Tension but we have never seen anything like this such unrelenting lien negative coverage harshly personal nature that we see with this president and never seen a president of United States constantly on the attack against fake news or Dishonest Media and i think establishing both sides my greatest concern as a lifelong journalist is it is damaging the press even more. S. How has it changed so far . We saw this the beginning of the campaign when first of all the press did not take him seriously it was entertaining in this sideshow he would never win the nomination but everybody knew he wouldnt beat Hillary Clinton. Butt beyond that all of these gloom and doom prophecies about this controversy he will never survive this and we see that now so there is a sense in the Mainstream Press that many say we cannot normalize his presidency. What does that tell you . They view him unfit for office and that they view him on hinge to, unbalanced, incompetent, it is interesting the range of descriptions but at the same time he goes behind the scenes at the Trump White House i talk about how the president suffers from defiance disorder they tell him not to do anything and he does it anyway. Sometimes it is effective to lashot out which he things and his supporters believe treat him unfairly or times when he goes too far. Host you tell a story about meeting donald trump and he talked about about negative coverage. I interviewed him half a dozen times during the Campaign First met him in the 80s in new york that is why i didnt underestimate him in the campaign because i knew his media mastery but he couldnt get over the fact that some commentators have hatred for him and he is a counter venture so he gives that back but at the same time there is a lovehate relationship and it is mostly hate right now because he always got that Media Coverage as a businessman or reality tvus show and one year ago so asking the Biggest Surprise as president he said you never changed your coverage once i becamees president of course this dovetails with all major events of his presidency like charlottesville and the russian investigation, he is convinced he isnt getting a fair shake but also privately he meets with people and others because there is a way he tries to win them over and he has done it with me. Say that he is staking it nothing less t than the media but you go on so expand on that. Now it turns out where major news organizations who are largely appealing to the antitrump audience it may be Good Business but there is 63 million americans who voted for him and actively support this president and to them not only do they see their champion is treated unfairly and with some justification the elite media especially here in washington looked down condescendingly. There was one article in the Huffington Post that said a vote for trump was a hate crime. That undercuts the credibility of the media. Host howard kurtz is our guest from foxnews and author of mediaut madness donald trump, the press, and the war over the truth if you want to ask questions does President Trump enjoy from the conservative media is foxnews a part of that . I have some thoughts so first of all in the campaign the president told me he thought foxnews was treating him unfairly that there are a number of conservative commentatorsco Like National review or the Weekly Standard who are still pretty critical of this president so he does not enjoy the cheering squad on theco right obviously prime time host on fox news are more sympathetic to this president but at the same time sometimes when he pushes back against the media, i dont think he should be punching down individual cable news i think that is a strategy to take the spotlight off of Something Else but other times it is good politics for him and plays well with loyalwi supporters to beat up on the News Business they dont trust anyway and that lack of trust for decades. Ening i think that is eroding the business that i love and grew up and i want to be perceived as fair and right now it is cool to be against donald trump so will he survive . Is he mentally able and that seems to be unfair. So what happens for the next president . And there will be a time donald trump is no longer president and i think some of those wounds are selfinflicted they are putting on themselves to be seen as onesided people dont trust those Fact Checkers because we dont agree on the basic set of facts. I think the damage done now not that some of the reporting has not been good or spot on but collectively i believe this will last far beyond Donald Trumps presidency. Host the first call comes from new york republican line go ahead. Caller good morning. I just want to say i watch your show every sunday you are the academy of fair and balanced you have a terrific show and i wish they would give you a weekly show which would be great. But i call because fox has been stressing lately the uranium one incident and the president has mentioned it but senator barrasso wrote an article in the opinion section of the wall street journal on february 18 so that discusses all of this so if you could have the senator on your show and know if you are familiar but it clears up a lot of stuff p why we have this in what is going on. I dont think there is any question there was a lot of influence peddling surrounding the Clinton Foundation and the president speeches but at the same time not that it shouldnt be looked at by Hillary Clinton lost the election and will not be president so i think some people who excessively focusus on her are trying to deflect attention from the investigations. Now with those indictments they didnt find active collusion associated with donald trump we dont know where this will and up but that focus seems not to have unearthed a whole lot it isnt a hoax it is a real investigation and most recently with these russians. So it is important for the press to be fair to cover thisth investigation because it is news it is a Serious Investigation but at the same time we should not be seeing to height every Incremental Development like watergate. Host independent line. Caller i just want to say howard you do a great job and the reason i watch fox news is because they tell the truth and also to see what they are saying it is like a lie because they dont put everything into it and i listen to fox news because they tell the truth i love hannity. Even tucker i want to say keep it up. I know your heart is in the media. Keep it up because we look for the truth to you because the rest of the media does not tell the truth i am sorry to say. They do not. Thank you for the kind words i have written a whole book what i think is unfair coverage but i wouldnt say none of the media is telling the truth but i do think journalist have an agenda and part of what i write about. Host my media madness is what they say afterwards. The New York Times reporter who said that donald trump is a racist in the fascist in any of those who support him are complicit such as the wall journal reporter who said on twitter after the president pulled out of the paris climate deal that he was threatening the planet just to appease his base but sean spicer called and complained and he deleted that. But we have a News Division like me and Chris Wallace we try to be journalist and cover fairly that doesnt mean it is always favorable but then we have opinion people like tucker and hannity are good for their base. Host but she says she has seen the truth but then points to the opinions is that a concern . I think most viewers are pretty sophisticated there is a natural tendency to listen to people who agree with your worldview probably most are very liberal she is a smart Rhodes Scholar i think rachel goes too far but it is almost the tribal loyalty the hyper partisan media atmosphere i just find the need to remind people cnn and msnbc that there are people who are in the business of at least trying to be fair and balanced and others who are conservative liberal libertarians who are in the otherwise. Host democratic line fromre georgia. Caller yes. I dont believe nothing that this man is spouting out. Donald trump is a bigot, a racist, a narcissist and a klansman. I dont believe anything coming out of the mouth of the republicanan party. Host michelle, address your question or comment directly to him. Caller all he wants to buy for eight years as democrats we have to sit here and listen to the Republican Party from president obama and i will tell you something there will be a new day in 2018 because every democrat is going out there and we will show this fool sitting up here to glorify trump. Host we invited him as a guest we dont want to insult him but you have seen a lot of mediaa coverage did obama get a pass . In the 2000 a a campaign ive never seen a president ial candidate get so much treatment we cannot dispute that but when the Republican Congress had trouble getting things through but the caller there is a lot of people who feel that way. He is a polarizing president people absolutely love him and he tells it like it is he is a straight shooter he doesnt weigh his words carefully like focus politicians. So a lot of use of the media if you think he is a good or great president if you dont like the coverage if you think donald trump is a terrible president you probably will not be a fan of fox News Coverage or his liberal attackers but i try in this book to go beyond that and stick to the facts not just the media but how the president deals with the media but also his dealings with his staff who engage him with selfdestructive leak that resolve wish on my against wrights previous and steve bannon and as people were leaking i tried to look at the facts but everybody has opinion opinions. Host howard kurtz with his book media madness or teen Virginia Republican line go ahead. Caller good morning. I love your show. Did we find any up to date info on the ratings like cnn flipped the switch on the coverage and it has been bad ever since so how many folks have left watching cnn moving over to fox . Do you think those ratings will make a difference . I like the opinion this but i also like the fax but it shows those statute numbers that were violated stuff that is obviouslyow illegal they may not like what they are hearing but at least they are telling you exactly what was done wrong. How could anybody ignore those statistics and how do they ignore that with those statute violations . The irony here is with the Trump Presidency with rating cnn is higher than they have been in many years. Msnbc was really struggling a few years ago is having ratings highest in the history of that channel fox news is also up it remains number one in cable news over two decades. But in prime time and even overall with more skeptical aggressive or unfair approach to President Trump has helped the other news channels in the New York Times of the president calls the failing New York Times once even called it evil but he still continues to talk to the times which is the hometown paper. But subscriptions are soaring in the digital subscriptions are way up even know they are locked into this ugly battle trump is a gold mine. They present a very big fat target for him or at least that portion of the country. Host does he have the same attitude toward the media how did that change once television entered or how he treated the media . Be making has always had an intuitive feel how to make news in the new york market even covering his divorce that the New York Daily News and your post were on opposite sides. I remember calling him during that time i thought he would call me back but he called me right back to give me a soundbite. He knows controversy sells and he learned this in new york it is true today that negative coverage helpslp this president. But when the president is gettingou beat up on his handling of just about anything including immigration he has to dominate the news cycle. If he hits back with a term that i dont use but he does too often but then that extends the news cycle. So all of that uses up the oxygen. He gave hundreds of interviews most of the other candidatese didnt even when they were beating up. On them that is an important thing even as president with the bully pulpit to say maybe we need a break that clearly is not happening. Host with a rush investigation he says i have been much tougher than obama look at the facts so talk about twitter how has that changed with this president . We all work 247i go out to get a sandwich 30 minutes later the world has changed. It is very effective means for himgo to go around the media filter to communicate with the people. So do i think that we believe he goes too far he should not be giving disparaging nicknames to journalists . He did that with Joe Scarborough on msnbc there is back, story how the relationship was friendly but sometimes he does it to distract. Butt they all know they cannot take away his phone he believes that helped him to get elected he has toned it down at times and that has helped him but inevitably something text him off and in fact the trees over the weekend resulting of the indictment very much had to do with what the president claimed because he said i have done more against russia but this was a terrible attack onn our country he hasnt said that he has gotten criticism for that. We have heard about this formal press conference had a second pair with Previous Administrations . You just by press conferences basically has onlyes done one. But journalists will tell you privately that donald trump actually provides reporters even the ones that he criticizes more access than obama or many previous president s because every day he stopped to take questions he will answer with the photo op or come out of the helicopter photographers say they have more access than off the record part he has had several off the record meetings even though the public the president publicly criticizes him if he starts yelling at check one chuck something he said then they yell back then they settled down to a civil conversation then at the end of chuck said we just cant quit each other. Host independent line. Caller good morning. I used to watch fox and msnbc and i think both sides tell the truth it just is emphasizing different stories that may be sued their worldview or philosophy switching from one channel to another you willou hear anything with the others were saying and i will say that i stopped watching cable news and my life is so much better. I do not miss it at all and they do watch span but it just makes everybody crazy. Thank you. There are people who i think are turned off by the polarized nature of cable news this applies to all channels especially because politics and the trump era seems so polarizing there are even days sadly i may not turn on the tv just to get a break. I understand people want to watch cspan instead but i do comment about this sometimes. That if the story is favorable let me get more play on certain channels and little on o hers but then flip it a negative story could go wall to wall in particular in prime time the evening earthquake the New York Times and Washington Post will pop a story p online then cnn and msnbc go wall to wall having reporters a and contributors to talk about it. Fox media works a little differently. Be an informed consumer dont just say in the bubble. See what the other side is saying and that is a form your opinions versus being in a coaching. How many of these reports are based on that coverage . Way too many and it has increased as an Investigative Reporter i say some cannot be reporter without a name sources because they will lose their job for the words get perverted and it is way overused in political stories where people taking pot shots anonymously the papers are supposed to have rules about that so john kelly at classic example chief of staff is under a lot of heat with a president ial aide who had the allegations to abusing exwives a lot of leaks from other white house officials and trump advisors trying to keep his hold on the staff of the Washington Post quoted one white house official anonymouslyy without putting the name on the line to say that he was a big fat liar. That is the kind of thing that should be said. If you want to make a case where he deviated in handling this there iss no question but you say big fat liar or a coverup i dont think we as journalists should be granting anonymity for potshots. Host democratic line new york go ahead. Caller i just have a question for the guest. Four years since the 70s the fbi has always gone after protesters and peace and antiwar environmentalists a better story once where they went to spy on the boy scouts because they were antiwar. But then they have them labeled as a terrorist. If you are demonstrating on wall street or as a tree hugger they would call them a terrorist organization. So why isnt anybody calling the russians terrorist . I think they are cyberterrorist is the term that i would use no question it was a coordinated effort with the indirect blessing of the russianbl government to attack american democracy with a campaign of disruption and by the way there are a lot of posts on facebook and fake twitter identities those indictments showed that these russians impersonated americans and engaged in Identity Theft with phony Social Security numbers so this is a pretty broad attack your point of the fbi certainly this has been investigated they were using for political purposes my notable right now is controversial but i think the worst has been corrected with exposure but for your other point i cant addressia that. Often serving as a badge of personal identity conservative liberals split into the ideologicaler camp with the slightest deviation and with their version of the truth. I go through this every day. Bo i will do a show to do antitrump i try to present the facts then i go on twitter to read simultaneously from the same segment you have been a trump hater from day number one the other say you are soil far from donald trump it is pathetic i am pro Good Journalism that is the point i was trying to hammer home which is some people are so wedded to their ideology they arent interested to look at the presentation of the media that supports their own views. What criticism have you gotten from the president . Guest i believe the coverage of the president , and i lay this out in great detail, is, it goes beyond ideology. You know, look, every conservative republican president , you go back to reagan, george w. Bush, didnt have a lot of sympathetic press when it came to policies. With this president , theres something more personal, more visceral. The way he talks. He