Release her first book of photography. Its cold of love and war. Thats it for today. Have a great week and we will see you next fox news sunday. Howie on the buzz meter this sunday a gusher of leaks as Michael Cohen claims President Trump knew in advance of the meeting with the russian lawyer. Rudy giuliani called cohen a pathological liar. This follows a tape where he talks about a payoff with a playboy model. Donald trump, jr. Hired cohen the fact that its been released and we are talking about it. Journalist Howard Kurtz analyzes the state of the news media; discusses Current Affairs with reporters and commentators; and examines the evolution of social. Was lying about this tape. Before we heard the snippets of the tape giuliani said it was exculpatory for the president. Adrienne i have known lanny davis for a long time. But hes also a good spi spinmeister. Howie hes a lawyer hired to represent a client. Adrienne there are not have much people in this business who have the legal background and p. R. Background. When you get to a small group of people, lanny davis will be someone cone would hire. Howie the company is run by a close pal. They sent 150,000 to buy and bury the story of karen mcdougal. But the way they are talking about it, well get the rights and pay them cash or check. Does that raise questions about the evethe National Enquirers rights . Sara the Wall Street Journal reported the doj is look into how close its relationship was with the trump campaign. Protection for Media Outlets are strong. But if this company is doing something above and yornd with working close with the president , it could change. Howie on this business about the trump tower meeting, i can report based on my sources its true that Michael Cohen believes or claims he has evidence there was a meeting of people involved that shows the president was denied the president knew of the eating in advance with the russian lawyer. You have lanny davis denying his side leaked this trump tower story with cnn. Their view is they have no interest in it coming out now. Rudy giuliani said they didnt leak it. Should the media be giving so much attention to that allegation. There is no tape, there is no document, it will be one persons word against another. Obviously it needs to be reported, but with great caution. Guy but the allegation is explosive. Its someone in the Inner Sanctum of trump world for a long time saying one of the major assertions made by the president about that Trump Tower Meetle is false and would be a capital l lie if Michael Cohen is telling the truth. Howie would it be a lie that would be much more important, you could call it attempted collusion more so than his relationship with the woman . Guy definitely. Howie sara, are we headed for the kind of story the media loves, Michael Cohen protecting his own interest, he seems to be saying i did a lot of things for donald trump, im not proud of him he doesnt use these
words. Now hes president and i have got to come clean. You hear cnn and some of the other outlets saying this is a complete flip. Other outlets say this isnt a complete flip, hes under pressure. Its a horse race and Something Interesting to follow. Howie the further importance of this trump tower business, after a year investigation of russian collusion, this is the one meeting we know about where there was an attempt to get information from a russian lawyer that fizzled that she had stuff on hillary clinton. Whether candidate trump or President Trump knew about it then, you can see why the media are so hot about this. Adrienne they want to see if
Michael Cohen lied about this. If he has evidence on tape it will be very damaging. Howie there is no claim there is a tape on this. Either prosecutors will find other people in the room and cohen will be able to back it up. But its our job to follow these things. Whats on tape, whats not on tape. I wonder how much its resonating, even on this stuff with meeting with the russian lawyer with lots of people. You just look at polling. Russia matter was polling at zero percent as a top election priority. Its not to say this stuff doesnt matter and some of the twists and turns. The granular constant attention paid to it in this d. C. New york Media Corridor is totally outside what normal people care
about. Howie if it can be shown to be true that the president says i forgot about that meeting. The people who support him wouldnt care. Adrienne donald trump uses the media psych toll his advantage and creates a lot of confusion. There is a tape . Is there not a tape . Why does it matter if there is a tape. Its very confusing. I think it average american is letting his slide by and not paying as much attention. Howie sara, well see you later. A devastating new yorker piece about cbs chairman les moonves. When we come back. Are you ready to take your wifi to the next level . And lets you control your network with the xfi app. Its the ultimate wifi experience. Xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. Howie there is a knew accusation being made by the New York Times and other news outlets that the president is trying to sell his supports on an alternative reality. President trump dont believe the fake news. What you are seeing and what you are reading is not whats happening. Howie the New York Times headlines is trump rages against reality. Hes increasingly living in a world of selective information and bending the truth. Is that fair . Guy it sounds like a politician that wants the Media Narrative he or she supports and looks good for them. Trump is unusually aggressive in his public posturing on this, but its not a stretch for an administration to cherry pick the story they want to tout