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Welcome, readers, to the Good Men Project Daily Brief!
The News Cycle is a term to describe the time it takes for a news outlet to find a story, break it, explore the story and find resolution. Sometimes that resolution is national change, sometimes it’s local change, sometimes it simply fades away into the next story.
On June 1st, 1980, Ted Turner launched the Cable News Network, the very first 24 hour news outlet which shortened the News Cycle from weeks to the 24 hours. Competitors like MSNBC and Fox News forced competition for stories which shortened it even further. Now, in the internet era, news comes at us immediately, often with such a frequency that a breaking story can cause another, which can cause another, and another. We can see the acceleration in real time.
Today we’re looking at stories that feed off each other, accelerating the momentum.
My name is Mckay Williams and this is your Daily Brief:
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President Trump tweets may put him in more legal jeopardy.
Yesterday’s story about House GOP members drafting articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein spurred President Trump to tweet that “At some point (he) will have no choice but to use the powers granted to the Presidency and get involved!”.
President Trump is allegedly a “subject” of investigation for the “getting involved” and firing FBI Director James Comey last year. If Rod Rosenstein is now fired by the President, this tweet could be pointed to as evidence of intent to obstruct justice. I’m willing to be you’ll be hearing a lot about this tweet before the investigation ends.
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President Trump’s personal legal defense team loses Ty Cobbs
Only hours after another tweet that complicates the defense of President Trump in the Mueller probe, attorney Ty Cobbs quits and is possibly being replaced by former Clinton impeachment attorney Emmet Flood [EDIT: White House has now confirmed Emmet Flood]. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders commented that he had been planning to “retire” for some time, suggesting there is no link to the activity of this morning and his resignation. This writer, however, does not find Sarah Sanders a credible source.
The speed at which this story is unfolding hints at chaos within the President’s defense team, and is worrying with the Korean peace summit just on the horizon. Can the President keep his personal legal troubles and his duty as Executive of the American Government separate?
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Mueller reported threatened subpoena if President will not voluntarily sit for interview.
As the President mulls over his catch 22 of sitting for an interview with Special Counsel, meetings apparently got so tense that Robert Mueller reminded the President’s team that he has the power to subpoena. Only two Presidents have ever been subpoenaed in an investigation, most recently President Bill Clinton. The Washington Post’s Robert Costa reports that Rudy Giuliani, having recently joined the defense team, says that the President will only submit to a 2-3 hour interview with a narrow field of questions. This story is developing so quickly that at the time of writing, there are no formal sourcing options to provide to you. The Washington Post will undoubtedly publish as soon as they have vetted the story.
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And more, and more, and more…
In the time since I started this Daily Brief and now, the following stories have broken on major media outlets:
- A military cargo plane has crashed in Georgia.
- Another Southwest Airlines plane is forced to land after a window cracked.
- Mike Pompeo has been sworn in as Secretary of State.
- Al Franken makes his first speech since resigning in scandal following the #metoo movement.
- Cambridge Analytica, linked to Donald Trump’s campaign and Facebook’s data scandal, closes for business.
The news cycle has accelerated from weekly, to daily, to hourly. Does it serve the electorate to know new information immediately, or is the volume of news unsustainable?
Tell us what you think.
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Click for more from Mckay Williams
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