That itself seems answer seems to be no and thats disturbing. Speaker pelosi had another reason here beyond putting leverage on majority leader mcconnell and driving donald trump and every day goes by we have more incriminating and damaging information. Democrats have been fantasizing about impeachment. They are holding back. Howie military to aid was frozen after President Trumps call between president zelensky and Mitch Mcconnell with media flak refusing to budge. Its going to seem to most of the American People that it is a sham trial. Do you think Chuck Schumer is impartial . Howie president said democrats want a doover. They didnt give us anything, they come to the senate and want everything. They would leak selectively with schiff, corrupt politician. Howie joining us to analyze mollie hemingway, susan frerechio, Washington Examiner and Clarence Page for the chicago tribune, mollie are the media sympathetic for documents and witnesses which he says are needed for a fair trial . I think they are, they have been pushing impeachment for a long time, this is the impeachment battle, one i dont think they are doing particularly job of explaining the situation, senator mcconnells plan is to do it as they did it for previous impeachment, you hear the case being made and you hear response and you figure out what to do about it. Might be there there needs to be more evidence, this is as weak as we thought it was and dismisses on. Howie clarence, the media is saying that he will work closely on white house strategy, doesnt he have a point when he schumere just as partisan as he is . Pretty effective right now because the public is perceiving this as a political exercise, theres not been the and wrong n here, partly because the democrats are under a time clock problem that got to next election campaign. Howie do you think that covers to media coverage, they watch different views depending on their political extends to viewership, they are already divided. The polls havent budged much to the whole controversy. Richard nixons day once the house pursued the tapes an got the watergate tapes released nixons resignation came days later. Thats not happening this time because the House Democrats dont have time to pursue the howie set calendar for rushing impeachment, different era, different case. The press is kind of breaking with nancy pelosi on this strategy, by in large because they cant figure out what shes doing given her lack of cloud with the senate. We all gathered right after the gavel impeachment articles, you can sense tension when pelosi said in sort of, you know, well, we are not necessarily going to send the articles right over right away, wait a minute, what are you going to do. Howie all dressed up and ready to go. I got the sense she thought that the press was going to be okay, impeachment is happening, lets see what happens next, they had the big cliff hanger here over christmas break, we just dont know whether democrats will move articles or hold onto them or a while, left was the new information. Howie right, you see that reflected in the sort of rehashes on holiday week, kim strassel said, well, maybe pelosi wants roll it off much of 2020. By and large, the story has been, i mean, this is the story has been the medias engine starting with russia, going onto ukraine, impeachment, youve made the point on occasion, is impeachment in par, leaving aside tactics because Public Opinion is frozen. Public opinion is frozen related to the quality of this particular issue, its not just opinion has been frozen for a few weeks or a few months, its been frozen the spring of this year, before the ukraine phone call even took place and it really is kind of a stunning show of the lack of power that the media have, if all the media decided that they were going to push a particular story it would have moved opinion and this is under covered because its embarrassing for the media and they all have been pushing for many years, its not moving Public Opinion. Howie doesnt that conflict with earlier observation that the media propertied pushed for impeachment . Nancy pelosi didnt want this, in order to be legitimate it had to be bipartisan, she was resistant to it, they were still able to make her do it. Howie clarence, the only person been doing news is President Trump with 68 million followers, but that changed friday, joe biden spoke to Des Moines Register said he wasnt going to show up if the senate trial subpoenaed him, quite frankly this would be a distraction, all the coverage would be about him and trump would get off the hook, there was backlash, he went on twitter, i would comply with a legal subpoena but i dont see a legal subpoena, i havent seen much criticism of bidens original answer or the fact that hes backing off a bit. The answer that he gave was in an Editorial Board meeting where he was speaking off the cuff, i think he realized that realized rather quickly its hard to charge President Trump with lack of cooperation with an investigation if he doesnt cooperate with investigation on the senate side, so its hes going to fudge, lets butt it put it that way. Howie backtracking fudging and trying to coral the question. Theres so many ways. Howie nobody in america or nobody will think he will testify, probably there may be well no witnesses. Maybe with the pelosi maneuver and theres a cliff hanger turned into, well, we dont know what to stay tune for and when its going to happen, seems to me that changed the story about process and people who do what we do for a living, for most of the people out there they dont care about process. No, they dont, there have been good story about how the process does work, they dont get the headlines but it is going to be a critical step once we hit january about what the process is that the chief justice runs it, do republicans really control it because they are in the