White House Correspondents Insider

Behind the scenes of the most powerful city in the world — Washington, D.C. — and those who cover it.

Stephen Colbert Offers to Host White House Correspondents’ Dinner

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Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. Photo courtesy Haddad Media.

Over the weekend, Late Night host Stephen Colbert said he would be interested in hosting this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April.

“I’d love to do it,” Colbert said at an 80’s dance party fundraiser for the Montclair Film Festival. “I mean, when else are you going to stand next to the President and make jokes?”

Colbert was the host of the Dinner in 2006, where he roasted then-President George W. Bush. “Everyone who wasn’t in that room loved [the speech],” he reminisced.

The late-night talk show host also discussed how difficult it has been to keep up with current events as host of Late Night since the Inauguration.

“The speed at which the news changes with President Trump is extraordinary,” Colbert said. “We tape the show at 5:30 p.m., but sometimes we have to change the show at 5 p.m. — after rehearsal, when everything is done — we are writing a whole new first act based around something that he has said or done in the last half hour. The balls are coming over the plate so fast with him and I think that’s intentional. [The Trump administration] want[s] their actions to be almost un-discussable. They want to swamp the real media.”

Jeff Mason of Reuters, in his role as the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, oversees choosing the entertainer. He said recently he has no timeframe currently on when someone will be announced.

Trump Administration Boycotts CNN

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Photo courtesy of Pixabay / Geralt.

CNN will no longer receive officials from the Trump Administration for on-air interviews and commentary, according to a report on Politico.

President Donald Trump has criticized CNN as “fake news” frequently since Election Day.

An anonymous White House official said “we’re sending surrogates to places where we think it makes sense to promote our agenda.” The official acknowledged the ban is not intended to be permanent.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer denied the administration was freezing out CNN, noting that he continues to take questions from the network’s journalists during regular daily briefings. He also defended the administration’s decision not to send spokespeople to the network for on-air coverage.

“I’m not going to sit around and engage with people who have no desire to actually get something right,” Spicer said at an event at George Washington University on Monday.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus Wins Big at SAG Awards, Criticizes Refugee Ban

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Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Chris Godsick and Brad Hall. Photo courtesy Haddad Media.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus won the award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series at the SAG Awards Sunday night.  Louis-Dreyfus  portrays former president Selina Meyer  on HBO’s Veep. Now, she is taking her formidable speaking skills into the real world to defend American immigrants.

The 2017 Screen Actors Guild kicked off with numerous passionate political speeches, and Louis-Dreyfus began by taking a humorous look at the presidential predicament, before her speech quickly took a serious turn.

She began by joking about current events and President Trump’s propensity to exaggerate and use “alternative facts.”

“Whether the Russians did or did not hack the voting of tonight’s SAG awards, I look out at the million or probably even a million and a half people in this room, and I say this award is legitimate and I won. I’m the winner. The winner is me. Landslide!” Louis-Dreyfus said to a roar of laughter from the audience.

Taking a more serious tone, Louis-Dreyfus referenced her family’s immigrant history and described Trump’s recent immigration ban as a “blemish” on the country and “un-American.”

“My father fled religious persecution in Nazi-occupied France, and I’m an American patriot and I love this country, Louis-Dreyfus continued.  “I am horrified by its blemishes.”

The seven-time Emmy Award-winner concluded her speech by quoting a statement from SAG’s “sister guild” the WGA.

“Our guilds are unions of storytellers who have always welcomed those from other nations, and of varying beliefs, who wish to share their creativity with America. We are grateful to them, we stand with them, we will fight for them.”

Bryan Cranston, friend of White House Correspondents’ Insider, also won Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor for his role as LBJ in a Television Movie or Miniseries for HBO’S “All the Way.”

Fox, CNN Rake in Ratings for New Year’s Eve Coverage

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CNBC newsroom. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Both cable news giants CNN and Fox News got something to boast about with their New Years Eve coverage.

