Mediaite One Sheet: Bondi Hearing Sh*tshow, Bad Bunny’s Congressional Hearing? FBI Tracks Journos and More!

The Big Picture

AG Pam Bondi’s Epstein hearing devolved into a Capitol Hill shouting match — and the sharpest attacks came from both sides of the aisle. MSNBC mentioned “Epstein” over 300 times during the proceedings. Fox News mentioned it three times. Conservative commentators are now calling for Bondi’s resignation. The Super Bowl halftime show, five days later, is the subject of a formal GOP congressional inquiry. New insider reporting reveals the final indignities of ex-CEO Will Lewis’s tenure at The Washington Post — locked elevators, a stealth getaway, and a red carpet photo that sealed his fate. And Elon Musk’s Grok is reportedly editing itself, including an attempt to scrub his own Epstein connections the day after the files dropped.

Today’s sources: Politico Playbook | Status | The Bulwark | The Ankler | Page Six Hollywood | Mediaite | CJR | Adweek | Poynter | Puck | Tubefilter | Barrett Media | Racket News

Top Story

THE BONDI HEARING CRACKED THE RIGHT OPEN ON EPSTEIN

For months, the Epstein files have generated bipartisan outrage in theory but partisan divergence in practice. Wednesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing changed that — not because AG Pam Bondi offered transparency, but because the cracks in the conservative coalition became impossible to ignore.

Politico Playbook captured the hearing’s most combustible moments. Bondi shouted at ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.): “You don’t tell me anything, washed-up loser lawyer. Not even a lawyer.” She called Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) a “failed politician” with “Trump derangement syndrome.” Massie fired back on the files themselves: “Literally the worst thing you could do to the survivors, you did.” When a Democratic lawmaker asked Bondi to turn and apologize to survivors seated behind her, Bondi refused: “I’m not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics.”

But it was what happened outside the hearing room that told the bigger story. Colby Hall’s SnapStream analysis of the cable coverage for Mediaite revealed a staggering editorial split: MSNBC mentioned “Epstein” more than 300 times in the hearing’s first three hours. CNN mentioned it more than 150 times. Fox News mentioned it three. The network carried flashes of the sharper exchanges but declined to give the proceedings sustained live attention — a stark departure from its wall-to-wall coverage of the Hunter Biden testimony and impeachment hearings. Mediaite’s polling analysis underscored the shift: Republican dissatisfaction with the government’s Epstein disclosure has dropped from 40 percent to 21 percent, even as Republican satisfaction with the administration’s handling has climbed to roughly three-quarters.

Then the right started breaking ranks. Status reported that conservative radio host Erick Erickson said Bondi should “be fired or resign” for dodging prosecution questions. Tim Pool said the DOJ has “miserably handled the Epstein Files.” Nick Fuentes called for Bondi and FBI chief Kash Patel to be impeached. Even Benny Johnson conceded that Steve Bannon’s Epstein ties are “not a good look.” The Bulwark‘s Charlie Sykes noted the timing of a separate DOJ maneuver: a motion signed by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro — with no career prosecutors — asked a judge to dismiss Bannon’s criminal contempt indictment the same week his name surfaced throughout the files. “Maybe they were never really serious about Epstein,” Sykes wrote.

Meanwhile, the Hollywood exodus accelerated. Page Six Hollywood’s Tatiana Siegel reported that country artist Orville Peck became the fourth act to leave Wasserman Music, following Chappell Roan, indie rock group Wednesday, and Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino. Retired soccer star Abby Wambach also departed. More critically, sources told Siegel that key agents are negotiating exits: “If Marty [Diamond] leaves, then everything will start crumbling.” Diamond represents Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, and Lorde. The Wallis Annenberg Center board met to deliberate whether to move forward with honoring Wasserman at a Feb. 26 gala. Michael Rubin quietly scrubbed photos. Telemundo pulled a speaking invitation. And yet, per Siegel’s sources, Wasserman has privately “been telling people it’s no big deal… he doesn’t understand what people are so pissed off about.”