majority, are they supposed to be impartial jurors, are we going to hear questions live in the senate, the public isnt familiar how this operate, clinton was 1999, 2 years ago, a lot of people dont remember that. Howie the media talk about ukraine and the witnesses and what happened, abuse of power, its all about who is going to testify when and subpoenas and all of that and i just think its a more boring story. Theres one other person who has been making news this week and thats Rudy Giuliani who had somewhat wild and rather rambling interview with new York Magazine olivia which started in a limousine and Upper East Side restaurant and bloody marys. Rudy giuliani is a step away from imprisoning himself. I dont get why he did the interview that he did, i dont get why hes having drinks during the interview, doesnt make sense to me. Howie Southern District of new york, if theyre investigating me they are aholes and if they are idiots. Sounded like hes taunting the prosecutors. Well, i do agree that its odd that he would have an interview with someone who is so partisan and who writes in such a creative way to make it sound like he had said something nefarious. If you read the quotes Rudy Giuliani howie little bit unplugged. Hes transparent on what hes trying to do in ukraine and what hes trying to do as the president s attorney, doesnt not seem afraid of anything hes saying. Howie what really made news, clarence, george soros, dont tell me im antisemitic if i oppose him, im more of a you than soros. Hes a holocaust survivor. The larger narrative here is the decline of Rudy Giulianis image from 911. Howie americas mayor. Like a really great candidate of an election, he bombed out as the candidate and now we are seeing him try to outtrump trump when it comes to outrageous quotes and seems like deranged interviews, if you will, i dont know if it russiagate scandal. Howie hes the president s personal lawyer, the more flak that he gets, the more hes directing it away from the client, some of this is deliberate. Highprofile figure as rudy should be doing on the record sitdowns with bloody marys . He feels that he can win over the Mainstream Media, i see that a lot personally with politicians that ive worked as a reporter, i dont think they quite believe that they truly will be treated unfairly by these News Organization groups where they are going to take what they say and it continues howie he wants to convince people starting with reporters. Later a look at the life of don imus who thrived on controversy and sometimes absolutely crossed howie we havent heard from john bolton on impeachment but criticizing on north korea. If kim keeps thumbing his nose, we tried, the policies fail and dem crate with allies that fully Nuclear North Korea is unacceptable. John bolton coming out saying that the white house hasnt been doing us right. Another slap on the face. When you say its perfect and i get love notes from kim jong un, theres nothing to be concerned about, thats a lie. Feels like the president s bluster is much like the big bad wolf and hasnt worked and sounds like john bolton is compelling him to say so. Maybe its a nice present, maybe a present where he sends me a beautiful vase. Maybe nice present. You never know. Howie media certainly playing john boltons comments and other critics of the president s approach to north korea, personal diplomacy, isnt it fair to ask what the president has to show after years with kim . When you look at the media coverage, of course, they will take the former National Security advisers comments and play them up and donald trump has no one but himself to blame, if he has had any failure in presidency, it is his personnel choices and putting someone like bolton, that was his own decision to do that and so to have the person complaining how would the media not Pay Attention to it, it is funny that they used to hate him and now love him because critical of the president. Howie this is not a case with private luncheon, he made decision to speak on the record at the time when theres concerns on north korea . When he left the administration it was not flattering terms for john bolton i thought the interview was fascinating, gave you inside look at how the president attempted to really go outside the box on the usual way of attempting Foreign Policy in dealing with kim jong un that was important but i think for the media to just clearly ignore the fact that none of trumps predecessor havent had success and he tried Something Different, 3 years in they are not closer to denuclearizing north korea, thats not a balanced approach, look, trump failed again and i think thats for the media thats a real mistake. Howie some pundits say kim was never serious and buying time to develop the countrys weapons and thats the question for the media whether or not missile test this week or not. Other questions about the media pointing to President Trumps failures on north korea come after he had hes been mr. Sunny about relations. Howie rocket man. They fall in love. You cant flip around like that. President trump called attention to it. North korea has been a failure even president clinton although i would blame carter for clinton. Should we keep having the policy of denuclearization, how best to accomplish the peace and rather than having it as gotyou for trump, people should take seriously, a Nuclear Power led by somebody who is a threat. Howie when President Trump was setting up meeting with kim, look, we will try this, if it doesnt work, we will try something else, tougher approach. The media might credit him, we tried it, other administrations havent worked, hasnt worked, we will toughen sanctions or take steps with allies. Thats what i would hope for. Howie okay. Not going to do because it sounds like hes reversing himself, changing his mind, giving up, donald trump cant conceive that much and thats