can sound like the guy in a bar. A lot of people like that. He doesnt sound like a politician who chooses every syllable carefully. Should he choose them more carefully at times . Sure. Ideology is not the only prism through which to view the coverage. You have to look at what it is about donald trump that so gets under the skin of so many journalists. Host this is patricia from minneapolis, republican line. Caller oh, good morning. Nice to talk to you, mr. Kurtz. Guest hi, patricia. Caller hi. The lady from new york touched on what id like to say, one of my p points. Please dont cut me c off, pedr, i have more than one. She mentioned how the media, one side wouldnt be talking about anything. The Mainstream Media has become so unhinged and so personal and so hateful, a constant negative coverage of President Trump. But what the other thing is, is they dont talk about his accomplishments, the good economy, all of the things that hes actually done, cutting regulations. They avoid all of that and just talk so awfully about him as a person, all ad hominem attacks. The other thing is cspan itself, they read from all of the r liberal papers, Washington Post, New York Times, article after article host including the washington times, including the examiner, including other conservative sources, so, so well just leave it there. Mr. Kurtz, take it where you want. Guest okay. You know, there have been times, asee i show in this book, where the president has gotten rare amounts of positive coverage. For example, the bombing in syria after the Chemical Attacks by assad, even some of his most liberal critics applauded that and said it was something barack obama hadnt done. But,t, by and large, for the whe first year the president was measured by the press for what he got through congress which wasnt much. When he finally passed the tax cuts, a number of stories said, you know, he didnt have that bad a year despite what you heard theit last 11 months. He got the tax cut bill through, he has slashed regulations, the doing well, so there was some sort of grudging acknowledgment than the president was being more effective than perhaps most journalists were allowing. He gives a good speech to congress, he did it last year and the state of the union was a pretty good speech. In our speededup news cycle, it lasts a day, a day and a half. Suddenly theres a new russia investigation, what about this hurricane, how did he handle that . So whatever positive coverage this president gets tends to be overtaken by other events. And sometimes tends to be overtaken by his own tweets. And he knows that his tweets drive News Coverage, he can see that every day. So there are sometimes when he steps on his own good news, perhapss inadvertently. Host what dueck about his past do you think about his past with porn stars, playboy playmates guest i have the idea that neither of these have been as big a story as they might have been, itte involves his private life a decade ago, its kind of baked into the cake. It reminds me of bill clinton and gennifer flowers, the 92 campaign. You have in two cases now allegations of hush money being paid, in one case by the president s personal lawyer to the former porn star, stormy daniels. He says its not hush money, but he hasnt fully explained what that 130,000 was. Other case you have allegations of the National Enquirer buying the story and not publishing it through some dispute about the facts there. That seems to me to be more recent andnd more troublesome. And im not sure that story has gone away. Are these tabloid stories, whenever i talk about them, oh, youre just going tabloid. Yeah, but its the same thing i did in 1998 when bill clinton was embroiled with the allegations whichth turned ot to be true about Monica Lewinsky as well as other women in his life. Sometimes we cant escape covering that. Host from new york, independent line, mike. Go ahead. Caller howard guest sir. Caller yes. Love your show and basically when i cant see it, i basically record it. I do want to touch on a couple of points that you made as far as trump is concerned with the outlets that he has to the press. Basically, he will talk to anybody and everybody, and thats the one thing i like about him. And maybe a cliche, hes a regular guy. Hes not a politician. Barack obama,ti clinton, bush, they all just basically pulled off, wouldnt say anything to begin with. I cant wait to see, to read your book, but my question to you is do you think hell ever been liked . And what im talking about as far as the running against biden, and hes going to come up and probably go against him. What how do you feel about how people are going to perceive him in the next two to three years . Guest well, i thought once he became president because, you know, whatever people might say negatively about donald trump, you know, like anybody in public life he can be a very charming guy, he can turn it on. He even was making nice with chuck and nancy, chuck seemer and nancy pelosi, until more recent troubles in negotiating a compromise on immigration. But it hasnt happened. And i think part of it is and the reason im not particularly optimistic at least about a good, warm or at least respectful relationship between the president and the press is that both sides have strong incentives to keep this warfare up. The president s going to go to the gridiron dinner, maybe thats a bit of an olive branch. As i said, news organizations, many of them not all reporters at every organization, i do we sometimes paint with too broad a brush, are playing or are getting a big audience for commentary, for reporting, for investigations that seem to be largely antitrump. And antitrump. And the president uses the press as a foil. When he doesnt like a story, he attacks the press. When he wants to change the subject, he attacks the press. It works for him more than any other president iot have seen. Right now itsno all about donad trump. We get into 2019 and 2020 and thereer are democratic candidats rubbing and, ultimately, a nominee, then its going to be how do you feel about this president and what hes done wrong and right over the last three or four years versus a living, breathing human being who also has a record, and