As the seconds ticked toward 2017, over 3 million viewers watched CNN’s “New Year’s Eve Live with Anderson Cooper & Kathy Griffin,” edging out Fox News’ “All-American New Year” hosted by Eric Bolling, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Jesse Watters and Kennedy.

Their 3.04 million viewers between 11 PM EST and 12:30 AM EST made it the most-watched cable news show for the evening.  Fox News received 2.75 million viewers during the same time span.

Expanding coverage analytics throughout the evening, Fox News triumphed.  Looking at numbers from 8 PM EST through 12:30 AM EST, Fox News averaged about 100,000 more viewers than CNN.

However, even in this expanded measure, CNN won the 25-54 year old bracket.

MSNBC did not have a New Year’s Eve broadcast, instead carrying live coverage from the NBC Network.

Former WH Press Secretaries Warn About Trump’s Press Relationship

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James Brady Press Briefing Room. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

In a recent interview with Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” several former White House press secretaries issued warnings and concerns about the incoming Trump White House and its relationship with the media.

“We’ve just elected a man who bullies female reporters at his rally as an applause line,” said Nicole Wallace, communications director under former President George W. Bush. “We have just elected a man who started a hot war with a female anchor instead of attending a debate she moderated. We are in a new place. And I don’t think it’s good. And I don’t think it has any parallels to the past.”

Bill Clinton’s press secretary, Joe Lockhart, warned over Trump’s tendency to ignore or simply make up facts. “It’s somewhat Orwellian, which, you know, you redefine the past, which means you can define the present and the future,” Lockhart said. “And that’s going to be very difficult for both sides to come to grips with.”

Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary under Bush, addressed the mutual animosity between the press and Trump. Especially with public confidence in the press at historic lows, “the press has made itself vulnerable, because it lost the trust of their readers and their viewers — and Trump has widely taken advantage of it,” Fleischer concluded.

Incoming White House Press Secretary Says Media Doesn’t Understand Trump’s Twitter

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Daniel Lippman, Tammy Haddad, Sean Spicer. Photo courtesy of Haddad Media.

In an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer called on the nation to support the president-elect, instead of focusing and criticizing on his Twitter account.

“So the idea is everyone wants to talk about the tweets he sent. But I would actually focus on the action he’s getting. Donald Trump is not president yet and he’s getting action, successes and wins, both abroad and here at home,” Spicer said.

Spicer explained the media’s focus on Trump’s Twitter account, saying his tweets “freaks the mainstream media out,” because it marginalizes them.

“I think it freaks the mainstream media out that he has this following of over 45-plus million people that follow him on social media, that he can have a direct conversation. He doesn’t have to have it funneled through the media,” Mr. Spicer said. “Business as usual is over, as I’ve said before. There’s a new sheriff in town, and he’s going to do things first and foremost for the American people.”

Members of the press have called on the incoming president and his team to cease hostilities toward the press, and pledge continuing access for the media to his administration.

WHCInsider Mourns the Passing of Louis Harris

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Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

Louis Harris, known to thousands of political insiders as the ground-breaking public opinion analyst throughout the 1950s through 1990s, passed away Saturday at his home in Key West, Florida at age 95.

Founding Louis Harris & Associates in 1956s, Harris built a reputation as a remarkably accurate forecaster, predicting the election of presidents, governors, members of Congress and scores of other public officials.

Rejecting the title “pollster,” Harris preferred to be called a public opinion analyst, believing the former title trivialized his efforts into gathering data. Instead, Harris was an innovator and entrepreneur who set the stage for generations of analysts and political consultants around the globe in polling methodology and analysis.

Harris was also very active in the media. Throughout the 1960s, he penned columns for The Washington Post and Newsweek, and from 1969 through 1988 he wrote for The Chicago Tribune-New York Daily Syndicate. His columns were printed in over 100 newspapers. Harris also appeared as a commentator on ABC News.

All Hail Joanna Coles and The Hearst 100 Power Women’s Lunch

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Tammy Haddad and Joanna Coles at Michael’s for the Hearst 100 Women’s Power Lunch. Photo courtesy Haddad Media.

Women leaders in media, fashion and entertainment converged on the tony Manhattan media destination, Michael’s, to ring in the Hearst 100 Luncheon.

Hearst’s first chief content officer Joanna Coles hosted the lunch, newly elevated to her new role in September, after a smashingly successful tenure as editor in chief at Cosmopolitan.

Coles welcomed the crowd saying “I’m told that Mike Pence begins every meeting with a prayer. I’ll begin our entrée with a prayer and it goes like this: ‘Dear God, protect us from Mike Pence.’”

Cecile Richards also provided remarks to the room of power women on the merits of activism during the incoming Trump administration.

“Many women woke up on the morning of the election in a dead panic… we at Planned Parenthood had a 900 percent increase in women calling to get IUDs [contraceptives] the day after the election,” Richards said. Some of them literally said, ‘I want to get an IUD that will last the full duration of the Trump administration.’”

Cementing the critical role of the media, Richards concluded “women’s magazines and the women’s media have done a heroic job and they did this election in putting women first and telling the stories that no one would tell.”

Guests included Diane Sawyer, Diane von Furstenburg, Arianna Huffington, Megan Murphy, Christine Quinn, Brooke Garber Neidich, Aarthi Ramamurthy, Patti Harris, Charlotte Jones Anderson, Tina Brown,  Gayle King, Norah O’Donnell, Peggy Siegal, and Ali Wentworth.

The Washington squad included Adrienne Arsht, Maria Trabocchi, Tammy Haddad, Stephanie Schriock, Maria Teresa Kumar, Kim Kingsley, Kimball Stroud, and Ilyse Hogue.

Other media stars included NBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, New York Times’ two reporters Vanessa Friedman and Laura Holson and media maven Holly Peterson.

Cecile Richards at the Hearst 100 Power Women’s Lunch. Photo courtesy Haddad Media.

Joanna Coles at the Hearst 100 Power Women’s Lunch. Photo courtesy Haddad Media.

Malin Akerman, Star of Billions, and Tammy Haddad. Photo courtesy Haddad Media.

Photo courtesy Haddad Media.

Photo courtesy Haddad Media.

Hillary Clinton Calls on Congress to Tackle Fake News “Epidemic”

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Photo courtesy of Pixabay / Geralt.

2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is calling on Congress to take action to fight the “epidemic” of fake news online.

Speaking on Capitol Hill, Clinton said that “The epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year — it’s now clear the so-called fake news can have real-world consequences.”

Individuals spreading fake news articles have continued to focus their ire toward Mrs. Clinton, including a high-profile “story” involving a pizzeria in Northwest Washington targeted as the center of a child-trafficking ring operated by Clinton and her top advisors.  A gunman from North Carolina recently was arrested for firing an assault rifle inside the pizzeria after driving six hours to see the situation for himself.

Speaking at a ceremony honoring retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Clinton said “lives are at risk — lives of ordinary people just trying to go about their days, to do their jobs, contribute to their communities.”

“It’s a danger that must be addressed and addressed quickly,” she said.

Is Megyn Kelly Staying at Fox News?

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2016 Vanity Fair / Bloomberg White House Correspondents’ Dinner After Party. Photo courtesy of Haddad Media.

Rumors are swirling over Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and her future.

Kelly’s contract with Fox expires in the summer of 2017, although the network has already offered her an extension at $20 million per year.

Even so, per Sarah Ellison at Vanity Fair, “Within the last month, according to a person familiar with the discussions, ABC has renewed, and perhaps sweetened, its effort to woo Kelly.”

Kelly spokesperson Leslee Dart replied saying no solid offers have been made by ABC.

“When I asked about the possibility of an offer, a Disney-ABC Television spokesman told me, ‘As much as we appreciate and admire Megyn Kelly’s talents, this is simply not true. There has never been an offer of any job, and therefore there is nothing that could be sweetened. End of story.’”

CNN chief Jeff Zucker also is attempting to bring Kelly to his news network, according to a recent headline on the Drudge Report.  Kelly herself responded to this story on twitter that people shouldn’t believe rumors about her until they hear it from her directly.