattled section. Internally, O’Neal chalked the parting up to “a ‘personal decision’ that he had been considering for a while,” per the NYT’s Erik Wemple.
If it really was his choice to leave, it’s poor form. Here’s how the Post reported on the departure…
Today: Snap reports earnings after the market closes.
Tuesday: Spotify reports earnings before the bell; Paramount after the bell.
Tuesday: The hard-fought Michigan Senate Democratic primary comes to a close.
Wednesday: Disney, the NYT and Reuters report earnings before the bell; News Corp after the bell.
Thursday: WBD, Fox and Versant report earnings before the market opens.
Friday: “Tony,” about a young Anthony Bourdain, opens in select theaters.
“A powerful one-two punch from ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ and ‘The Odyssey’ has fueled the biggest collective weekend in box office history, with roughly $430 million across all movies in the marketplace,” Variety’s Rebecca Rubin reports. The usual caveats about inflation and ticket prices apply.
“Brand New Day” “exploded with $355 million in its domestic debut, ranking as the second-biggest opening of all time as well as the second movie in history to cross $300 million in a single weekend,” Rubin writes. Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster, meanwhile, pulled in $51 million…
>> After her current tour ends on Sept. 1, Ariana Grande “will be stepping away from the public eye, as scrutiny surrounding her health and body intensifies,” Nicholas Rice writes. (People)
>> Netflix is in talks with “Hot Ones” owner First We Feast to ink a deal that “would publish new episodes of ‘Hot Ones’ on Netflix and YouTube at the same time,” Lucas Shaw reports. (Bloomberg)
>> Licensed programs are outpacing originals “in driving subscriber growth” on Netflix, according to Parrot Analytics’ Streaming Economics data. (TheWrap)
>> And last but certainly not least, the “Barbie” sequel has apparently stalled at Warner Bros. as negotiations with talent drag on, Nicole Sperling reports. (NYT)
This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.