What ‘Regime Change’ reveals
President Trump wanted even Fox News to “beg” for him.
That’s one of the many media-industry takeaways from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s “Regime Change,” which comes out next Tuesday.
The book “provides a blunt, behind-the-scenes portrait of the first 14 months of Trump’s second term, in which the president has wielded his power without constraint — often in a haphazard, improvisational manner — to persecute his perceived enemies, rattle global markets and wage war abroad,” CNN’s Jamie Gangel and Jeremy Herb write. They relayed many of the headlines from the book here.
When I received an advance copy of “Regime Change” yesterday, I intended to just speed-read it, but the book was so engrossing that I slowed down and really absorbed the reporting. The scenes are astonishing — from Trump’s first time experiencing ChatGPT to his expletive-filled fits to his final Situation Room meeting before beginning the war in Iran.
Here are some of the revealing passages about both the mainstream press and the MAGA media machine:
>> After Trump won reelection, “he marveled in private that the ‘fake news’ had never treated him so nicely — and that this is what it should have been like the first time around. He made it known to his team that he wanted to make Fox News ‘beg’ for their first presidential interview. ‘At a certain point, they’ve begged so much they’ll let you do whatever you want,’ he confided to an advisor.”
>> Trump threw out his first settlement deal with Disney: Both sides initially agreed to a $3 million payout “to a charity for military veterans” to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against ABC and George Stephanopoulos. But Boris Epshteyn “told associates the president could get a vastly higher sum,” and Trump’s team “discarded” the first deal. Ultimately, the two sides agreed on the $16 million sum we’ve all heard about.
>> Trump had mixed feelings about the Ellisons: “While Trump liked Larry, who was one of his own political donors, he would grouse about the son, who had donated nearly $1 million to support Joe Biden’s reelection.” The son, David Ellison, took several steps to ingratiate himself with Trump’s inner circle.
>> “Few things pleased Trump as much as the giants of Big Tech groveling before him.” Trump told Mar-a-Lago visitors that tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos were “kissing my ass.” He showed off their text messages to pals. Elon Musk called the texts “world-class groveling.”
>> Speaking of Musk: He “sometimes appeared unhinged” during his DOGE weeks. He quickly went from “being regarded at the top levels of the administration as the greatest ‘genius’ in the world to a ‘true nut’ who was careening out of control.”
>> Despite Trump’s dubious lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and the WSJ, “many parts of the Murdoch empire were still on friendly terms with the Trump team… There were even discussions among some News Corp executives about the possibility of a book that would present Trump as the ‘President of Peace.’ They believed it would be a bestseller.”
>> Three months after the suit was filed, hostilities between Trump and Murdoch “suddenly cooled,” and “Trump was strikingly deferential” at a White House dinner with Murdoch and key News Corp lieutenants. Murdoch withheld praise for JD Vance while calling Marco Rubio “brilliant.”
>> Murdoch tried, as he has so many times before, to steer Trump in the right direction: At dinner, “he tried to draw Trump toward the idea that the president needed to be more attentive to domestic economic issues.”
>> Trump used Tucker Carlson as an intermediary with Venezuela: Last December, he wanted Carlson to scare Nicolás Maduro “into real negotiations,” so he asked Carlson to “pass a message to Caracas.”
>> Haberman and Swan tried for months to secure an interview with Trump for the book. He changed his mind at the proverbial last minute, in mid-March, two weeks into the war with Iran. When they arrived in the Oval Office, “the war seemed the furthest thing from Trump’s mind.” There were “printouts of maple trees” on the Resolute Desk. Trump said he was ordering trees for the White House.
>> Another printout on the desk claimed Trump TikToks had received “339 billion all-time views.” Trump remarked, “That’s some number, huh? Can you believe? I guess that’s why it’s worth a lot of money, right?” Trump brokered the deal for TikTok’s US operations last year.
>> Trump scolded Haberman on her way out, saying, “I know your book will be critical, but remember this: People are tired of your bullshit. Always criticizing.” He went on: “I’m tired of winning and winning and winning and just getting bad fucking press. It’s about time that you tell the truth.”
Now to other news…
Amazon is dumping Luca Guadagnino’s nearly finished Sam Altman biopic, “Artificial,” which will instead be “shopped to other distributors,” Puck’s Matt Belloni scooped overnight.
“We believe that ‘Artificial’ will be better served if it were released by a different studio and are working closely with the filmmaking team to find the film a new home,” an Amazon rep said, opting not to elaborate on the about-face. CAA “is now trying to find another home” for the movie, which depicts Altman “in a negative light,” Belloni wrote…
Jay Penske is acquiring the Vox Media brands not picked up by James Murdoch, including Vox Studios, Eater, and The Verge.
“The deal cements PMC’s position as the largest publisher in digital media,” Penske’s company said in its announcement.
Penske, which was already Vox’s largest shareholder ahead of the move, created a new subsidiary, PMX, to house the brands along with its previous media holdings, such as Variety, Rolling Stone, and Deadline.