and dismiss others. Trump goes overboard frequently on this kind of stuff. But its true a huge percentage of the Mainstream Media is actively rooting against him. They want him to fail, they want to bring him down and create loselose paradigms for him. Adrienne donald trump believes if any Media Coverage of him is negative, its fake news. Thats how he frames it. Howie we think inaccurate. Adrienne he did Something Worthy of the Press Coverage he received. Just because he does something that causes negative stories to be written about him. Hes doing these actions. Howie he does sometimes exaggerate or get things wrong. But there is an automatic assumption the Media Narrative is right. Don lemon says the Trump Presidency is defined by lies. Adrienne i think to a larger extent this was leading us to the point where we are where sensational outlets on the left and right in Media Coverage and people dont know where to go to get the truth. Howie in this story it said
donald trump was upset because all the tvs on Air Force One was tuned fox news and melans was cnn. Guy they wanted to show there was tension between the first couple. Interesting anecdote, we appreciate the president s viewership. Im sure mrs. Trump is happy to use the Remote Control as she sees fit. I do think what we are seeing is an unreliable narrator problem. Trump has his trouble with the truth and the media has a Credibility Problem and they dont always see it. Howie the president is always talking about the failing New York Times. This morning he tweeted he had a good meeting with the New York Times. The white house disinvites a cnn reporter from a press event after she shouted questions at
are you worried about whats on the tape . Why has Vladimir Putin not accepted your invitation. Howie cone says press secretary Sarah Sanders told her this. That i would not be invited to an open press event at the white house because they felt the questions i posed to President Trump were inappropriate for that venue. Howie shine challenged that version of the event with reporters. What word would you use . When you ask her if we used the word ban. Howie white house officials said this was a onetime
disciplinary action and she is free to shout questions in other venues. By the was disrespectful to do it in the oval office in front of a world leader. Cnn said just because the white house is you be comfortable Doesnt Mean The Question Isnt Relevant and shouldnt be asked. As a member of the White House Press pool fox stands firmly with cnn on this issue of access. Its almost unprecedented. Its inexcusable for the white house to make this move. It wont be tolerated by members of the White House Press corp. It was a sad moment for journalism in our country. Howie the reason reporters
routinely yell questions at the president is that trump often answers them even as his Press Wranglers try to sho Shoo Repors Out of the room. Twitter is accused of shadowbanning republicans. Host of the online bill press show. Morgan, this was the lead story in the New York Times, mueller scrutinizing trumps tweets. I am thinking tweets . Morgan im not a lawyer. But what i found interesting is three major things happened. The gdp was put at 4. 1 , which is the largest Economic Growth since the Third Quarter of 2014. It added 7 trillion to the economy in new growth. Whats important to me as a member of the military is the fact we got our remains home from core there are from our men who were lost their decade ago. I bring that up to say i think those things are whats important to the american
people. If you are running a small biz like lie father is in florida, having a gdp growth of 4 is important. Another story about the president s tweets arent important to him. But i have got to say he probably doesnt read the New York Times. Also doesnt it suggest Robert Mueller doesnt have the super secret evidence you can imagine. Bill if i were in the white house i would talk about the economy and north korea. But donald trump keeps tweeting and he attacks Robert Mueller and Michael Cohen. He steps on his own story. Howie Rudy Giuliani says if you are going to obstruct justice
you do it quietly and secretly. Bill traditionally you would. But donald trump doesnt do anything the way everybody has has already done it. In the press room. Sean spicer. We didnt know how to deal with these tweets. We asked sean spicer should we take things seriously or not. Spicer said every tweet is a president ial statement, take them seriously. The president of the United States is going after sessions or comey, i think it does raise an issue. Howie another story there was a lot of coverage of. 11 House Republicans introducing impeachment for Rod Rosenstein for allegedly slowwalking requests for documents. It got a lot of coverage to compete with the 4. 1 jump in
the gdp. Morgan i think the tea party wanted that coverage. They are frustrated with a slowwalking effort by the doj getting these documents out. And they were frustrated with the amount of redactions. Howie particularly like the New York Times lead story on trumps tweets, why dont you view that as a distraction. They dont have the votes in the house to impeach rosenstein. Morgan this is what the tea party wanted. You saw jim jordan announce for speaker this week. For republicans in vulnerable districts, i dont think though love this story at all. But for the past 7 years, the
loudest people in your party on either side, the people heart loudest are the ones who get the microphone shoved right in right in their face. Howie given it was never going anywhere should it have been covered as a p. R. Stunt . Bill mediabuzz. They wanted some media buzz before they left for the break. They wanted to help jim jordan and his impossible quest for speaker. There aint going to be an impeachment and there aint going upon a speaker jordan. Paul ryan will not bring this up for a vote in the house. It was not even a hail mary pass, it was a stunt. Howie it worked because they