Sykes framed the broader contrast most sharply: across Europe, the files have ended careers and triggered criminal investigations — UK ambassador Peter Mandelson fired and under investigation, resignations in Norway, Sweden, and Slovakia, Prince Andrew stripped of titles. In the U.S., no such reckoning has materialized. Rep. Ro Khanna used congressional privilege on the House floor to name six individuals whose identities had been redacted in key DOJ documents. Politico Playbook reported that Oversight Democrats are now planning a shadow hearing on the Epstein files in Palm Beach on April 14.

And in case the day’s absurdist ceiling hadn’t been reached: Playbook reported that Howard Lutnick — the Commerce Secretary who admitted earlier this week to visiting Epstein’s island after months of denials — hosted his annual winter party at his Georgetown home Wednesday evening. The guest list included Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kevin McCarthy, Stephen Miller, Mehmet Oz, Maria Bartiromo, and a half-dozen other cabinet secretaries. Fresh off a bipartisan grilling, the man at the center of the Epstein storm threw a party. Washington came.

TAKEAWAY: The hearing was supposed to be about accountability. Instead it became a live diagnostic of how each faction of the media-political ecosystem processes the Epstein story in 2026 — Democrats prosecute, Republicans fracture, Fox looks away, and the Commerce Secretary hosts cocktails. The newsletters documented all of it. The consequences are still not arriving. But the conservative coalition that spent years demanding Epstein transparency is now visibly splitting over what to do when the transparency implicates their own.

Three Takes

THE SUPER BOWL ENDED FIVE DAYS AGO. THE HALFTIME SHOW HASN’T.

Bad Bunny’s 13-minute performance has become one of the most durable media flashpoints of the year — not because of what happened on the field, but because of what it exposed off it. The newsletter class is still processing the fallout, and the frames are getting stranger.

Status, Natalie Korach: House Republicans are escalating well past social media outrage. Rep. Randy Fine called the halftime performance “illegal” and urged “dramatic action” from the FCC. Rep. Andy Ogles demanded “a formal congressional inquiry into the National Football League and NBC immediately for their prior knowledge, deliberate approval, and facilitation of this indecent broadcast.” Rep. Mark Alford claimed on Real America’s Voice that Republicans are already investigating, without explaining what such an investigation would look like. Status frames the push as “patently absurd” — unclear what would constitute an “indecent act” within the 13-minute show.

The Ankler, Richard Rushfield: Rushfield saw the halftime backlash as part of a larger cultural inversion. Roan leaving Wasserman, the Grammys’ anti-ICE fashion wave, the VP getting booed at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony — “Somehow, the Culture War has turned inside out to the point where the NFL and NRA are, for the moment, willing to antagonize Trump.” His target wasn’t the performers but the executives: “There is one corner of our world where the elites are still cowering, terrified of speaking out. And still actively fawning.” Hollywood, per Rushfield, is now the last institutional holdout in a culture that has otherwise started pushing back.

Barrett Media: The sports media industry wants no part of any of it. Stephen A. Smith responded to critics calling for his cancellation over his halftime commentary by drawing a sharp platform line: “I say stuff on my political channel or my YouTube channel. Why are folks calling ESPN? I didn’t say it on their airwaves.” Separately, Brandon Tierney issued a blunter warning to the entire sports talk ecosystem: “Nobody gives a s**t about what you think about politically. They really don’t. I know that you think that they do. They don’t. So get over yourself.”

TAKEAWAY: Three distinct institutions — Congress, entertainment media, and sports broadcasting — each process the same 13 minutes of television through entirely different lenses. The GOP sees an FCC matter. The Ankler sees a cultural realignment. Sports radio sees a career hazard. Five days out, the halftime show has become less about Bad Bunny and more about what it reveals when a performance in Spanish becomes a Rorschach test for an entire industry. The only consensus: nobody’s done talking about it.

