Axios

Carl Icahn announced over Twitter that he will no longer advise Trump on regulatory issues:

Icahn wrote in his letter to Trump after telling the President he didn't want "partisan bickering" to call into question his role. He reiterated that he "had no duties whatsoever" and didn't profit from his unofficial advisory role. (His second tweet linked to the letter.) That comes after a deluge of critiques from Democrats about conflicts of interest.

Exit recap: This exit comes the same week as Trump's remarks about "both sides" being responsible for violence in Charlottesville, which led to the mass exodus of CEOs from Trump's special councils, Trump's move to shut down the manufacturing and strategy and policy forum, along with the infrastructure council. Plus today the arts and humanities committee resigned over Trump's Charlottesville response.

Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures are negotiating a deal with Apple and Comcast to offer audiences digital versions of movies two weeks after their theatre releases, Bloomberg reports. Sources familiar with the matter tell Bloomberg that the deal could come as early as next year. As more consumers watch movies via streaming services, studios want a digital distribution package that help will make up for the decline in DVD sales and home entertainment.

Why it matters: The theatre chain and studio businesses have been unable to compromise on a more expensive ($30+) digital movie option. At issue for some studios is the cost/benefit analysis of charging ahead without the blessing of theatre chains, who still hold enormous power distributing movies and driving revenue. Noticeably missing from the negotiations is Disney, which announced it would build its own entertainment streaming package.

In less than a month, over 29 million unique viewers have already watched "Stay Tuned," NBC News' daily Snapchat Discover show, Axios has learned.

Why it matters:

• Millennials are actually watching news shows: Getting nearly 30 million young people to watch a hard news show is an enormous feat, given that millennials don't typically watch TV news show on cable. (The average cable news viewer is over 60 years old.)
• Video news is going mobile: Snapchat uses its own measurement techniques that are different from television ratings (they measure a view as a video being opened), so a direct comparison cannot be made to TV, but the success of "Stay Tuned," combined with the success of Snapchat's original political newscast "Good Luck America," demonstrate a major shift in how TV news will transition to mobile in the digital age.

Crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have been successful early sources of funding and customers for consumer hardware startups.

But that's no longer enough, says Kate Whitcomb, a former Target executive who is now program director at hardware accelerator Hax.

Why it matters: Despite the boom in consumer hardware products in recent years, not all have been able to find a market beyond the enthusiasm of their early fans. So it's not surprising that experts are nudging them towards mass retail channels, especially as companies like Amazon try to become friendlier to startups (its Launchpad unit was specifically created to sell products made by startups).

Many magazines are reacting with covers alluding to Trump's role in the racial tension currently reverberating through America after the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Go deeper: Axios' Mike Allen on two nations, divisible, under Trump. And here are some of the most anti-Trump magazine covers from the year, as well as 5 ways to make a winning Trump magazine cover.

President Trump tweeted a fictional claim about WWI-era General John Pershing Thursday afternoon, telling his followers to "study it." This is one of several times Trump has cited the debunked claim about Pershing.

The fictional story he's referring to: Pershing, around the time of the Philippine-American War, killed 49 Muslims with bullets dipped in pigs' blood, and spared the 50th person so that he would take the last bullet to his people and tell them what happened.

Why? Trump has referenced this story repeatedly at rallies both during his campaign and his presidency as a way to give credence to his claim that the U.S. should "go much further" than waterboarding suspected terrorists.

Timing: The tweet came hours after a terrorist attack in Barcelona left at least 13 people dead and more than 50 injured.

Robert Kuttner, co-editor of left-wing publication American Prospect, opened up Thursday to The Washington Post about his unexpected interview with Steve Bannon Tuesday, saying he "was stunned."

• "He was astonishingly dismissive of his boss' view of saber rattling... and he was quite cavalier in saying things that were quite at odds with the presumed administration line."
• "The most astonishing thing of all... [is that Bannon first claimed the interview] was a misunderstanding, [saying] 'I didn't realize this was on the record', now he's saying [he] did this deliberately to help the president out by diverting attention from all the stuff that's going on in the aftermath of Charlottesville."
• "I think you can attribute this to hubris in the sense that, if you're so full of yourself, your judgment starts faltering... this was like a stream of consciousness."

Go deeper: Axios' Jonathan Swan on the Bannon surprise

Facebook will now let advertisers buy in-stream video ads separate from the News Feed, meaning they can buy in-stream video ads (mid-roll and pre-roll) on Facebook's Audience Network or on Facebook without having to buy News Feed ads. Facebook's Audience Network is a collection of third party apps and sites, like Vice and LittleThings, that have partnered with Facebook to run ads from Facebook advertisers on their properties.

Why it matters: It gives advertisers a lot more flexibility and control on where they can buy video ads, which makes ad campaigns easier to customize to reach certain marketing objectives. This essentially allows advertisers to tell more complex, customizable messages through video.

CNN's Bill Carter sums up Trump's TV fallout from Charlottesville: "On late night TV, Trump's no laughing matter anymore," noting, "Charlottesville sparked an unmistakable outpouring of comedic rage."

• NBC's Seth Myers: "We shouldn't have to shame or press the President of the United States to say Nazis are bad."
• ABC's Jimmy Kimmel "offered a thorough, and passionately sincere, recital of how Trump 'screws up royally every day, sometimes two or three times a day. Every day there's something nuts!' ... Kimmel's list [was] 17 items long."
• CBS's Stephen Colbert, on Trump's shot at CNN's Jim Acosta: "Sir, you see how you condemned CNN right off the top of your head with no script? Next time, like that — but with Nazis."