Lady Gaga Lights Up Super Bowl Stage; SNL Takes on Sean Spicer, Steve Bannon
CUOMO: What a night. The drama, the history, the Patriots did it again, a record comeback. You had Lady Gaga's performance much anticipated. How did it deliver? Oh, let's discuss.</s>CAMEROTA: Let's.</s>CUOMO: We have CNN senior media correspondent and host of "Reliable Sources," Brian Stelter, and CNN media analyst Bill Carter. You have news. You've got ratings. You've got stuff that the president is doing and that Sean Spicer is doing in reaction to "SNL." What do you have for us?</s>BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: So much going on this morning. Well, the overnight ratings for the Super Bowl show it was, of course, extraordinarily highly rated. It was like the number three Super Bowl in American television history. Almost as high as last year. Not quite. We'll get more numbers later in the day. But I think what this shows is, even if some folks tuned out after Lady Gaga thinking this was a blowout --</s>BILL CARTER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: Yes.</s>CAMEROTA: Like I did.</s>STELTER: They came back for overtime.</s>CARTER: Somebody called them and said tune the game in again (ph).</s>CAMEROTA: Yes.</s>STELTER: Exactly. That's what I did. I was this close to bed after Lady Gaga, but I stayed tuned.</s>CAMEROTA: Right.</s>CARTER: Right.</s>STELTER: And, by the way, let's not forget, Lady Gaga, this was amazing.</s>CAMEROTA: Amazing.</s>STELTER: Talk about uniting the country.</s>CAMEROTA: Oh, my God. She was -- it was --</s>CARTER: It was very good.</s>CAMEROTA: She put on a spectacular.</s>CARTER: She did.</s>CAMEROTA: And she -- she danced, she sang beautifully.</s>CARTER: Yes.</s>CAMEROTA: She jumped off the high things.</s>CARTER: Right. Right. High things, right.</s>CAMEROTA: There was a question beforehand, Bill, about whether she would be political.</s>CARTER: Yes.</s>CAMEROTA: And how do you -- was she?</s>CARTER: Well, she wasn't overtly political.</s>CAMEROTA: Sure.</s>CARTER: She was smart. I think she's very smart. She did a, you know, sort of a celebration of her "This Land is Your Land." She did --</s>CAMEROTA: Unity.</s>CARTER: She -- and then she did her song, which has, you know, themes about acceptance for lesbians and transgender people. I don't think people probably heard the lyrics that clearly in that -- in that atmosphere, but she did get that message across. I think she did it very well. No controversy. Spectacular performance. She gets an A</s>STELTER: And, by the way, what did she do this morning, she announced her world tour, right? So she was big last night, patriotic performance, beautiful songs, very inclusive and then announces the world tour today.</s>CUOMO: All right, good for her.</s>CARTER: Marketing.</s>STELTER: It worked (ph).</s>CUOMO: So, "SNL." The last time we had you guys on, earlier this morning, we hadn't heard from the president yet, we hadn't heard from Sean Spicer yet. Both of those things have changed. What did the president react to? What was Spicer's reaction?</s>CAMEROTA: First, should we see what -- first should we see Sean Spicer on "SNL"?</s>CARTER: Yes, let's look again.</s>STELTER: Oh, we have to, right?</s>CAMEROTA: Let's watch.</s>CUOMO: All right, do the podium piece. The podium piece of Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer. You've got to see this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE, ACTRESS, "SNL": "Wall Street Journal." Are you OK?</s>CAMEROTA: OK, I mean, first of all, Melissa McCarthy is a physical comedian par excellence.</s>CARTER: Yes.</s>STELTER: Yes.</s>CAMEROTA: And she is so good at that. What does Sean Spicer say about her depiction?</s>STELTER: So apparently Spicer, at the Super Bowl last night, told "Extra" it was a little bit exaggerated. He thought the gum chewing was too much. He thought McCarthy could have toned it down a little bit. No surprise, that reaction. But, you know, I think the challenge now, when you see Spicer, you see Melissa McCarthy. It was that on point.