Good morning. President Trump will sit down with CBS's Margaret Brennan on Super Bowl Sunday — two days before his State of the Union address on Feb. 5.

• Want to join the Market? Sign up here.

Johannes Eisele/Getty

What we talk about when we talk about Howard Schultz

Howard Schultz's possible third-party bid has drawn more criticism and ridicule over the last 24 hours than any nascent presidential campaign in recent memory — highlighting Schultz's political shortcomings as well as the establishment's aversion to independent candidates in the wake of Nader 2000 and Stein 2016.

The C.W. on Schultz 2020:

• Mike Bloomberg, who has studied the viability of a third-party bid closer than anyone, says, "There is no way an independent can win. ... The great likelihood is that an independent would just split the anti-Trump vote and end up re-electing the president."

• Lisa Lerer reminds us that just because 40% of the electorate identifies as independent doesn't mean they're open to voting for Schultz: "The political reality is that most people who call themselves 'independent' aren’t."

• In separate appearances on CNN, both Jeffrey Toobin and David Axelrod called Schultz's bid is "a gift" to President Trump.

• Former Obama adviser Bill Burton joined Schultz's team Monday and immediately burned a bridge with his former employer, SKD, which says it will have "nothing to do with this effort."

• Schultz was heckled less than a minute into his appearance at a Manhattan Barnes & Noble on Monday night: “Don’t help elect Trump you egotistical billionaire asshole," the heckler shouted, adding that he should "Go back to Davos."

Bucking the conventional wisdom is former Republican Rep. David Jolly, a Trump critic who voted for Democrat Andrew Gillum in Florida's 2018 Governor's race. In an interview with Charlie Sykes, Jolly says Schultz could be the "disruptive candidate" that emerges "every 25 years" in American politics:

• "What I heard from Howard Schultz on '60 Minutes' was a pitch-perfect message to where the country is — reservations about the hard right, but also concerns about the hard left — packaged in somebody who came from public housing in Brooklyn to build one of the nation's most responsible corporations in Starbucks, and who has the money to get that message and narrative out."

• "Howard Schultz is a contender, not a spoiler. ... He's a threat to the major party candidates, both Republican and Democrat in 2020, should he run a campaign that is operationally mature."

There is an important subtext here: If Democrats take a hard left in 2020 while Trump goes hard right, the middle is going to be up for grabs. There are going to be many voters who feel stuck between two candidates that are too partisan for their liking.

That might not matter to those who believe a Coalition of the Left is strong enough to defeat Trump. But that's not the conceit of the Democrats who criticize Schultz. Their conceit is that they need the voters in the middle, and that without Schultz those voters will default to the Democratic nominee.

That becomes a riskier bet the farther left you go on the spectrum of Democratic hopefuls. As Jolly put it, "Where does a guy like David Jolly go in 2020, a guy who worked hard to get to divided government, to stop Trumpism, but doesn't want to go all the way down the tracks with Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren?"

The Big Picture: This week's freakout over Schultz 2020 may have as much to do with Democratic anxieties about the viability of their more progressive candidates — and their ability to build a broad base of support in the general — as it does with the specter of Schultz standing stage-middle at the presidential debates.

John Lamparski/Getty

@AOC spooks Silicon Valley

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is fast becoming one of the most feared lawmakers among the Silicon Valley C-Suite, given the sheer power of her social media megaphone and her critical stance on Facebook, Amazon and other tech giants, sources at some of the major firms tell me.

• “Silicon Valley fears the @AOC tweet the way they used to fear the @realDonaldTrump tweet," a comms chief at one of the companies said.

The Big Picture: Ocasio-Cortez has Silicon Valley in her sights, and her social media savvy and 2.69 million Twitter followers give her the power to shift national attention onto any of their perceived sins at a moment's notice.

The Latest: Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Chellie Pingree sent a letter to Facebook, Google and Microsoft yesterday criticizing their sponsorship of a conference that promoted climate change denial.

• If almost any other lawmaker sent that letter, the sources said, it would have garnered scant attention outside of Silicon Valley and Washington.

• But because Ocasio-Cortez tweeted it, it got widespread national attention. Her tweet about the letter was retweeted more than 4,300 times and liked more than 21,000 times.

Other tweets that shook the Valley:

• Vs. Facebook: "The biggest threats to journalism right now are tech monopolies & concentration of ownership." (14k RTs, 70k Likes)

• Vs. Facebook: "FB *paid* for info tied to conspiracy theories" (2k RTs, 9k Likes)

• Vs. Amazon: "When you don’t address human bias, that bias gets automated." (11k RTs, 48k Likes)

Flashback: Snap's Peter Hamby, last week in Vanity Fair: Like Trump, Ocasio-Cortez understands "that policy proposals are mostly irrelevant to the media unless you have previously established the ability to generate attention."

✈️ Rally the Market ✈️

Big on the DCA --> LAX: Rep. Nancy Pelosi is among the guests expected at Clive Davis’ annual pre-Grammys gala in Beverly Hills, per Page Six.

If you're enjoying the newsletter, share it with friends.

Stephanie Keith/Getty

Tim Cook's FaceTime 'snafu'

Speaking of Silicon Valley's perceived sins ... Tim Cook was forced to disable Apple's Group FaceTime feature yesterday after a glitch enabled callers to listen in on other people's conversations — even if the recipient didn't answer.

• The Big Picture, via NYT's Brian Chen: "The snafu is embarrassing for Apple ... The Silicon Valley company has long positioned itself as a protector of user privacy offering more secure devices than its rivals."