what john bolton is asking him to do an donald trump seem capable of doing that. Bolton is being too much want to go accelerate the situation there. This is something that we need to be careful about, the media seem to love conflict including global conflict. Really . Extremely concerned about in handling as delicately. Hes part of the media too now. He does have a big book. I dont necessarily think the media would brand it a failure because you can say changing circumstances, kim said he wasnt going to test and we have to respond. I understand the skepticism here about whether the president would get any contract all for that, Clarence Page, susan ferrechio, thanks, mollie, we will see you later. Up next my thoughts on the passing of don imus, how he changed the radio landscape william 145 over 92. Alyson 180 over 111. Jodie 182 over 100 and i had a heart attack and cardiac arrest, and then a stroke. Vo your Blood Pressure numbers could change your life. Frank a lot of people dont understand, including myself, i didnt know, now i do, the impact of having a stroke. William my memory is shot. Alyson when i woke up, i couldnt speak. Mick if i would have followed a treatment plan, i would not be in this situation. Frank its a tough jouney. Vo lowering your high Blood Pressure could save you from a heart attack or stroke. If youve stopped your treatment plan, restart it or talk to your doctor about creating one that works better for you. Start taking the right steps at manageyourbp. Org frank its a new life but im going to make it better. Im coming back. Ask your doctor, check your Blood Pressure. Howie don imus had plenty of flaws, had long time battling alcohol and cocaine addicts sometimes on the air. Cbs radio show was carried on msnbc and later fox business was a pioneer who changed the face of broadcasting by melding politics, culture, Country Music and humor. Do we have to put the morons on the radio . Howie he got president ial candidates, prominent senators, 100 times people heard him on imus than face the nation. He had epic feuds including one with howard stern and bipartisan which is to say he hated everyone, he called bill clinton fat and Hillary Clinton satan and dick cheney a war criminal. Imus caused a storm about making sexual jokes of president clinton as the first couple sat their glaring. Is it a good idea to do this in front of the first lady . Absolutely. Had i been a howie four hours on the radio gripping me, that was imus, angry announcer always pushing boundaries sometimes too far. But as i got to know don, his gang and his wife over the years, i also saw a man of compassion, new mexico ranch to create camp for kids with cancer, he was complicated, contradictory and radio legend. These people didnt sleep well last night. These people did, thanks to somnapure. Somnapure from force factor helps you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up feeling refreshed. Dont be a zombie get somnapure. Available at retailers nationwide. Howie President Trump in a war of words with the media, you can pick just about any day, harsh exchange with political rivals which sometimes leaves to journalists scolded. Look at the tweets, why should crazy nancy pelosi just because she has a slight majority follow the house be allowed to impeach the president of the united states, crazy nancy should clean up dirty district and the president talking to reporters at his palm beach estate challenged her motives and made a prediction. She hates the Republican Party, she hates all of the people that voted for me and the Republican Party and desperate, she got thrown out as speaker, i think it will happen again. Howie joining us from new york ed henry who is leaving fox friends and taking over americas news room. Thank you very much. Howie fascinating to me he says nancy pelosi shouldnt be allowed to impeach, used to call her nervous nancy and now crazy nancy, does that have much impact on Public Opinion . Doesnt look like it has so far, part of what hes responded people paint as year of nancy, shes driving the agenda in washington when in fact, in recent weeks the president despite impeachment has begun getting a bunch of things done, number 2, its not clear that she has a smart strategy on impeachment because when you have steven and collins, they had online conversation a few days back, they were saying wait a second, does this make political sense to hold back articles of impeach rent and the bottom line is she does have vast power in the house but she has no power over the senate. Howie zero. Yeah, trying to figure out what her strategy is, the president has joked about her teeth falling out, 79yearold speaker and he made the joke about debbi dingell, doesnt seem like it affects the portion of the country that strongly supports donald trump. Continues to double down on and Public Officials of all political stripes should be raising the discourse in the country but we are probably past the point of no return on that in some respects, i think in terms of political health, when you talk about his base and how some of this impacts them, the bottom line is that his base steams stronger than ever, dont take it from me, take it from Michael Moore on the left, in the last couple of days said he thinks the president s base has hardened and maybe very likely that he wins reelection, i think the left is very nervous that impeachment maybe backfiring number 1, and number 2, lets not leave out the backdrop of a very strong economy. Howie right, i think invites negative media because that turns him into 2 or 3 or 4day story. Let me ask you about new controversy, many have been hitting the president for retweeting a washington story that named the whistleblower and then also just on friday i guess he retweeted an account by someone, a woman called surfer mom 77 and named the alleged whistleblower. Most of the