📰 Top Reads 📰

Racket News, Ryan Lovelace
🚨 SCOOP — FBI GATHERED INTEL ON 1,000+ JOURNALISTS, POLITICIANS, AND RELIGIOUS GROUPS — ON FLIMSY GROUNDS: Racket obtained a confidential January 2026 GAO report revealing that the FBI conducted warrantless “assessments” of more than 500 public officials, over 100 religious organizations and leaders, and dozens of news media members from 2018 through 2024. The methods deployed against Americans not accused of any crime included physical surveillance, subpoenas to electronic communications services, confidential informants, and data purchased by the FBI. Of roughly 127,000 assessments opened and closed during that period, only 14 percent led to actual investigations. The FBI’s own audits found 747 rule violations in 18 months, including assessments “based solely on the exercise of First Amendment-protected activities.” The bureau relies on agents to self-report noncompliance and acknowledges that “self-reporting likely undercounts actual noncompliance” … QUOTE (Mike German, former FBI special agent): “Today, the FBI can gather a dossier on anyone they choose. And the amount of information available is so much broader than anything J. Edgar Hoover could have imagined.” … QUICK TAKE: A press freedom bombshell buried in a classified report that directs recipients to destroy its contents. The newsletter ecosystem that documented every Epstein redaction this week has yet to touch it.

Puck, Dylan Byers
INSIDE WILL LEWIS’S FINAL HUMILIATION AT THE WASHINGTON POST: Byers reported that Lewis restricted elevator access to the executive floor during the layoffs, then flew to San Francisco for Super Bowl festivities without telling executive editor Matt Murray or the editorial team. His red carpet appearance at NFL Honors — captured by former Post sports reporter Nicki Jhabvala, now at The Athletic — was “the catalyst for Bezos to finally pull the trigger.” The Post now has roughly 1,300 employees, down from 2,500 in late 2023, with about 400 in editorial, down from 800. Bezos still wants 30 million subscribers. The last CEO search pitted Lewis against Josh Steiner, a Bloomberg and Lazard veteran. Byers’s verdict on both Lewis and predecessor Fred Ryan: “dopey business managers” who failed the institution in complementary ways — Ryan with Georgetown politeness, Lewis with tabloid bravado … QUOTE (Byers): “The Post arrived at its current misfortune due to a cold war between management and talent.” … QUICK TAKE: The Post’s problem was never the newspaper. It was Bezos’s inability to identify the right person to run it — twice.

Status, Natalie Korach
WAPO TOWN HALL: MURRAY FACES THE WRECKAGE: Murray told staff, “There’s a widespread sense, I know, of loss and genuine trauma,” and defended the layoffs as data-driven — but couldn’t specify which metrics were used. Acting CEO Jeff D’Onofrio pledged to “fight like hell for this institution.” One staffer pushed back on the premise: Bezos is demanding break-even “when his own actions, and the person he appointed to run this place… have led to some of our problems.” Status also reported that CTO Vineet Khosla deleted a LinkedIn post co-opting the Post Guild’s #SaveThePost hashtag after it sparked “unusually hostile” internal backlash … QUOTE (Post staffer): “The plan seems to be we have to cut to the bone in hopes” that Bezos will eventually open his wallet to support The Post. … QUICK TAKE: The town hall was supposed to be a reset. Instead, it confirmed the worst fear: there is no plan beyond austerity and prayer.

CJR, C.J. Robinson (Tow Center collaboration)
GROK IS NOW EDITING ITSELF — AND SCRUBBING MUSK’S EPSTEIN TIES: Grokipedia, Elon Musk’s Wikipedia alternative, is now primarily self-editing — Grok-supplied edits spiked in December and make up more than 75 percent of suggestions, with the chatbot both proposing and approving changes without human involvement. One day after the latest Epstein files dropped, Grok suggested adding to Musk’s entry that he had “never been mentioned” in the files. He was mentioned multiple times. The site increasingly shows up in Google search results and ChatGPT answers … QUOTE (Ryan McGrady, UMass Amherst): “It almost seems like Musk is creating a vertically integrated, centrally controlled knowledge production system… It’s unambiguously one person’s encyclopedia project.” … QUICK TAKE: Wikipedia’s editors are an army of humans arguing toward accuracy. Grokipedia’s editor is a chatbot arguing with itself — and occasionally lying to protect its owner.

