July 13, 2020 ![]() By DYLAN BYERS in Los Angeles & AHIZA GARCÍA-HODGES in San Francisco Good morning. 🇨🇳 U.S. vs. TikTok: White House trade adviser Peter Navarro says President Donald Trump will take "strong action" on TikTok and other Chinese apps. "Expect action, action, action from this president," he tells Fox News' Maria Bartiromo.
• Backgrounder: See Friday's newsletter for a full explainer on how Trump might wage war on TikTok.
Bonus: Amazon ordered its employees to delete TikTok from their company-owned mobile devices on Friday. They then reversed course the very same day, saying the directive had been sent in error.
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![]() Nathaniel S. Butler/Getty Fighting words Woj to Sen. Hawley: 'F--- you'
Moving the Market: Adrian Wojnarowski, the nation's foremost basketball reporter, has been suspended by ESPN after replying to a press release from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., that criticized the NBA's support for social justice issues and its willingness to do business with China. Wojnarowski's response to Hawley was, simply, "F--- you."
• The big picture: The controversy throws ESPN, a politics-averse network, into the heart of a political debate. It also pits a top sports-media insider against a senator who, coincidentally, is a central figure in Washington's battle against Big Tech. So for us, it's catnip.
The backstory: Hawley's office sent out a press release on Friday criticizing NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for his decision to let players wear messages on their jerseys this summer that were limited to "a few, pre-approved social justice slogans."
• The senator chastised the NBA for allowing phrases like "Black Lives Matter" while "censoring support for law enforcement officers or the military and any criticism of the Chinese Communist Party."
• Two minutes later, Wojnarowski, or "Woj" as he is known among NBA insiders and fans, replied with a simple and straightforward two-word response: "F--- you."
• Two hours after that, Hawley tweeted out a screen shot of the email exchange, adding: "Don’t criticize #China or express support for law enforcement to @espn," he wrote. "It makes them real mad."
The latest: ESPN has suspended Wojnarowski for at least one week and issued a statement calling his email "completely unacceptable." It is "inexcusable for anyone working for ESPN to respond in the way Adrian did to Sen. Hawley," the network said.
• In his own statement, Wojnarowski said he had been "disrespectful" and "made a regrettable mistake." He also said he was "reaching out to Senator Hawley to apologize directly," and would apologize to his ESPN colleagues as well.
What's next: LeBron James, Lou Williams and other NBA players have voiced support for Wojnarowski on social media by posting the hashtag "#FreeWoj." Meanwhile, Hawley and other conservatives are likely to seize on this moment to criticize ESPN and the NBA.
![]() Disney/Getty Big bets Bob Iger's 'breathtaking' risk
Talk of Tinseltown: Disney World re-opened Saturday in what NYT's Brooks Barnes calls "a breathtaking effort by a corporation to prove that it can safely operate... at a highly dangerous time." Florida reported a record-high 15,299 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday.
• The big picture: Disney is taking a big risk to keep its business going, and parkgoers are banking on the company's ability to keep them safe. As one parkgoer who took her family to the re-opening told Ahiza, "this is putting a lot of trust into Disney."
What's next: If the re-opening goes well, Bob Iger can start to plug the drain of billions of dollars in lost revenue from his parks business. If it doesn't, and a critical mass of parkgoers test positive, he will have a major public relations crisis on his hands.
🌏 What's next: In this week's column, NYT's Ben Smith writes about the global crackdown on independent journalism, "from Hungary to Malaysia."
See you tomorrow.
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