Mainstream Media including fox news have policy of not naming the whistleblower, under law its supposed to be entitled of we havent been able to confirm that number 1, number 2, you want to be sensitive and care about, i know that you agree with that howie, the bottom line is, i dont think thats the focus of all this, its obviously moved beyond the whistleblower, but they ended upbringing the whistleblower, the president is the one who wants testimony, they moved forward on impeachment, it turned out not to be and they moved on without the whistleblower when its now the president who has turned and said, lets hear from hunter biden, joe biden, did you notice in the last 24 hours joe biden has flipflopped, he said a couple of days he could not comply and now hes saying obviously that doesnt make sense, he would comply with the subpoena, bottom line i dont think theyll be a subpoena of the bidens because its looking like there wont be a trial. Howie i agree with you but the biden back and forth deserves more Coverage Even though its a holiday week. The president got media mockery, spoke against windmills, filthy and noisy and kills birds and people not being able to get enough water from toilets and showers and diswashers, criticized led lightbulbs, what does he gain from these . Folks, the media end up talking about the side issues and tweeting about in social media, can you believe the president said this about dishwashers and i think, a, most americans dont care, and, b, publishes strange article about how the Hallmark Channel has mostly white movies over the holidays and how horrible this is. Howie fascist propaganda. Come on. Here is my point, if people in the media are debating whether or not the Hallmark Channel is fascist or whether or not the president should be talking about flushing toilets, they are not talking about a bad economy, howie, they are not talking about the president s political problems, i think the point is that if these are controversy that have popped up over the holidays, the president is in political shape. Howie speaking of movies, home alone had scene with donald trump, cut recently reairing classic, before i go on, lets take a look at the scene. Excuse me, where is the lobby . Down the hall into the left. Thanks. Howie the president decided to take a shot at Prime Minister trudeau saying i guess justin t doesnt like paying him up on nato or trade as if he ordered not to do this. Cbs says not only was this done for time to air more commercials which i thought like you, come on, but also this was done back in 2014 before donald trump before he was president. Howie did you all jump the gun on this . A if it was really in 2014, we dont know for sure, thats what the bbc, the cbsi should jason s, fine, i will take that, if i will take the hit on it, the segment i made on fox friends is similar to Hallmark Channel, why is any time being spent on whether the Hallmark Channel is fascist or whether or not donald trump is in or out of a movie, i think people guess obsessed whether donald trump was with who cares, lets get on with the nations business. I apologize. Howie light issue, you were giving your opinion based on what we knew at the time. I wanted to get cbss denial in there. Got to go, ed henry, great to see you, after the break the Washington Post reports that Elizabeth Warren despite criticism of Pete Buttigieg used to hold the same fatcat fundraisers, stay with whatd we decide on the flyers again . Uh, fifteen minutes could save you 15 or more on car insurance. I think were gonna swap over to over seventyfive years of savings and service. What, were just gonna swap over . Yep. Pump the breaks on this, swap it over to that. Pump the breaks, and, uh, swap over . Thats right. Instead of all this that ive already . Yeah. What are we gonna do with these . Keep it at your desk, and save it for next time. Geico. Over 75 years of savings and service. The press has pounced on the winecave debate, its been fermenting since Elizabeth Warrens attack on Pete Buttigieg for daring to raise money at a billionaires winery with mayor fighting back setting purity test that she herself cannot past, the Washington Post report that is warren raised many millions of dollars with the same kind of fundraisers, Cash Transfer today her president ial Campaign Including one at a San Francisco restaurant where diners can eat in a wine vault and includes 3,800dollar bottle of pinongt. Joining us from manchester, political reporter, paul, i think its been eclipsed by the coverage of her own fundraising, wine or no wine sometime last year, do you think the latest wave of stories is hurting her . Definitely takes away from policies, yes, it hurts her and you mentioned in San Francisco, also a fundraiser at winery place that she held in boston in the summer of 2018 when she was raising all the money for her senate reelection, she didnt need much of it, she didnt have much of an opposition, transferred over 10 million, howie from the Senate Campaign to president ial campaign so backs up in a way Pete Buttigiegs argument at debate in los angeles. I love the story, gave maximum 2,800, she sent him a wonderful thank you note, months later im a fat cat, but the larger question here, paul, is why are democrats and the liberal precincts of the media so obsessed with this issue of money and how you raise it, the president is raising a gazillion dollars and takes big bucks to compete with that. Theres a passion from the left to get rid of big bucks out of politics and so when you have the closeddoors fundraisers with top dollar donors and doing all the secret things that the media cant have any access to, thats something that a lot of progressives want to get rid of, its something that now Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are obviously abstaining from, they are using grassroots donations, online, mostly