January 1, Real Epstein Clip Leaker: Fired CBS Staffer Not Involved

This Day in History | 1969

The children’s television show Sesame Street debuts on TV.

Good Morning Middle Americans.

Real Epstein Clip Leaker: Fired CBS Staffer Not Involved

Ashly Bianco says it wasn’t her. 

Bianco, who was fired from CBS News this week, says she did not work with Project Veritas to leak video of anchor Amy Robach talking about her ABC News spiking a story about Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking. Bianco previously worked at ABC news and admitted to clipping the video, but maintains she didn’t share it with anyone externally. 

Bianco spoke with told former NBC host Megyn Kelly she did not leak the video as alleged.

And Project Veritas printed an open letter from an ABC News staffer identifying as “Ignotus,” claiming “Why I, alone, released the Amy Robach Epstein tape.”

Things that make you go hmm…

Do you think Epstein killed himself? 

Check out our other stories of the morning, including one about the cheers President Trump received at the Alabama-LSU game, the original Marlboro Man dying, and Vanna White taking the “Wheel” for Pat Sajak, who’s been sidelined with Emergency surgery. 

Read all about it below 

– Fraser Dixon 

(NBC News) – President Donald Trump knew where to go Saturday for home field advantage, finding comfort in the Deep South with college football fans cheering the nation’s top two teams — and him.

Trump Cheered at LSU-Alabama Game

Trump, sitting one tier above the field, waved as fans turned around to look up at the president. He smiled, gave a thumbs-up a few times and threw a couple of fist bumps into the air as the Alabama fans waved red and white pompoms in response. First lady Melania Trump got an equally enthusiastic welcome.

Watch the president get cheer by the crowd in Tuscaloosa 

Original ‘Marlboro Man’ Dies at 90

(People) – Robert “Bob” Norris, the “ruggedly handsome” cowboy who rose to fame as the “Marlboro Man”, has died. He was 90.

In the ads, Norris was always featured in a fictional world of ranching, wearing cowboy attire — including his iconic cowboy hat — as he held a cigarette in either his mouth or his hand.

His family said it was “his tall, ruggedly handsome, lanky good looks that landed him the unexpected role,” but despite having a cigarette in his mouth or hand for around 14 years, Norris never smoked a day in his life.

Read more about the original Marlboro Man here

Sajak Slide-lined with Emergency So Vanna White Takes (the) ‘Wheel’

(AP) – Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak had to have emergency surgery, and his longtime co-host Vanna White will fill in for him while he recovers.

The show said in a statement that Thursday’s taping was canceled as the 73-year-old Sajak underwent successful surgery to correct a blocked intestine.

The statement says Sajak is resting comfortably and looking forward to returning but does not say how long he is expected to be out or how long White will act as host.

Sajak and White have co-hosted the show since the early 1980s.

She filled in for him once before for one segment of the show, when Sajak had laryngitis in 1996.

Read more about Pat Sajak’s emergency surgery here