White House Correspondents Insider

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

CNN Gets Tapper, ABC Has Their Own Shuffle and No Go on ''Plan B"

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In case you thought it was the end of the world–well, it’s just another Friday for the District.

In pre-Christmas media shuffle CNN announced that Jake Tapper is their new chief Washington correspondent and anchor. Mike Ryan’s Playbook backstory sheds light on what CNN seems to have in mind for the former ABC correspondent: “Tapper’s new show will initially air during one of the hours that CNN programming is in D.C., between 4 and 7 p.m., after which it will likely find a later time slot. The pitch to Tapper by incoming CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker was key to the hire. Before his White House gig, Tapper was a utility player at ABC News, doing stories on Iraq, the culture wars, and plenty of general assignment stories ranging from the Virginia Tech attacks to interviewing Larry David. A show that focused on a broader palette of story subjects, from politics to international affairs to sports to popular culture, has always been his main goal.”

Which means over at ABC, Jonathan Karl has become their new Chief White House Correspondent and Martha Raddatz is bumped to Chief Global Affairs Correspondent, which the release notes will find her as “primary substitute for George Stephanopoulos on This Week and will contribute regularly to the roundtable” along with Karl.

Going to the pundit side, Politico has Purple Stategies’ Rob Collins being vetted for the National Republican Senatorial Commitee.

Would you call the failure to pass Speaker John Boehner’s “Plan B” proposal “embarrassing”? You’re not alone as nearly everyone lead with that description after last night’s rejection of his fiscal cliff spending plan. Here’s a sampling:

Bloomberg: “The flawed approach left Boehner embarrassed and Republicans without a clear alternative to Obama’s proposal to raise $1.2 trillion in taxes on high earners and cut $1.2 trillion in spending.”

Washington Post’s Right Turn: “House Republicans embarrassed their speaker Thursday night by shutting down his Plan B to protect all but millionaires from a tax hike, come Jan. 1. How close was the GOP to having enough support for Speaker John Boehner’s plan? A senior leadership aide replied glumly, ‘Not close enough.'”

On Morning Joe, David Axelrod said: “But the fact that they couldn’t even pass that was an embarrassment. This is the longest day of the year and certainly true for John Boehner, I’m sure he’s scratching his head right now.”

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Ambassador Susan Rice Withdraws from Secretary of State Nomination

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From Rice’s desk to our eyes.


Susan Rice, ambassador to the United Nations, is out of the running for the coveted secretary of state seat. After weeks of harassment from congress

ABC News published the letter that Ambassador Rice sent to President Obama, which is avaliable here. She starts her letter off thanking the president.
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From Vince Vaughn and The Producers of Singled Out and Jon Stewart Show Comes…Glenn Beck?

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The Pursuit of Truth Teaser

File this under the weirder announcement of an otherwise exciting humpday.

TV Newser has the press release that Glenn Beck‘s TheBlaze [sic] will be venturing into the realm of documentary programming, much like MSNBC and CNN before him.

Whereas the major cable networks skewed toward franchise series (Lockup, or any of Anderson Cooper’s reports), Beck is going a different route: he’s making a reality show first, producing a documentary second.

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Obama's First Post-Election Cabinet Meeting: Primary Purpose "To Say Thank You," But "A Lot of Work To Do."

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Obama on Tarmac

The overall message from President Obama about the fate of his cabinet in the new term? Thanks.

Giving a few words prior to their meeting on-air, President Obama was thankful for the service of his current  cabinet after a tough campaign.

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GQ's Least Influential Skirts The White House

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First Family

Can we really claim Michelle Obama is the seventh least influential person in the world? Does that mean she’s more or less influential than pop earworms like Gotye or the constant influence of Madonna on the world stage? If Mitt Romney is first is that because he lost the 2012 election or because he’s barely recognized while at a CVS?

These are the sorts of questions that plague us as we go through all 25 choices on GQ’s list of The Least Influential People of 2012. The list’s a mix of pop culture mainstays, but the additions of the political choices seem to sting a bit much. Especially when going after the First Lady:

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How Classified Is Zero Dark Thirty Anyway?

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Just how talkative are the secret special ops squad behind Seal Team Six? They were profiled and consulted for Medal of Honor: Warfighter, a video game released last month; “No Easy Day” wasn’t vetted by the Pentagon and the author claims it wasn’t a political book. And now the first reviews of Kathryn Bigelow, celebrating her 61st birthday today, and her upcoming film Zero Dark Thirty are hitting the trades.

When the film was put into production earlier this year and when the infamous “4 to 5 inch stack” of documents from the CIA were uncovered that could’ve possibly influenced the script and revealed classified operations according to Politico.

But what about the White House hitting back with the claim she used classified information in her latest film?  Scripted by Mark Boal, who also wrote her previous film The Hurt Locker and the story for In The Valley of Elah, the semi-accurate story follows the days leading up to the assassination of Osama Bin Laden as told through intelligence agencies and the Seal Team. Speaking last night on Nightline, via Deadline, Boal said about the attention his script received:

“I certainly did a lot of homework, but I never asked for classified materials; to my knowledge, I never received any. And I think as far as the controversy goes, you know, how can I put this — it was an election year. It was surreal and bizarre to have … I mean there were major players in the Republican Party characterizing the script and the movie before I had written a word, and I found that just really baffling.”

Criticwire collected the early reviews and they all sound promising for the film coming out later this month. But we’ll know if the film has an Argo effect on the Beltway on December 19th.

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The Great Chelsea Mystery, or Welcome Back from Thanksgiving!

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It’s the Monday after an otherwise quiet holiday week. Your in-laws are gone, your co-workers clad in formless sweaters and jumpers to hide the turkey and then there’s the question of how to shed these newfound pounds?  Why not spend your time fretting over what Chelsea Clinton and NBC News may or may not have done over this election year?

Buzzfeed has the exclusive that NBC News put the kibosh on a planned series of ads featuring Chelsea Clinton, who is a special correspondent with the bureau,  lending her voice and possibly likeness to a marriage-equality campaign during the election. The ads, focusing on legislation in Washington state, were questionable but seemed to be online only:

Three people who saw the videos confirmed their existence to BuzzFeed. They were fully prepared, with the script approved in advance, one source said. The video wasn’t intended for TV broadcast, a second source said, suggesting they were instead to be used as web-based videos. The source added that multiple efforts had been intended beneficiaries of the former First Daughter’s support.

So what exactly did these ads seem to say that caused NBC to backtrack? Well, technically Clinton is an employee of the news division and can’t be shown endorsing any specific measure up for the election. Even if she is a “special correspondent,” she’s still under the peacock’s shadow. But does this actually matter? Not especially. It’s the news equivalent of getting a yogurt with your Peppermint Mocha as a “healthy” reward after so little has happened last week.

But give it a day or two! There’ll be more important things to discuss rather than what seems like an attempt by TheFour.com to get their name on Google Trends. Instead, The National Christmas Tree was spotted on a flatbed truck near the Capitol this morning! And as the weeks lead up to the inauguration, the comings and goings of the administration are sure to be the real news instead of a web-only video that someone in corporate deemed too risque.

Obama Pardons Cobbler and Gobbler In Historic First

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Ready Set Go!

Come tomorrow, Gobbler and Cobbler can rest easy knowing their necks aren’t on the line for Thanksgiving dinner. The two presidential birds were both pardoned minutes ago by President Obama at a ceremony outside the White House’s Rose Garden.

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