</s>CARTER: You remember that's what happened to Sarah Palin with Tina Fey. You couldn't separate them after that. I don't know how you separate Sean Spicer from this performance. He has to embrace it more. I think he has to sort of go with it and maybe make a joke himself about it because otherwise --</s>STELTER: It's a shame there's no briefing today. So there's no on camera briefing because POTUS is traveling.</s>CAMEROTA: Wait, that is a shame.</s>CARTER: Yes, that's a shame.</s>STELTER: But tomorrow there will be an on camera briefing.</s>CAMEROTA: OK, and let's see if --</s>CARTER: We've got to see that.</s>CAMEROTA: Tomorrow he comes out with a prop box ala this.</s>CARTER: That would be fantastic.</s>STELTER: Or a super soaker.</s>CAMEROTA: Let's watch.</s>CUOMO: Super soaker.</s>MELISSA MCCARTHY, ACTRESS, "SNL": My words too big? I got to show you in pictures? Great. OK. Here we go. When it comes to these decisions, the Constitution gives our president lots of power. And Steve Bannon is the key adviser. OK. And our president will not be deterred in his fight against radical Muslims.</s>CUOMO: I love how serious she was during the whole thing.</s>STELTER: Yes.</s>CUOMO: Now, they did a depiction, a parody. Obviously, of steve Bannon as the grim reaper with kind of like a Darth Vadery voice.</s>CARTER: Yes.</s>CUOMO: And the pitch of it was that Bannon is the over lord of Trump and is the real boss.</s>STELTER: Real president.</s>CUOMO: Trump had not responded. But now he has. What did he say?</s>STELTER: That's right, on Twitter this morning saying, no, I call the shots around here. Seemed to be a response to all this talk about Bannon being the real boss. Trump saying he's the real boss at the White House.</s>CARTER: Yes. Well, and -- you know, also "The New York Times" had this story about him sort of not knowing that Bannon was named to the --</s>CAMEROTA: To the NSC, yes.</s>CARTER: NSC, which is also just remarkable. You're sort of stunned by that. But the idea that he's sort of subservient to anybody I don't think sits well with him.</s>STELTER: I think Trump was also reacting to your program, Chris and Alisyn, talking about polls this morning. David Chalian was sharing the data --</s>CARTER: Right.</s>STELTER: About the travel ban. About how there's a slim majority of Americans that disapprove of the policy. Half an hour later, the president's tweeting about how he says all negative polls are fake news.</s>CARTER: Are fake news.</s>STELTER: I know we're having fun here, but that's a really serious, really disturbing thing to say. You know, he's taking his poll denialism to the logical or illogical extreme saying, if the polls aren't favorable of me, they can't be real.</s>CARTER: Favorable to me, right.</s>CUOMO: He's also just -- he's just taking the teeth out of the criticism. You know, I think that if you catch the media being wrong about something and it regards you, you have high ground and you should go after it. That's part of politics.</s>STELTER: Yes.</s>CUOMO: But he -- they use it now for every hard question and every criticism that they don't like. And I think it makes its lose its teeth, doesn't it?</s>CARTER: Well, it does, because every time you say, well, you got this wrong and you got that wrong, it doesn't automatically mean this is wrong. And, frankly, saying the polls are all wrong, he lives by approval. He's the guy who defines ratings. Everything's about his ratings when he was on TV. How's he going to say now the ratings don't matter.</s>CAMEROTA: Bill, Brian, thank you very much for all of that. Great to see you. Thanks so much for joining us. "NEWSROOM" with Poppy Harlow and John Berman --</s>CUOMO: Oh, it's the big day.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes, it is a new day for them.</s>CUOMO: It's their first one. Berman's Patriots won and he gets to sit next to Poppy for the new news hour.</s>CAMEROTA: You've got to stick through the break to watch this.</s>CUOMO: What a lucky little man.