War messaging from worlds apart
The first message from Iran’s new supreme leader was released in the past hour — and reporters immediately focused on how it was shared along with what was said.
It was a paper statement read aloud by a newsreader on Iranian state TV. An English translation of the message filled a six-page Word document.
For Iran, “the key challenge of the moment” was “to show that Mojtaba Khamenei is alive and well, and we got proof of neither,” CNN chief international security correspondent Nick Paton Walsh said on air just now. Questions about Khamenei’s injuries “are not answered, they’re simply amplified by this written statement — [it] could have been written by anybody, frankly.”
Contrast this with President Trump’s free-flowing, in-your-face communications style: “We won,” he said yesterday, but the US still needs to “finish the job.”
Trump talked with reporters while leaving the White House yesterday. He taped an interview with a local TV anchor in Cincinnati. He talked some more on the way home. He posted on Truth Social this morning, calling Iran an “evil empire.” He got on the phone with a Washington Examiner reporter this morning. And so on.
>> When the new supreme leader’s message came out, I instinctively refreshed Trump’s Truth Social page for an insta-reaction. He hasn’t posted anything yet, but I was served up some ad slop that said “WILL IRAN WAR BE ANOTHER VIETNAM WAR?” with “YES” and “NO” buttons for users to click. The ad led to a slimy pro-Trump collectibles site offering free gifts that obviously aren’t free.
>> Back to the topic at hand now: CNN’s live updates page has the latest on the new supreme leader’s message here…
White House pushes back on ‘mixed messaging’ claims |
The Washington Post’s polling unit asked Americans, “Do you think the Trump administration has clearly explained the goals of U.S. military action against Iran, or haven’t they done that?” Only 35% said the goals have been clearly explained. And “those opinions have hardly shifted since the second day of the war,” the Post noted. The White House has been pushing back hard against this perception. “The left-wing media is lying and pushing a fake narrative that there has been ‘mixed messaging’ about the objectives of Operation Epic Fury,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt tweeted. She also promoted an article from the pro-Trump Daily Signal website, titled “Polls Show ‘MAGA Split’ on Iran May Be Inflated.” It’s true that “there’s not much erosion in Trump’s polling among Republicans” so far, as Eli McKown-Dawson wrote for Silver Bulletin yesterday. “But elite opinion can trickle down to the party base.” This morning, The Atlantic’s Jonathan Lemire asserted that “Trump Isn’t Even Trying to Sell This War.” This paragraph stands out: “A few people close to Trump believe that his lack of clarity comes from a confidence that he doesn’t need to be clear. He’s gotten rusty, perhaps, in convincing anyone of anything. The GOP-controlled Congress has been compliant, his staff is almost exclusively populated by true believers, and although he takes plenty of reporters’ questions, a healthy percentage of them are from journalists who work at sympathetic, right-leaning outlets.” So Trump continues to call the war, which has already claimed hundreds of lives, a “little excursion,” leading Fox’s Peter Doocy to ask yesterday, “You just said it is a ‘little excursion’ and you said it is a ‘war.’ So which one is it?” “Well, it’s both,” Trump said. >> About that word “excursion,” which Trump started using last Saturday, author James Surowiecki has a theory: “There’s no question someone in the White House told Trump to call the war in Iran an ‘incursion,’ but he heard it as ‘excursion’ and now he keeps calling it that — making the war sound like a holiday getaway — because no one around him ever corrects him when he makes a mistake.” |
‘Making this up as they go along’ |
The administration is “literally just making this up as they go along,” Democratic Sen. Andy Kim said on “CNN News Central” just now. He cited Energy Secretary Chris Wright: “This is somebody who just a few days ago tweeted that we have already been escorting, with our Naval fleet, ships and cargo through the Strait of Hormuz. And then they deleted that post. And then they decided not to move forward on the strategic petroleum reserves. Now they are.” (The WSJ called that a “head-spinning pivot.”) “Now Secretary Wright is now saying that maybe by the end of this month, we will be escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz. They’re just literally making this up, and that is what is so terrifying, that’s why the markets are shaky…” |
Joe Rogan goes off again… |
Joe Rogan criticized Trump for going to war with Iran for the second day in a row, this time telling guests Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster that this act of “unnecessary aggression” is “how you start a World War III.” Rogan continued: “Who else thinks that’s a good idea? Who else thinks it’s a good idea to just attack a country that isn’t doing anything?” Watch the clip here… |
WaPo reveals Pentagon’s photographer crackdown |
The Pentagon “has barred press photographers from briefings on the ongoing U.S.-Israeli military conflict with Iran after they published photos of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that his staff deemed ‘unflattering,’” WaPo’s Scott Nover scooped yesterday. The story remains one of the Post’s most-read pieces today. TheWrap’s Corbin Bolies confirmed that New York Times photographers were among those barred from the two most recent briefings. The NYT is currently suing over press access restrictions (more on that below). >> WaPo vet Paul Farhi summed it up nicely: “1. Hegseth didn’t like MSM news coverage of himself last year, so he effectively barred reporters from Pentagon; 2. He didn’t like photos of himself, so he barred photographers. Seems to be a trend.” >> White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly complained on X that Nover didn’t quote her insulting response to his request for comment. The response was: “Didn’t the Washington Post just fire all of its White House photographers?” The Post, of course, is under no obligation to print her insult. |
War coverage notes & quotes |
>> This hurts the news media’s ability to assess what’s happening in the war: “Two leading spatial intelligence companies say they are restricting access to satellite images of the Middle East.” (WaPo) >> There was a loud commotion on X about whether the NYT published an AI-manipulated photo of pro-regime crowds in Tehran. The claims were bogus, and the NYT pushed back in a statement. (TheWrap) >> CNN’s Fred Pleitgen and Claudia Otto departed Iran yesterday after their visas expired. “Hope to return soon,” Pleitgen wrote. (X) |