• Insult to injury: Apple reports earnings today, and slower-than-expected iPhone sales in China will be front and center.

Elsewhere at Apple HQ: Apple is planning a subscription service for games, Cheddar's Alex Heath scoops: "The service would function like Netflix for games, allowing users who pay a subscription fee to access a bundled list of titles."

• The Big Picture: Whenever Apple finally gets around to launching its Netflix competitor, it will be able to offer movies, TV shows, video games, music and news all in one package.

Bloomberg/Getty

Zuckerberg blocks watchdogs

Mark Zuckerberg is making changes at Facebook that hinder investigative groups' ability to monitor ad transparency.

• ProPublica, Mozilla and other organizations say Facebook has "quietly made changes" to the tools that allowed people to see how advertisers were targeting users.

• Sen. Mark Warner, a co-sponsor of the Honest Ads Act, called the move "very concerning."

Facebook's Response: Facebook's Director of Product Rob Leathern says the move "isn’t about stopping publications from holding us accountable," but rather about "preventing people’s data from being misused."

• In a phone interview, Leathern told me that the watchdogs' access could have left user data exposed: "If you install a plug-in on your computer, you give it a lot of ability to access data. ... We are very concerned about restricting people's access to your information."

Why watchdogs aren't buying it: "The latest move comes months after Facebook executives urged ProPublica to shut down its ad transparency project," ProPublica reports.

• Moreover, Merrill and Tobin say ProPublica "frequently caught political ads that aren’t reflected in Facebook’s archive. Just this month, we noticed four groups running ads that haven’t been in Facebook’s archive."

Bonus: Facebook's Nick Clegg has started the search for Facebook's content oversight board, the independent body that will make decisions on controversial content that appears on the platform. Read the charter.

Market Links

• Mark Zuckerberg's 'Watch' isn't working (Bloomberg)

• Evan Spiegel considers 'permanent' snaps (Reuters)

• Brian Roberts invests in the Acorns fintech app (CNBC)

• Richard Plepler looks to meet new expectations (Vanity Fair)

• Wolfgang Blau launches a newsletter for fashion execs (CNBC)

Bloomberg/Getty

Digital media downfall, con't

Stratechery's Ben Thompson, a favorite read among the Silicon Valley C-Suite, offers an impressively pithy macro account of how Facebook left BuzzFeed, Huffington Post and other digital media companies in the lurch:

• "Newspapers previously integrated editorial and advertising."

• "Facebook came along and integrated users and advertising."

• "The result was the commoditization of content."

• "The social network has two billion users, which gives the company ... a gargantuan amount of user-generated content to populate the News Feed."

• "It follows, then, that content suppliers are absolutely commoditized: Facebook doesn’t need to do anything to keep them on the platform, because where else will they go? Might as well keep the money for itself."

Save that one for your next Power Point.

Meanwhile, over at Vanity Fair ... former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson says BuzzFeed, HuffPo, et al have been so screwed by Facebook and Google that they'll probably either sell or go out of business:

• "I’m not sure any of these places will exist independently in five years."

But she bets on the big newspapers:

• "In newspapers and on the web, only the big, and the essential, will survive. The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal are certain to survive. They are our irreplaceable news providers."

Mike Windle/Getty

Bill Simmons milks the podcast

Bill Simmons' The Ringer is showing impressive signs of growth just three years after launch, providing a small glimmer of hope in a digital media industry beset by budget cuts, layoffs and buyouts.

Simmons' edge: Podcasts, which drive The Ringer's business even as they remain "a low priority at the biggest players," per WSJ's Ben Mullin and Joe Flint.

The Ringer by the Numbers:

• 35 million downloads a month for 28 podcasts.

• $15 million+ in podcast ad sales in 2018.

The Big Picture: The total podcast ad spend is still less than 1% of the overall U.S. digital ad market, but it's growing fast — 86% from 2016 to 2017 — which means there is room to capitalize.

🏈 Sports Break 🏈

Hot on the Ringer: Kevin Clark says Tom Brady (the NFL’s smartest quarterback) vs. Aaron Donald (the NFL's most dominant pass rusher) will be the most significant story line of the Super Bowl.

The real talk of Tinseltown: "Anthony Davis Wants Out of New Orleans, and the Lakers May Be His Destination."

Raymond Hall/Getty

The Super Bowl 'soapbox'

Moving Madison Avenue: Many of the biggest ads in this year's Super Bowl will feature messages of social change, highlighting the shift in how brands seek to earn the attention and loyalty of consumers.

Variety's Brian Steinberg has the highlights:

• "Coca-Cola and Anheuser-Busch ... will open the 53rd edition of the gridiron classic with messages spotlighting changes in society."

• "A 60-second Coke ad slated to air just before the singing of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' will offer a plea for unity at a time when U.S. consumers have been polarized by politics at just that pre-game moment."

• "Audi has indicated it intends to spotlight electric vehicles. Kia is making a point of telling consumers it passed on using a celebrity and will instead fund a scholarship."

• "Anheuser will use Bob Dylan’s 'Blowin’ In The Wind' to call attention to wind power."

The Big Picture: "Madison Avenue has rushed into the social relevance game in a bid to impress younger consumers who are often moved when they hear about a vital cause or progressive goal."

• "But these efforts have sometimes proven risky."

Remember this?

What's Next: Later this morning, Variety will publish Cynthia Littleton's cover story on Bob Iger's plans for his new Netflix competitor, Disney+. Watch for it at Variety.com.

See you tomorrow.