smalldollar donors, important issue for the left, its not nearly as important for moderates, Pete Buttigieg and joe biden and amy, but they are allowing the media to attend. Howie i didnt hear when barack obama decided to blow up public financing, he raised a gazillion dollars, you didnt hear money is corrupting politics so much when somebody who they like was doing it. Pete buttigieg is in some polls ahead in iowa, with that comes scrutiny including he has to release clients he worked for when he was a consultant at mckenzie, do you think his coverage is starting to change and more critical now now that hes taken more seriously . Very much so. In the spring and summer when he was starting to rise and wasnt getting much scrutiny, that changed in autumn. You saw a lot of those types of stories in november, you see a lot more since then, as you mentioned, howie, its natural, when you rise in the polls, you invite more scrutiny. Howie youre not seen as a real serious for the nomination in no way a sign of respect. We begin with joe biden as front runner and we begin by double digits, columnist frank says its time to give biden due and so many have it and im as guilty as anyone and i urge him not to run, so all of the geniuses in the press who said biden will be a terrible candidate and everyone thinks hes a weak front runner, why do you think so many journalists are so wrong about the former vice president. Here is the thing, joe biden is not the shiny young thing and many in the field that are, third time hes running for the presidency, and same thing with Bernie Sanders running a second time as older candidate and neither of them got much credit for it. Biden taking a lot of shots since late april when he jumped in the Campaign Even before declareing candidacy, top tier and reporters are looking for Something Different to report on and here we are with joe biden remaining at the top. Howie i also think many journalists think that the Democrat Party is more liberal, spend too much time spending and biden running as moderate, paul steinghauser. Thanks, howie. Howie christianity today turns on president howie fox news alert, man suspected in a brutal hanukkah stabbing, thomas grafton, you can see him in the courthouse, at least 5 people wounded in knife attack, which took place at rabbis home last night. Evangelical magazine christianity sparked furor calling for President Trumps removal. Although weve lost a number of you know, hundreds of subscribers, lets be frank about it, we have gained 3 times as many subscribers. Howie evangelical leaders rallied around the president , ripped the magazine for disdainful dismissive elitist posture to fellow christians, choosing publication of joining team trump. Youre a former religion reporter, youve written in the for christian magazine. It is not farleft magazine, its not entirely surprising that they wrote Something Like this, they are people who said similar things about bill clinton when he was going through impeachment battle, at the same time im not sure how influential editorial was in terms of changing anyones opinion because of the way it was written, first of all, required a belief democratic case of impeachment which a lot of people polls show never have bought into and didnt deal with the situation, they are not confused in any way whether donald trump is the most moral man theyve ever met, been married 3 times, he does not phrase things in the possible way, at the same time he has virtues that a lot of people overlook that christians have incorporated not necessarily proof of everything hes done in personal life. In a situation where a lot of people who are National Office are extremely hostile to their views, extremely hostile to right to practice religion as they see fit, these are things not mentioned in the story. Howie is it fair for the christian post to call out editorial elitist to other christians . I would say it came from the good place, the last paragraph was disdainful to supporters of donald trump. People can in good faith and in good conscious come to different political decisions on impeachment and who they are going to vote for and when you burden the conscious of people by saying you must support trump or demand his ouster either by impeachment or voting, this adds to scripture in a way thats not very evangelical. In a way retiring republican congressman who doesnt like trump taking his last shot, but, look, absolutely clear from some of the evangelical leaders that the president retains very strong, if not overwhelming support in the evangelical community for parts of the reasons you cited. Im not sure, i think that that christianity today has editorial position and they have been consistent about it, whats interesting is how the media discovered christianity today only when they wrote the editorial and made it out to be something so influential without paying attention to all of its other writings and what not over the years. Howie right, glad to have somebody who knows this, mollie hemingway, thank you very much. The fox news alert that we showed about the suspect being arraigned in stabbing attack at rabbis home last night, fifth, sixth or seventh antisemitic incident and many happening in new york horrifying in this day and age that this is going on particularly during hanukkah and we will keep an eye on the coverage and happened to duck tail with the segment with mollie, thats it for this edition of media buzz, im howard kurtz, hope you had a great christmas and great hanukkah, check out my podcast, media buzz, you can subscribe at apple itunes, google play, amazon device, hope you also like facebook page, we post daily columns there, i dont think i have to tell you to continue the conversation on twitter, as soon as i get off the show i check what people have pro and con, see you next sunday 11 00 eastern is the time with the