thats going to change the coverage somewhata as it always does. Host cindy is in windsor, connecticut. Democrats line. Caller good morning. So i guess a couple one, i have a couple, well, one point that i wanted to make and, i mean, isnt it true that legislation changes two to four years to really have an effect on the economy and what we see . So, you know, i find that we keep making these comments of, you know, of trump being in office for, you know, less than two years and the economys doing well. I mean, isnt that from what was done in the Previous Administration . Is guest well, theres no question thattr donald trump inherited a relatively good economyy from barack obama when he took office in 2017. Unemployment was already pretty low. At the same time, that has continued, and despite the recent reverses in the stock market, i mean, the dow is way upt, compared to what it was whn he took office. Now, i always say president s get too much credit when the stock market goes up and too much blame when it goes down. Few people in the press talked about trumps role when the dow was soaring. As soon as it went down, you heard a lot more, maybe this is trumps fault. Some legislative changes take a couple of years to have an impact, but not tax cuts. Beginning this month, i believe, the tax cuts are taking effect, and people are seeing it in their paychecks. The tax cut was not popular when it passed, but the polls are showing its getting a little more popular because a lot of people didnt think they were going to get it. Theyey looked at the ideological battle and said, well, thats for someone else, its not for me. Sure, is it early to issue a definitive judgment after a year and a couple months in office . Yeah, i would say it is. But at the same time, he hasnt done anything to impede the growth that most people have felt particularly if you own stocks and bonds. Host were running short on time. Joe, from garland, texas, republican line. Go right ahead. Caller yes, i would just like to make the statement im 84 years old. There was a time in my life when Walter Cronkite reported the news. You might not agree with him, you knew it was the truth. And then along came dan rather. And then this is where we are today. Thank you. Guest dan rather, interestingly enough, is still active andll has become very antitrump, so hes obviously more in opinion mode now. Look, there was a time when, you know, huntley, brinkley, Walter Cronkite had a lot of respect, most americans got their news from the three network newscasts. That time is long gone. Social media, the internet, cable news, its a much more fractured and polarized media universe, and that is created more punditry, analysis. Thesi days of cronkite, and i kw him and had Great Respect for him, but theyre not coming back. Host as far as your own show and profession, how do you personally keep editorial guest i have complete independence. If i make a mistake, its on me. We all make mistakes, and i try to keep that in mind. And people sometimes think and i got this when ive worked for other news organizations, well, youre just following this line or that line. Because im a media critic, im not real popular in the business because too often i have to call out colleagues who have made a mistake. Ak sometimes they journalists can tend to be rather thinskinned, lets put it that way. But when i decided to do this, i decided that the only way i could do it was to not only be aggressive about journalism, cover it like any other beat, bute also to take on my employer when necessary. That was true at the Washington Post, true at cnn, true at fox. If they do something wrong, i talk about it, and i ask people their opinions of it. I think in the end that adds to your credibility, people see youreit willing to hold everyoe to the same standard. Host whats the format of media buzz, and when is it on . Guest it is on every sunday, 11 eastern. We take a look, you know, we dont just talk about politics and trump, we take a look at sports controversies, hollywood, Sexual Harassment cases very much in the news, and we do it with a balanced panel. We try to get newsmakers on, and we have a lot of fun. We take it seriously, but we have a lot of fun doing it. Host how long have you been doing the show . Guest fox at four years doing the show there, i did my own version at cnn for 16 years. I was at the Washington Post for nearly 30 years. So when i criticize the Mainstream Media, im a product of the p media, i know its strengths and weaknesses. Host howard kurtz, thank you for being our guest. Guest great to be here. I really enjoyed it. This week on the communicators i thought the internet was borderless. Thats really interesting. It can be borderless, but what weve seen is and the thing that i think we really need to focus on right now is it turns out that this medium that we thought was going to give voice to the voiceless and in many cases did and power to the powerless can also be used by dictators, by tourists, by dark political money to undermine democracy, and we have got to address the problem. From the state of the net Conference Held in washington, d. C. , well discuss the impact of technology on democracy and voting. Watch the communicators monday night at 8 eastern on cspan2. Youre watching booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Heres our prime time lineup. At 5 50 p. M. Eastern, andrew keane equates technological change with political and economic unrest and shares his thoughts on how to preserve humanity. At seven, bloomberg technologies emily chang describes the culture this Silicon Valley for women. Morgan general can kins shares her jenkins on race and gender, and on after words at nine, Tara Westover details her life growing up with survivalist parents in the idaho mountains and her introduction to formal education at age 17. And we wrap up our prime time programming at 10 with the pen america literary awards that recognize books in a range of categories from biography and science writing to essays and poetry. That all happens tonight on booktv, television for serious readers. [inaudible conversations] hello, good afternoon. Welcome to the Wallace Center at the Franklin Roosevelt president ial library