 Mark Zuckerberg |
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg is doing the thought-to-be impossible, topping Donald Trump as today's headliner, with his mea culpa on Capitol Hill for allowing Cambridge Analytica to "harvest" the data of 87M Facebookers, which possibly helped the Russians keep Hillary Clinton from the White House.
A grateful nation thanks you, Mark. You gave us a much-needed reprieve from 24/7 Trump.
The President did his level best to keep the media spotlight.
Trump railed over news that the FBI raided the office and hotel room of his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, in search of records about payments to stripper Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claim they had sex with the now tweeter-in-chief.
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Adding salt to the wound, Trump nemesis, deputy general Rod Rosenstein, who appointed special prosecutor Robert Mueller to investigate the president, personally signed off on the FBI's raid.
Trump stewed about whether he should do a package deal trifecta firing of Rosenstein, Mueller and attorney general Jeff Sessions.
Zuck, though, temporarily stole the PR show. Dodging cardboard Zuckerbergs wearing "Fix Facebook" shirts, the FB CEO—accompanied by a dozen handlers—cooly took the Senate witness chair to admit that his company didn't do enough to prevent its tools from producing fake news, interfering in elections, generating hate speech and destroying data privacy.
"We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here," said the repentant Zuckerberg, according to his transcript.
The grilling continues tomorrow in the House, and then Zuckerberg flies off to California to try to restore user and investor confidence in his social media site. He'll fade from the spotlight.
The rest of us aren't so lucky. Trump isn't going anywhere for now and especially to this weekend's Summit of the Americas in Peru.
Officially, the president canceled the Peruvian swing to plan for a military strike against Syria to retaliate for its use of chemical weapons against civilians.
Really, does anybody think Trump was looking forward to going to Peru to share the stage with leaders from countries such as Mexico, Haiti, Nicaragua, Trinidad & Tobago, Venezuela, Uruguay and Panama? They don't rank high on Trump's A-List.
The media spotlight shines more brightly in DC than in Lima. With Zuckerberg gone off into the sunset, the president will have the spotlight all to himself.
The North American "united bid" for the World Cup doesn't look so united these days... State Dept muzzles political speech as it investigates deporting an influential opponent of Iranian war... Wall Street Journal "discovers" corporate communications.
Momentum is building for nuclear power but public support is not guaranteed, according to a survey conducted by Ruder Finn... America First PR founder admits to assaulting a woman in a London tube station... If they knew their presence would disrupt the lives of thousands of people, neither Barack Obama nor George W. Bush would have attended the NBA Finals. They were not narcissists-in-chief. 
Ukraine struck PR gold as its launches drone attack on St. Petersburg oil depot ahead of 'Putin's Davos' designed to put a positive spin on Russia's economy that is reeling under the 'special military operation' that has cost the lives of more than 500K soldiers... Defense Secretary Hegseth ups war against reporters... Extremist government ministers marching in NYC Israel Day Parade further hurts the country's image. 
Cuba will make or break Secretary of State Marco Rubio's bid for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination... Ballard Partners and BGR Group push for justice for the family of Robert Levinson, who was abducted and vanished in Iran 19 years ago... Robert Daley, the pistol-packing larger-than-life PR guy who was PA chief for the NYPD, dies at 96.
Pope Leo's encyclical on dangers of AI has JD Vance rethinking his justification for Trump's war with Iran... Software tools remove guardrails on Google, Meta AI models that aim to protect against biological war, child sex abuse, stealing credit card info, reports the Financial Times... US tech sector drops nearly 100K jobs during first four months of the year.