“There’s likely only one reason why Penske would create a new subsidiary with outside ownership — he plans to take it public,” The Information’s Martin Peers wrote last night. “That would make sense given the number of high-profile titles. Watch this space.”
“The Onion doesn’t yet have permission to publish under the Infowars brand, and [Alex] Jones is fighting the takeover in court,” but “The Onion plans to launch its new version of Infowars on July 2,” MS NOW’s Brandy Zadrozny reports. “The new website and social media channels will feature original programming, including a parody of Jones’ old show, and will route more than $100,000 to the Sandy Hook families, an initial payment drawn from rainbow-colored Infowars merchandise The Onion has sold in anticipation of its takeover,” per Zadrozny.
>> “Alex is holding Infowars.com hostage,” Onion chief exec Ben Collins said. “He’s trying to intentionally degrade the assets so these families can never sell them, and the courts have largely obliged. We’re tired of waiting around.” Zadrozny has more on this here…
The Washington Star and NOTUS say they have “amicably resolved” the trademark infringement lawsuit over The Star name. NOTUS “will not change its name to the Star as it had planned. Instead, as a term of the deal, the outlet will pick a new name,” WaPo’s Scott Nover reports…
Never compare your event to the Super Bowl. You’ll never live up to your own hype.
UFC CEO Dana White said “we’re expecting Super Bowl-type numbers for this fight” in the run-up to last Sunday’s fight on the White House lawn. But the telecast ultimately averaged 8.2 million viewers in the US and Latin America, quite a bit shy of the Super Bowl’s 125 million.
Still, it was “the most watched live event in Paramount+’s history so far,” THR’s Rick Porter wrote…
“Netflix will look to add more traditional broadcasters to its platform after the launch of its partnership with France’s largest commercial TV network this week,” the FT’s Daniel Thomas reports.
The streamer’s partnership with France’s TF1 is live as of today, giving France-based users access to TF1 channels at no additional cost to their current subscription. Netflix co-chief executive Greg Peters said “that Netflix would use the deal to learn how such partnerships worked best,” Thomas writes…
>> Every company is a media company: Polymarket is launching its first podcast, “What Are the Odds?,” with help from Dear Media. (TheWrap)
>> Here’s another example of that: Bose is creating “an in-house content studio.” (Business Insider)
>> “Heading into Cannes Lions next week, Fox is officially the first upfront week presenter to close its negotiations,” Bill Bradley reports. (Adweek)
>> How it works: “After using AI-assisted, pre-written ‘shell files’ to help boost traffic to Winter Olympics coverage,” USA Today is “rolling out the same strategy for this summer’s FIFA World Cup,” Sara Guaglione writes. The publisher hopes that speedy stories will help it dominate search. (Digiday)
>> “CNN has expanded the distribution of its All Access streaming subscription by making the service available through Prime Video.” (The Desk)
>> NBC News is trumpeting a “grand slam” ratings win “across four of its programs.” (NCS)
>> Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty CEO Steve Capus is stepping down in September. He will be succeeded by Lisa Curtis. (RFE/RL)
>> Sen. Bernie Sanders is rolling out a proposal to give the public “direct ownership of AI companies.” (AP)
>> An anti-deepfake bill, the NO FAKES Act, has advanced to the Senate floor. (Politico)
>> “Grand Theft Auto VI” preorders will begin next Thursday. (Reuters)
>> “Toy Story 5” is headed to a “franchise record” this weekend. (Deadline)
>> Sony and Marvel Studios’ “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” has “posted the best first-day presales in five years.” (Deadline)
>> Bad Bunny “has broken the $1-billion barrier in total career grosses at the box office,” making him “the first Latin artist to ever gross more than $1 billion in ticket revenue” and “the first artist to do so who does not perform in English.” (Billboard)
>> Eli Saslow finds that “the world’s leading deepfake expert no longer trusts his own eyes.” (NYT)
>> Amanda Silberling argues that “slow tech” is fixing the attention crisis created by the smartphone. (TechCrunch)
>> Mark Coddington and Tamar Wilner assess how news organizations ought to “label their AI use for audiences.” (NiemanLab)
>> Mallory Tenore Tarpley breaks down “what journalists gain — and lose — when they go independent.” (Poynter)
>> Brandon Katz says that with Roku, Fox “may have found the smarter way to win streaming.” (Observer)
>> And/but Kerry Flynn says Fox’s Roku deal “has sparked unease throughout the streaming industry over whether the media company could favor its own programming on a key TV gateway.” (Axios)
>> Bill Carter checks out Julian Shapiro-Barnum’s “Outside Tonight” and says it “rebuilds late night for the YouTube crowd.” (LateNighter)
>> Owen Long goes “inside Fishtank, the unhinged future of reality TV.” He says “it’s like Big Brother without any limits, or broadcast standards.” (WIRED)
>> And Sandra Gonzalez nails it with this: “Technology is not the villain in ‘Toy Story 5.’ Excess is.” (CNN)
This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.