The Morning Briefing: Moore Wins, NFLOL Faces Backlash and Much, Much Moore

Good Wednesday morning.

Here is what’s on the President’s agenda today:

In the morning, President Donald J. Trump will receive his daily intelligence briefing.
The President will then meet with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
In the afternoon, the President will depart the White House for Joint Base Andrews, en route to Indianapolis, IN.
In Indianapolis, the President will give remarks on tax reform.
Later in the afternoon, the President will depart Indianapolis for Washington, D.C., en route to the White House.

Breaking News

JUST IN: Afghan president confirms attack at Kabul airport hours after arrival of U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis

— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 27, 2017

Trump-backed Strange loses to insurgent Moore

The big news this morning is that the Trump-backed candidate for Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Senate seat lost to the insurgent candidate. It seemed strange, no pun intended, that Trump would back an establishment-endorsed candidate over a candidate that seemed far more in touch with the Trump agenda.

Trump was encouraged to pick Strange before the August primary by son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner as well as other aides, White House officials said. He was never going to endorse Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks, who has at times opposed Trump’s agenda, and knew little about Moore, officials said.

“He seemed like he didn’t know the state of play and what was going on,” said one person who discussed the race with Trump last week. “I don’t think he has been given good advice.”

“He didn’t know exactly where the numbers stood or what was happening on the ground,” this person added.

Indeed. Politico writes that Moore’s win “spells trouble” for the GOP establishment. (CORKER DOWN, IRAN HARDEST HIT.)

The president tweeted congratulations to Moore.

Congratulations to Roy Moore on his Republican Primary win in Alabama. Luther Strange started way back & ran a good race. Roy, WIN in Dec!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2017

Former presidential advisor Steve Bannon had this to say about the victory: “You are going to see in state after state after state, people that follow the model of Judge Moore, that do not have to raise money from the elites, the crony capitalists, from the fat cats in Washington DC, New York City, and Silicon Valley.”

Backlash escalates for the NFLOL

As “kneel-gate” continues, corporate America is starting to pay attention.

On Tuesday, long-time NFL sponsor Anheuser-Busch released the strongest-worded statement yet in response to the bad publicity the league has garnered between the Rice and Peterson incidents (as well as its own lackluster responses).

“We are disappointed and increasingly concerned by the recent incidents that have overshadowed this NFL season,” the statement read. “We are not yet satisfied with the league’s handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and moral code. We have shared our concerns and expectations with the league.”

And Anheuser-Busch followed Radisson, which is a sponsor of the Minnesota Vikings.

On the same day the Vikings announced that Adrian Peterson would return to practice and play this week after he was deactivated Sunday following his arrest for “reckless or negligent injury to a child,” Radisson announced that it was suspending its sponsorship of the team.

“Radisson takes this matter very seriously particularly in light of our long-standing commitment to the protection of children. We are closely following the situation and effective immediately, Radisson is suspending its limited sponsorship of the Minnesota Vikings while we evaluate the facts and circumstances.”

It looks like the last thing the NFL wants is heightened scrutiny of its players.

And it gets worse. Over at Yahoo News, we learn that the NFL ratings dip forces TV networks to repay advertisers:

The NFL’s television ratings decline this season is beginning to make a dent in the bottom line for major networks. Broadcasters like CBS and NBC saw sharp increases in audience deficiency units (ADUs), or “makegoods,” which are payments they must make to advertisers when ads do not receive the promised volume of impressions.

In other words, fewer people watching football means fewer eyeballs to see ads, and the networks that broadcast NFL games are paying the price.

And I’m not done yet. The Daily Caller writes that “DirectTV Might Be Offering Angry Customers Refunds Over NFL Protests”:

DirecTV is willing to give some of its customers a refund if they want to cancel their subscriptions to NFL games following anger over the protests, according to a Tuesday Wall Street Journal report.

A few customer service representatives told The WSJ that they have been honoring cancellation requests if a customer called them to cancel their Sunday Ticket package of NFL games, while other representatives offered a different perspective on how they were allowed to handle cancellation requests.

You surely have the right to free speech, but you do not have the right to live without the consequences of your actions.

Fight breaks out in Berkeley “empathy tent”

This is my favorite story of the day.

Members of opposing political groups clashed Tuesday inside a so-called “empathy tent” on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

At least four people were arrested, police said.

The empathy tent was reportedly in place to offer protesters a calm place to unwind amid the choas around them. But the tent ultimately offered little respite — and nearly toppled during clashes between conservative students and leftist activists, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Historical picture of the day: