Welcome to the media wars

Is Andrew Breitbart’s over-quoted theory that “politics is downstream from culture” really true? Today, with media machinations stealing prime newspaper homepage real estate from presidential campaign launches, it feels more like politics is downstream from media. Over the last twenty-four hours, Chris Licht was fired at CNN, just a year and a half after he was appointed, and Tucker Carlson launched his new show on Twitter. I get the impression people are hungrier for details about these media stories than, say, the ins and outs of Mike Pence’s presidential announcement.

That’s not because America is suddenly more interested in…

Is Andrew Breitbart’s over-quoted theory that “politics is downstream from culture” really true? Today, with media machinations stealing prime newspaper homepage real estate from presidential campaign launches, it feels more like politics is downstream from media. Over the last twenty-four hours, Chris Licht was fired at CNN, just a year and a half after he was appointed, and Tucker Carlson launched his new show on Twitter. I get the impression people are hungrier for details about these media stories than, say, the ins and outs of Mike Pence’s presidential announcement.

That’s not because America is suddenly more interested in media than politics, but because the line between the two is more blurred than ever. After all, Licht’s assignment at CNN was a political one: to pivot away from anti-Trump editorializing and appeal to exhausted moderates hungry for something more even-handed. Licht was up against the impossible to ignore (and maybe impossible to reverse) secular decline in cable news. His failure may have been dramatic, but the forces driving it are slow, technology-driven and possibly irreversible.

As it happens, the confluence of media and politics, and the future of cable news, are the subject of our July issue’s cover package. We only sent it to the printers on Friday, but given the Licht news, we have thrown one of our main stories up on the site earlier than usual. In it, Aidan McLaughlin charts the declining influence of cable news before asking whether it can be saved by the 2024 election.

The piece is a clarifying look at the dynamics behind the drama playing out before us. Reading it, I was left with the impression that US media is in a standoff. The cable old-guard don’t know what to do to turn things around, but their self-appointed successors don’t exactly seem ready for primetime.

For evidence, look no further than Ron DeSantis’s Twitter launch. Or, for that matter, Tucker Carlson’s Twitter show debut. My colleague Michael Bachmann has more on that below. I’ll only add that if Carlson uses his newfound freedom to do things like call president Volodymyr Zelensky “sweaty and rat-like, a comedian turned oligarch, a persecutor of Christians, a friend of BlackRock… our shifty, dead-eyed Ukrainian friend,” as he did last night, then his Twitter experiment may succeed only in proving his critics right.

On our radar

PENCE ON TRUMP Mike Pence delivered his firmest rebuke yet of Donald Trump when he announced his presidential bid today. Pence told supporters that Trump “should never be the president of the United States again” and said Trump “demanded that I choose between him and the constitution,” adding that “now voters will be faced with the same choice.”

CHRISTIE ON THE TRUMPS Chris Christie took exactly the kind of anti-Trump shots he promised when he launched his campaign yesterday. Of Jared and Ivanka he said: “The grift from this family is breathtaking. It’s breathtaking. [They] walk out of the White House and months later get $2 billion from the Saudis. Do you think it was because he’s some kind of investing genius?”

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Tucker Carlson’s flimsy debut

A month after he was dismissed by Fox News, Tucker Carlson made his much anticipated Twitter debut last night. Unfortunately for Carlson, the ten-minute show, Tucker on Twitter, did not live up to its hype.

That’s not to say Carlson’s move to Twitter deviates from everything that made him successful. His signature furrowed brow and facetious sarcasm remain. And he did begin the episode claiming Ukraine blew up the Kakhovka dam — the sort of anti-establishment take viewers expect from him. The show itself is just nothing new. The short monologue was reminiscent of an opening segment of Tucker Carlson Tonight, but lacking the crisp production. The audio and video clips didn’t have that cable-news quality. And instead of a shiny newsroom, Carlson sat in a furnished barn, operating the teleprompter himself. The debut that promised to change the news cycle was simply underwhelming.

The unorthodoxy of Tucker on Twitter is not a revelation for his fans. Any viewer of Carlson’s canceled Fox News show knows that hunting down little green men is one of his pet projects, and he often accuses the government of lying about extraterrestrial life. Likewise, he has branded himself a 9/11 truther on air. Whether you agree with many of his views or not, Carlson’s glee in tackling topics others shy away from is what has made him so popular. Leaning into that persona is what will save his Twitter presence.

Despite its rocky start, Carlson’s segments will do just fine. The first amassed 12.8 million views two and a half hours after being posted. Though it’s impossible to tell how many viewers actually watched the video due to Twitter’s autoplay feature, the 200,000 retweets and 650,000 likes indicate plenty of buzz.

–Michael Bachmann

Flashback: Donald Trump predicted the PGA-LIV merger a year ago

PGA Tour will officially merge with LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed golf league, in a shock bid to squash the antitrust lawsuits brewing between the two corporations. It’s a surprising move considering the PGA Tour executives and some of their high-profile players, such as Rory McIlroy, spent the past year morally shaming the pros who defected.

But one man who was not shocked was former president Donald Trump, whose organization hosts LIV events at his courses. In July 2022, Trump wrote on Truth Social:

All those golfers who remain “loyal” to the very disloyal PGA, in all its different forms, will pay a big price when the inevitable MERGER with LIV comes, and you get nothing but a big “thank you” from PGA officials who are making Millions of Dollars a year. If you don’t take the money now, you will get nothing after the merger takes place, and only say how smart the original signees were. Good luck to all, and congratulations to the really talented Cam Smith on his incredible WIN!

The PGA made the case that the hundreds of millions being offered to golfers who joined LIV was blood-stained due to the Saudis’ human rights offenses and that it was offensive to the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, Cam Smith, Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka and other top players seemed to think the prospect of tons of money, no tournament cuts and fewer overall rounds of golf was too good to pass up. Koepka busted the trope that LIV would make these golfers less competitive by winning the PGA Championship and being in contention at the Masters.

Trump was also unsqueamish about the possibility of working with the Saudis: his son-in-law Jared Kushner used to regularly exchange WhatsApp messages with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the leader who ordered the execution and dismembering of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

As for Trump’s golfing? Read Kevin Cook’s account of what it’s like to play with 45, and more about the civil war in golf that just came to an unexpected end, in the June edition of The Spectator World.

–Cockburn