The Washington Post - 19.09.2019

to tell Sessions, then the attorney

general, to curtail Mueller’s i nves-

tigation of Trump, and Lewan-

dowski failed to do so, perhaps

saving Trump from an overt act of

obstructing justice.

So how to square the two con-

flicting statements? During testi-

mony before the House Judiciary

Committee on Tuesday, Lewan-

dowski said something that

sparked an audible reaction from

onlookers in the hearing room: “I

have no obligation to be honest

with the media because they’re

just as dishonest as anyone else.”

Basically he conceded that you

can’t take his word for it.

During a combative interview

on CNN on Wednesday morning,

Lewandowski expanded upon his

situational truthfulness, saying,

“I’m as honest as I can be, as often

SEE LEWANDOWSKI ON C3

BY PAUL FARHI

Caught lying to the media,

Corey Lewandowski did some-

thing Tuesday that few, if any,

political types have ever done: He

publicly admitted he lies to the

media.

In effect, he was honest about

being dishonest.

During an interview on

MSNBC in February, L ewandows-

ki, President Trump’s f ormer cam-

paign manager, said, “I don’t ever

remember the president ever ask-

ing me to get involved with Jeff

Sessions or the Department of

Justice in any way, shape or form

ever.”

Which is not what Lewandows-

ki told special counsel Robert S.

Mueller III under oath in 2017.

Lewandowski said then that

Trump had instructed him twice

Prize-winning story, reporters T.

Christian Miller and Ken Arm-

strong detail the ordeal of a

woman (referred to by her mid-

dle name, Marie) who was

charged with filing a false report

after recanting a claim that she

had been raped at knifepoint in

her apartment.

The ProPublica story is

wrenching from its very first

sentence: “No one came to court

with her that day, except her

public defender.” Marie (por-

trayed in the series by “Books-

mart” breakout Kaitlyn Dever)

grew up in foster care after an

early childhood marked by ne-

glect. The article c ites a report by

one expert who, after interview-

ing Marie for five hours, noted

that she “remembers being hun-

gry and eating dog food” and

that she had been “sexually and

physically abused.”

By August 2008, when Marie

reported her rape, she was living

on her own in Lynnwood, a

SEE UNBELIEVABLE ON C3

BY BETHONIE BUTLER

This story contains plot de­

tails from Netflix’s “Unbeliev­

able,” which is based on a true

story.

In the first episode of Netflix’s

“Unbelievable,” an 18-year-old

Washington state woman re-

ports her rape, only to face

suspicion from the very detec-

tives who are supposed to be

helping her. The next episode

follows another rape investiga-

tion — in Colorado, where a

detective (played by two-time

Emmy winner Merritt Wever)

listens patiently to the victim,

reminding her that she may not

be able to recall every detail of

her attack.

This stark contrast is at the

heart of the Netflix d rama, which

began streaming Friday and was

inspired by a 2015 article by

ProPublica and the Marshall

Project titled “An Unbelievable

Story of Rape.” In the Pulitzer

KLMNO

Style

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 , 2019. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STYLE EZ RE C

BOOK WORLD

“Lost Tr ansmissions”

tracks down fantastical

works of art that were

never fully appreciated. C2

MOVIE REVIEW

Self-awareness is in short

supply in Netflix’s “Tall

Girl,” about a teen’s

height-based insecurity. C3

KIDSPOST

Elena Delle Donne is a

driving force in the

Mystics’ quest to win the

WNBA championship. C8

CAROLYN HAX

Your fiance’s vision of your

wedding day is sounding

more like a college

tailgate. What now? C8

BY CHRIS RICHARDS

Hot Girl Summer was almost

over and nobody knew exactly

how to feel about it. The sun was

slumping out of the Virginia sky,

the temperature had dipped to a

cool 74, and there was our hero,

Megan Thee Stallion, working

the stage of a venue called Jiffy

Lube Live, squatting down to the

floor and vigorously bouncing

her backside, as if casting gravi-

tational waves across the cos-

mos.

Ye t, somehow, in that wild

swirl of celestial profundity, joy-

ful absurdity, sexy deadpan and

undiluted fun, it was easy to feel

disappointed by the world. Easy

because Megan is having the

breakout year that every rapper

daydreams about — but here she

was at the Lube, opening for

four other acts, all men, unload-

ing her beautiful trash talk into

an amphitheater that was only

one-seventh full.

Over the past few months, the

24-year-old’s notion of “Hot Girl

Summer” has mutated from a

social media motto into a plan-

et-eating meme into a vaguely

defined philosophy of personal

triumph. And yet when Megan

took the stage at dusk on Tues-

day, victory still felt very far

away. Her microphone wasn’t

working for the entirety of her

first song. “Put some respect on

my team,” she rapped anyway,

barely blinking. If you knew the

words that you were supposed to

SEE MEGAN ON C5

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

Which season comes

after Hot Girl Summer?

LISA LAKE/GETTY IMAGES FOR ROC NATION

Rapper Megan Thee Stallion performed at Jiffy Lube Live on

Tuesday evening, opening for four other acts.

A true, ‘Unbelievable’

story on catching a rapist

Lewandowski tells truth

about lying to the media

BY ABBY OHLHEISER AND ELAHE IZADI

Shane Gillis’s historically brief tenure on “Satur-

day Night Live” has turned into a referendum on an

amorphous idea: cancel culture.

Shortly after Gillis was announced as a new

featured player on SNL late last week, clips of the

comedian using racist language about Asians on a

podcast recorded last year began circulating online

— along with calls for him to lose his new job. He

tried to explain himself as a performer who “pushes

boundaries.” On Monday, SNL decided to part ways

with him.

“This is just cancel culture. The guy shouldn’t

have been fired,” comedian Jim Jefferies said Mon-

day on David Spade’s talk show. The Federalist, a

conservative online publication, praised Democratic

presidential candidate Andrew Yang for “refus[ing]

to join cancel culture” when he offered to have a

conversation with the comedian.

The concept has been around for a while, but this

particular term has stuck in recent months. In a

Netflix comedy special released a few weeks ago,

Dave Chappelle decried “celebrity hunting season,”

prompting a round of content about “cancel cul-

ture.” Republican leaders used the phrase while

chastising actress Debra Messing for publicly sham-

ing supporters of President Trump.

But what is cancel culture, which is simultaneous-

ly decried as everything that’s wrong with humanity

(or liberals, or Generation Z) and condemned as a

made-up term that helps people escape accountabil-

ity for past wrongdoing? Is there anything useful we

can learn from this mess about the nature of comedy

and the Internet?

Let’s find out: Here’s a step-by-step guide to how

people end up endlessly arguing about the idea of

SEE CANCEL ON C2

So, you’re ‘canceled.’

What does that mean?

Since Shane Gillis was fired from SNL, other comedians have taken to

social media to decry a trend that has been both extolled and condemned

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