President Silver Alert is on Day Three of an unhinged Twitter rant and spending a lot of Executive Time this morning attacking the media. It makes one wonder what is coming down the pike that he’s clearly worried about — my guess is we’ll want to hold tight on Friday for whatever news is about to break.
He began the morning by defending Sinclair Broadcasting Group again, ranting ironically about CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS’ “biased agendas”:
He then came specifically for CNN, misspelling Jeff Zucker’s name in the process:
Which CNN noticed:
Again, a reminder: Sinclair Broadcasting Group is in the process of buying Tribune Media, bringing its programming (and conservative commentary which they force upon their local news stations) into more than 70% of American homes. It needs Justice Department’s approval for this sale to go through, and it is widely understood that it will happen. Meanwhile, AT&T and Time Warner want to merge — again, something that the Justice Department has to approve — but the merger is being held up because the Justice Department is demanding that Time Warner shed CNN first.
Ahem.
But we’re not done with President Dumpster Fire’s assault on the media. He also continued his war on Amazon this morning, as a means to attack Jeff Bezos because he owns The Washington Post. The Stock Manipulator in Chief has been attacking Amazon for a while now, falsely claiming that the post office is losing money on a deal to deliver Amazon’s packages at a discount. But he showed what’s really getting under his orange skin in these tweets from this weekend:
Fact: The Washington Post is a newspaper and is not used as a lobbyist.
And then yesterday:
And then today:
Reportedly and terrifyingly, President Grudgey is looking into other ways to hurt Amazon, beyond just rage tweeting about them (although his tweets did cause Amazon’s stock price to drop 5% yesterday). While Trump is being encouraged by his friends who blame Amazon for harming brick and mortar stores, make no mistake, this is at heart about trying to harm The Washington Post, to punish the paper for having the temerity to report truthfully about this catastrophe of an administration.
(And I am not even cataloguing the screamy tweets about immigration, the Justice Department and his approval ratings — in which he called President Obama “Cheatin’ Obama” for reasons that can only be understood in the darkest of psychological terms — but if I delved into every insane tweet by this unhinged man, I would never get anything published.)
Obviously, this is all a dangerous attack on the free press, an endless onslaught on our institutions and the attempted erosion of norms, but it’s also blatantly hypocritical to the point of gaslighting: the man who decries networks for being “worried about competition” attacks a retailer for being competitive.
I’d be setting my hair on fire if I didn’t suspect Robert Mueller is about to deliver something delicious and soon.
Meanwhile, Sinclair whined about “unfounded media criticism.” LOL OK.
Fox News promises that Laura Ingraham will be returning next week, and they “cannot and will not allow voices to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts.” Interestingly, the companies who continue to advertise on her show have not taken a hit in public opinion, but the Fox News brand has. Meanwhile, at least one person thinks her show won’t survive.
In other TV news
Whoops: Instinct stole a Bones storyline, down to very specific details, and the showrunner had to apologize.
Cardi B. is going to co-host The Tonight Show? Huh.
Game of Thrones is returning to SPOILER REDACTED.
This is an interesting dissection of how Netflix figures out what you want to watch — and creepier, figures out how to convince you to watch certain things.
NBC might lose the rights to the Golden Globes. Could a streaming platform take over?
50 years ago today, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his last speech. The day before, Petula Clark touched Harry Belafonte on the arm and people LOST THEIR DAMN MINDS.
The new Westworld trailer is pretty amazing:
Once all the playback numbers were accounted for, Roseanne brought in 25 million viewers. The 7 million extra viewers topples a record previously held by How to Get Away With Murder‘s 2014 premiere, which brought in 6 million extra viewers.
Here’s a look back at the shows that have premiered with American Idol as a lead-in. I only remembered about five of them and I write about TV for a living.
There is not going to be a Riverdale/Sabrina crossover. At least not anytime soon.
Good news, Hulu subscribers: you will soon finally be able to stream The CW live on the platform. This is doubly good news coupled with the news that The CW has renewed 10 of their shows. It should be noted that next season will be Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s final season, which Rachel Bloom has always said was the plan.
Renewals
- Arrow
- Black Lightning
- Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
- Legends of Tomorrow
- Dynasty
- The Flash
- Jane the Virgin
- Riverdale
- Supergirl
- Supernatural
Ratings
- Rise had a huge ratings drop last week, but could that have been the Roseanne effect?
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine might be in trouble despite rebounding in the ratings once Fox moved it to Sunday nights.
- CBS’s Friday night shows are safe.
- Life Sentence is doomed. And yet another example of an ironic title — y’all really need to think harder about what you name your show, guys.
- Splitting Up Together benefitted from Roseanne.
Casting News
- The cast of Dancing with the Stars will be announced on Good Morning America on April 13.
- Biniam Bizuneh will star in Fox’s Lee Daniels’ comedy pilot.
- Gavin Lewis, Theodore Barnes, Shelby Simmons, and Cynthia McWilliams will star in Netflix’s The Prince of Peoria.
- Jackson Pace is joining the cast of Grace & Frankie.
- Toby Huss, Katrina Law, and Leah Gibson have been cast in Facebook drama Sacred Lies.
Mark Your Calendars
- Dallas Cakes will premiere on Food Network on April 30.
- Natalie Wood: An American Murder Mystery will air on Investigation Discovery on April 16.
- Holmes: Next Generation will debut on DIY on April 17.
R.I.P.
WATCH THIS
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills: The women ruin Berlin. 8 p.m., Bravo
Legion: This wackiness is back. Season premiere. 9 p.m., FX
The Last O.G.: Series premiere. 9:30 p.m., TBS
The President Show: Trump holds a telethon to fun the projects that Congress doesn’t want. 10 p.m., Comedy Central
Late Night: Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: John Krasinski, Abigail Spencer, Jade Bird Late Night with Seth Meyers: Leslie Mann, Jared Harris, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Steve Smith Jimmy Kimmel Live: Dwayne Johnson, Ike Barinholtz, Hayley Kiyoko Watch What Happens Live: “Summer House” Reunion Show
| TUES. | 7:00 | 7:30 | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 |
| ABC | Roseanne (new) |
The Middle (new) |
black-ish (new) |
Splitting Up Together (new) |
For the People (new) |
| CBS | NCIS (new) |
Bull (new) |
NCIS: New Orleans (new) |
| CW | The Flash (repeat) |
Black Lightning (new) |
Local |
| FOX | Lethal Weapon (repeat) |
L.A. to Vegas (repeat) |
The Mick (new) |
News/Local |
| NBC | The Voice (new) |
Rise (new) |
Chicago Med (new) |
I understand I’m not saying anything new here, but I really miss when politics was boring and I didn’t have to wake up every damn morning thinking “I wonder what he did last night. Because I KNOW he did something stupid before I woke up”.
I YEARN for the days when I didn’t know the name of the wife of the Secretary of the Treasury. Or even the Secretary of the Treasury. The whole thing is exhausting.
-T