A reporter tests the sports betting boom |
“Last year,” McKay Coppins says, “The Atlantic gave me $10,000 to gamble with. What started as a journalistic gimmick turned into something more… unnerving.” The result is this April cover story, titled “Sucker”: |
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It’s the perfect marriage of author and subject — in part because, as a practicing Mormon, Coppins is “prohibited from indulging in games of chance.” So he consulted with his bishop and received special permission to bet The Atlantic’s money. “This will really just be a journalistic exercise,” Coppins told his bishop. But eventually, as he writes, it “veered into obsession.” Read on… |
Bezos summons WaPo masthead |
The NYT’s Ben Mullin reports that “Jeff Bezos is planning to meet with the Washington Post masthead and some highly sought after reporters at his Kalorama mansion this morning/afternoon.” This sounds a lot like one of his previous listening sessions, back in 2023, before he replaced publisher Fred Ryan with Will Lewis. Back then Bezos brought a legal pad, asked probing questions about Ryan, and took detailed notes. Almost every meeting went longer than scheduled. People felt really good about the meetings. Bezos stayed engaged for a while afterward… But then Lewis happened… |
Another letter about Paramount-WBD |
New this morning: “In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a dozen House Democrats and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal said they wanted more information about the ongoing federal review of Paramount’s acquisition of WBD,” Max Tani reports. The group “suggested that it could be in violation of federal antitrust laws and restrictions on foreign ownership of crucial US businesses.” >> Democrats “lack the ability to halt the deal outright,” Puck’s Leigh Ann Caldwell noted last night, but “have begun laying the groundwork for potential oversight should they regain control of Congress in November.” |
Diller confirms ‘hope’ to one day own CNN |
Barry Diller spoke publicly about his desire to own CNN in an interview with Graham Bensinger. Diller said he’s been interested for a couple of years and confirmed that he has talked with WBD CEO David Zaslav about it. Diller said he’d strive to improve CNN’s programming, but acknowledged that his odds of taking over are relatively low: “I hope I get the chance, I don’t think I will, but I hope I do.” There is zero indication that Paramount wants to divest CNN. |
Judge backs press-pass denial in Washington state |
“Washington state lawmakers were within their rights when they declined to issue press passes to three conservative media figures, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a case that echoes a national discussion over who qualifies as a journalist,” the AP’s Martha Bellisle reports. The presiding judge said the trio behind the lawsuit — Ari Hoffman, Brandi Kruse, and Jonathan Choe — “failed to show that they were denied passes because of their political affiliations” and “failed to show that the process was arbitrary.” That’s pretty much the whole ballgame… |
>> As expected, the Justice Department is appealing the judicial order that “blocked federal officials from searching a Washington Post reporter’s electronic devices as part of a leak investigation,” Perry Stein reports. (WaPo) >> Meantime, Erik Wemple has a follow up on last week’s hearing in NYT v. Department of Defense: He says Pentagon lawyers took issue with a box on the Post’s website “asking for tips about the military,” arguing that it “crossed the line into the sort of ‘solicitation’ that is not protected by the First Amendment and that could prompt punishment under the new restrictions.” (NYT) >> Binance is suing the Wall Street Journal for defamation. The WSJ says “we stand by our reporting.” (Reuters) >> Trump called PBS reporter Liz Landers “rotten” when “she pointed out that his former attorney general contradicted his claim about 2020 election fraud.” (Mediaite) >> ICYMI: Stephen Heuser has been named executive editor of Vox. (Vox) |
Kimmel spars with Newsmax |
Jimmy Kimmel hit back at Newsmax last night “after host Rob Schmitt accused ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ of pushing ‘propaganda’ and argued the FCC should teach ABC ‘a lesson,’” LateNighter’s Matt Webb Mitovich reports. The spat began earlier this week when Kimmel criticized Trump’s “SAVE America Act” in a monologue. Schmitt responded by complaining that “ABC is defiant” of the FCC’s equal-time warnings and claiming the network “breaks that law every single night.” (That’s not true.) Kimmel shot back: “They’re such tattletales. They’re so worried about cancel culture, until I come on…” |
Grammarly faces AI lawsuit |
”Superhuman, the tech company behind the writing software Grammarly, is facing a class action lawsuit over an AI tool that presented editing suggestions as if they came from established authors and academics—none of whom consented to have their names appear within the product,” WIRED’s Miles Klee reports. The Markup’s Julia Angwin started the lawsuit, pointing out that Grammarly “presented editing suggestions as if they came from me – and many other writers and journalists – without consent. State law requires consent before someone’s name can be used for commercial purposes.” The company has said it is disabling the tool for the time being… |
How about a Thanksgiving Eve football game? |
“The National Football League is once again looking to add new broadcast windows this coming season, including a possible game on Thanksgiving Eve,” THR’s Alex Weprin reports. |
Valuing Netflix’s Affleck deal |
Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw got hold of some $$ info about last week’s deal: Netflix “will pay as much as $600 million for InterPositive, the AI moviemaking company founded by Ben Affleck,” making the purchase “one of the biggest ever by the streaming leader.” |
A few more Hollywood headlines |
>> Nikki Glaser “has signed on to host the Golden Globes for a third time in 2027.” (Variety) >> “The Traitors” and its spinoff “The Celebrity Traitors” are staying at the BBC through at least 2030. (Variety) >> Barack and Michelle Obama “will co-produce ‘Proof’ on Broadway.” (THR) >> Speaking of the theater: Quentin Tarantino’s first produced West End play, “The Popinjay Cavalier,” will debut in early 2027. (TheWrap) |