Poynter, Tom Jones
PEW: AMERICANS SAY NEWS IS ESSENTIAL — THEY JUST WON’T PAY FOR IT: A new Pew Research Center survey found that 80 percent of Americans say being informed is essential to voting, but only 8 percent believe people have a responsibility to pay for news. Eighty-three percent did not pay for a single news source in the past year. Roughly a third of Americans believe news organizations are doing “extremely or very well” financially — a perception wildly disconnected from the industry’s actual collapse … QUOTE (Pew survey respondent): “I don’t pay to go to church, to get a spiritual message, you know? And if you’re true, and your mission is to relay facts that are fundamentally important for people’s well-being, do I need to pay you for that?” … QUICK TAKE: The chattering class spent the week mourning The Washington Post. The public, it turns out, would not have paid to save it — and doesn’t think it needs saving.

Status, Natalie Korach
THE GUTHRIE WAKE-UP CALL — NETWORK TALENT SECURITY IN CRISIS: The 11-day disappearance of Today host Savannah Guthrie’s mother has triggered internal security reviews across television networks. Status reports that multiple TV executives are reassessing how much personal detail anchors should share, as the same intimacy that builds audience loyalty also creates vulnerability. Today viewership has surged 23 percent year-over-year … QUOTE (TV news personality): “Everyone is having the same conversation: How can we protect our families without completely retreating out of public view?” … QUICK TAKE: The morning TV model runs on intimacy — your favorite anchor’s mom, their hometown, their kitchen. The Guthrie case is forcing networks to confront what happens when that intimacy becomes a liability.

Puck, Lauren Sherman
VOGUE’S SUCCESSION PROBLEM IS NOW ON THE RECORD: Chloe Malle’s first issue as Vogue editor — a March cover with Rosalía — has landed. But the bigger story was the New York Times interview Malle and Anna Wintour gave this week, which Sherman calls “the main subject of my group chats.” Sherman’s diagnosis: Wintour spent 37 years “hiring subservient types” rather than developing a true successor with an independent editorial vision. The succession, as structured, is set up to fail. When the Times asked what Malle would do with a 1990s budget, she said she’d give everyone a 30 percent raise. Wintour contradicted her on the spot … QUOTE (Sherman): “Subtlety is a liability, she’s obviously straining.” … QUICK TAKE: Wintour didn’t groom a successor — she created a dependency. Now Vogue is trying to execute a transition that was never actually planned.

Adweek, Mark Stenberg
RETARGETING HAS FOUND ITS WAY TO THE CHATBOTS: Evertune partnered with The Trade Desk and Index Exchange to let marketers target users immediately after they leave ChatGPT or Gemini sessions — a new class of high-intent shopper. About 12 percent of answer engine users click through to a webpage post-session. Separately, Stenberg noted that Anthropic “quietly walked back” its pledge to never run ads in its Super Bowl spot, “laying the groundwork for it to one day succumb to the inevitable” … QUOTE (Stenberg): “Everything old is suddenly new again.” … QUICK TAKE: The answer engine ad ecosystem is replicating the surveillance infrastructure of the old web — before the new one has even stabilized.

SHOWBIZ

The Ankler, Allen Salkin
THE EPSTEIN FILES’ HOLLYWOOD DISHONOR ROLL — WITH RECEIPTS: Salkin catalogued the entertainment industry’s most entangled figures in the new document dump. Steve Tisch’s name appears at least 440 times, with Epstein connecting the Forrest Gump producer to women; emails reference “crying” and acting career promises. Barry Josephson offered Epstein an assistant candidate: “Young, attractive, insane rack… will do anything.” Peter Attia, who has a relationship with CBS News under Bari Weiss, exchanged crude emails for years; Weiss is standing by him despite two health brands cutting ties. Deepak Chopra emailed Epstein in 2017 — eight years post-conviction — inviting him to Israel: “Bring your girls. It will be fun” … QUOTE (Salkin): “The dump scrambles three categories into one searchable soup: the guilty, the adjacent, and the random.” … QUICK TAKE: The files contain Ticketmaster marketing emails addressed to Epstein recommending Steely Dan concerts. They also contain Steve Tisch’s 440 mentions. The challenge for the press — and the public — is distinguishing between the two.

