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President Donald Trump | Mandel Ngan/Getty

🇺🇸 Moving the Market

Do Bob Woodward's Trump revelations matter?

The 2020 election can often seem, as The New Yorker's Susan Glasser recently put it, like "a race in which everything happens and nothing matters." The question on the minds of many Democrats today is, will the revelations about President Donald Trump's willful effort to dismiss the coronavirus actually, finally, possibly matter.

• On Wednesday, we learned that Trump knew about the dangers of the coronavirus pandemic in February, dismissed the threat publicly, and then admitted to downplaying it one month later.

• Six months later, more than 6.3 million people in the U.S. have tested positive for the coronavirus, and about 190,000 have died.

The revelations, exposed in an excerpt from Bob Woodward's forthcoming book, "Rage," seem like the kind of thing that just might force Trump's less ardent supporters to rethink their decision come November. And yet, Americans are so entrenched in their political views that it is hard to believe anything will move the needle.

• "I’ve given up on thinking there is any revelation that changes the politics fundamentally," Glasser told me last night. But the Woodward revelations still matter, she said. "Maybe even more so. The only antidote to lies is truth. (Which sounds earnest but history is long...)"

The coronavirus pandemic will be a factor in this election, but how much of one? Polling data collected by FiveThirtyEight shows that Americans' feelings about Trump's handling of the pandemic have grown worse over time ...

• And yet, the percentage of Republicans who support his handling of the pandemic — 80.4 percent as of yesterday — is exactly the same as it was in mid-February.

The most significant question, perhaps, is how these revelations will play in the debates. What happens when Chris Wallace, the host of Fox News Sunday, and a respected voice among traditional Republicans, if not Trump Republicans, reads the Woodward excerpts in front of 80 million viewers and asks the president to respond?

Bob Woodward | Bloomberg/Getty

🌁 Big in the Beltway

About the Woodward book...

While Trump's remarks consumed Washington and the political media on Wednesday, another debate was taking place on social media over whether Woodward should have published the president's remarks back in March, and whether doing so might have saved lives.

• "How differently might Trump's supporters have acted if ... they knew that he knew COVID was a serious threat?" Jessica Huseman, a reporter for ProPublica, wrote in one tweet indicative of the blowback. "Woodward could have made that happen in February."

• Woodward dismissed the idea that he might have saved lives. Many of his colleagues also defended him, arguing that Trump may have been so forthcoming only because he knew the remarks wouldn't see the light of day for months. (See our full report here).

The big picture: In an email, media historian Michael Socolow pointed out that "journalists hold incredibly damaging information all the time, for all kinds of reasons." Peter Hamby, the host of Snapchat's Good Luck America, countered: "The 'this is just what journalists do, pipe down' excuse is not helping journalism at all."

📚 Book Club 📚

Woodward's "Rage" quickly jumped to No. 1 on Amazon's bestseller list yesterday, ousting Michael Cohen's "Disloyal," which was probably hoping for a longer shelf life.

• Meanwhile, Frank Herbert's sci-fi novel "Dune" is at No. 4, thanks to the upcoming film starring Timothée Chalamet and an A-list ensemble. The first trailer just dropped.

TikTok U.S., Culver City | Mario Tama/Getty

🌁 Big in the Bay

TikTok looks to tweak U.S. sale

ByteDance is in talks with the U.S. government about a deal that would allow it to avoid a full sale of TikTok's U.S. operations, WSJ's Miriam Gottfried, Georgia Wells and Kate Davidson report. The talks are happening with just days to go until the Sept. 15 sale deadline.

• "Discussions around such an option have risen in prominence since the Chinese government took steps that make a sale to a U.S. technology giant like Microsoft more difficult," they report.

• "A number of options remain on the table, the situation is fluid and a sale is still a possibility. ... Even if there isn’t a full sale, the outcome would likely involve some sort of restructuring of TikTok ... [such as] a deal in which TikTok takes on a U.S. technology partner."

What's next: The Microsoft-Walmart group are still in pole position to acquire TikTok U.S.; Oracle is still in the running. "The main concern for government officials ... has been the security of TikTok’s data and keeping it out of reach of the Chinese government."

Market Links

• Adam Mosseri rolls out Instagram changes (Verge)

• Daniel Ek launches a voter engagement initiative (CNN)

• Pearlena Igbokwe takes top TV role at NBCU (Variety)

• Jeff Goldberg adds 20,000 Atlantic subscribers (CNN)

• Adam Hansmann, Alex Mather hit 1m subs (CNBC)

• Simone Oliver is named editor of Refinery29 (NYT)

Super Bowl LIV | Sam Greenwood/Getty

📺 Talk of TV Land

The new NFL rights scramble

The National Football League and its media partners are back at the negotiating table and discussing major broadcasting changes as the existing rights deals near their expiration dates, Variety's Brian Steinberg reports.

• "The league’s current rights deal with Walt Disney’s ESPN lapses after the 2021 season, while its contracts with ViacomCBS, NBCUniversal and Fox Corp. last through 2022."

• "Prices for new rights packages could rise as much as 50 percent to 80 percent ... and the prospect of inflation has spurred several new ideas at the networks."

• "Disney could suggest moving 'Monday Night Football' to ABC from ESPN. ... Meanwhile, 'Thursday Night Football,' which currently airs on the Fox broadcast network, could move to another perch."

The big picture: "Billions of dollars are stake for all involved. ... CBS, NBC and Fox ... are believed to be paying a combined $3.1 billion per year for Sunday games. .... ESPN’s rights to broadcast 'Monday Night Football' are believed to cost around $1.9 billion.

• "The networks can’t do without the sport. Live NFL broadcasts generate TV’s biggest consistent audiences and the medium’s highest ad prices. In 2019, the average cost of a 30-second ad on NBC’s 'Sunday Night Football' was $608,625."

NBCUniversal is the parent company of NBC News.