Tubefilter
YOUTUBE TV UNVEILS SKINNY BUNDLES — THE CORD-CUTTING ENDGAME GETS ANOTHER CHAPTER: YouTube TV launched category-specific channel packages starting at $55/month for entertainment and $65 for sports ($55 for new subscribers), all below the $83 standard tier. At least 10 bundles are planned. Missing: MLB Network, Tennis Channel, Netflix and Prime Video exclusives, and ESPN Unlimited until fall … QUOTE (Tubefilter): “Would you pay $65/month for live sports?” … QUICK TAKE: The bundle is dead. Long live the bundle — just smaller, cheaper, and sold by a company that didn’t exist when the original one was built.

The Ankler, Sean McNulty
WBD’S NEW WILDCARD — ACTIVIST INVESTOR ANCORA ENTERS THE RING: Cleveland-based PE firm Ancora has amassed roughly $200 million in WBD stock (less than 1 percent) and plans to oppose the Netflix deal in favor of Paramount’s offer. Ancora may launch a proxy fight to replace what McNulty calls “Zaz loyalists” on the board — a tactic it has deployed in activist campaigns involving US Steel and Norfolk Southern … QUOTE (McNulty): Ancora’s target is the “Zaz loyalists” on the WBD board. … QUICK TAKE: A sub-1-percent stake and a proxy fight threat. In the WBD saga, even the side characters are getting sequels.

👀 What Got Missed? 👀

Remember the binders?

About a year ago, the White House invited conservative influencers to the Roosevelt Room and displayed binders full of Epstein documents as props in a performance of radical transparency. The clips went everywhere. “Release everything” was the rallying cry.

The files have now been released. And the same voices that demanded transparency are navigating what happens when it implicates their own. Benny Johnson concedes Bannon’s ties are “not a good look” — but stops short of calling for accountability. Tim Pool blames the DOJ’s handling rather than confronting what’s in the documents. Fox News, which covered the binder stunt with breathless enthusiasm, mentioned “Epstein” three times during Wednesday’s entire Bondi hearing. Republican satisfaction with the administration’s handling has climbed to 75 percent.

Nobody in the newsletter class connected the binder moment to the current one and said the obvious thing: for the performative outrage economy, Epstein transparency was always a partisan instrument — not a demand for justice.

🏆 Newsletter of the Day 🏆

Page Six Hollywood, Tatiana Siegel — Siegel’s Wasserman reporting was the most consequential entertainment journalism of the day: original sourcing on the Ari Emanuel feud dating to 2002, the agent exodus threatening to collapse the agency, the Wallis Annenberg board deliberations, Michael Rubin’s quiet photo scrub, and Telemundo pulling its speaking invitation. While other outlets aggregated the headline departures, Siegel provided the internal dynamics driving them — plus the detail that Wasserman has privately “been telling people it’s no big deal.” When the talent agency story is told in full, this reporting will be cited first.

The Bottom Line

Wednesday morning produced something the media ecosystem rarely offers in such clean form: a real-time split-screen test of editorial judgment. MSNBC said “Epstein” 300 times during the Bondi hearing. CNN said it 150. Fox said it three. Those numbers don’t tell the whole story — editorial choices never reduce to simple math. But the conservative commentators who broke ranks — Erickson calling for Bondi’s resignation, Pool calling the DOJ handling “miserable” — suggest the audience Fox News is declining to serve may not want the protection. For years, that audience was told powerful institutions shield elites and suppress inconvenient truths. The Epstein files are the test case. And the network that spent a decade demanding transparency is now the one looking away.