got a lot of coverage. If the president wants to get rid of rosenstein he can fire him tomorrow. Coming up. Cbs chairman les moonves is facing allegations of Sexual Conduct and harassment. Howie a report of Sexual Misconduct in the new yorker against les moonves. A woman said he pinned her down so she Couldnt Breathe and kid her. And then he called her and removed her from a sitcom in which she had already been cast. This Accountly Douglas is revolting and underscores based on ronan farrows reporting, and cbs which followed charlie rose for similar allegations also has a problem. If this is the behavior of the chairman of cbs, other executives. There are a lot of things we have to look at whether this culture needs to be dismissed. Howie there are questions whether he tolerated what other people were doing. The writer janet jones said after les moonves locked the door and threatened her. He locked the door. He said you will never get another writing job and i will fire you. And she threw up. These are harvey weinsteintype allegations. It could be physical
harassment as well which is another level. These people feel their careers were destroyed are impacted by some of these victimizing allegations. Howie cbs confirms in the case of douglas that moonves kissed her, but denies other stuff. Not since the late roger ails was forced out of fox news have they faced these times of accusations. In other instances or other industries. Once the allegations come out
there is immediate action. Les moonves is still the chairman and Chief Executive at the company. Howie i credit cbs for saying there will be an investigation. And i credit cbs for reporting on this. But can you immediately suspend the head of the company . He did at mitt to some unwarranted he did admit to some unwanted advances. And to me thats a cultural problem. How ares involved in a corporate battle with some of the controlling stockholders who want to combine it with viacom. Could these Sexual Misconduct allegations be related to that battle . It doesnt mean that people around her arent leak. There is an ugly battle happening with sherry redstone. Some say maybe she was involved in this and she can take advantage of this situation. But there is no proof she had anything to do with this. Howie all these women on the record, you would have to say there are questions about les moonves. Absolutely. They are investigating. More to come on this. Sara fischer, thanks for your reporting. Coming up. Mark zuckerberg loses billions. Charlie gasparino i
howie it was the largest Charlie Gasparino is with us. Wasnt this Market Plunge in part due to facebook admitting it will have to spend more money to protect peoples privacy . Charlie dont you feel sorry for Mark Zuckerberg . The bottom line is all these Social Media Platforms are essentially free. But you do pay in other ways. You pay in the lack of privacy. Anything that will cut back they use your user information. Anything that sort of limits, that helps privacy and limits the amount of user growth that goes on to these platforms, you can sell ads to them as well. The ad metric will hurt the stock price. It happened to facebook and twitter in the same week. Howie it seems to me the company is projecting slowing growth. Younger people think its uncool so they go to snapchat. But is the market punishing. Down,
the ad revenue will go down therefore your stock is not worth where it is now. This may change. Facebook may come up with a new app that increases user growth. I can say the same thing about facebook and twitter. Its all about user growth. If you cant grow it, the ad revenues come down. Howie alex jones was find and they changed their mind and now some videos have been banned and jones has been suspended for 30 days for hate speech. I want to get to twitter. On friday the stock was down 21 . A lot of it has to do with
twitter purging one million fake accounts. And we have controversy where twitter was shadowbanning the rnc chairwoman, top gop lawmakers and Donald Trumps spokesperson. The dnc chairman. They said they would look into the discriminatory practices. Charlie i spoke with twitter Senior Management that they are anticonservative. They are extremely sensitive to this. That doesnt mean they dont have human beings that create algorithms that can shadowban conservatives. But the company said they are taking extreme measures to be equal for conservatives as well as liberals. We had interesting conversations
about President Trump. This is a guy who essentially drive traffic to twitter. Some of his tweets go close to the lines of violating the terms of service. I said did you ever think about banning donald trump. They said they seriously considered that in the megyn kelly tweet tboolg she asked him during the debate. But they are saying we are not going after trump. We believe hes a vital voice. Hes the president , he uses twitter. They say they are trying to be equal here. Now, its imperfect equal, we know that. They did fix that shadowbanning problem. Howie i take the company at its word. Facebook has also been accused. Silicon valley is biased against conservatives. Charlie mostly people on the right. Thats kind of weird. Who creates the algorithms that creates the discrimination . Some Silicon Valley leftleaning kid. Right . Howie The Tech Giants are having a hard time this year. The president denounces an fcc decision that went against sinclair tv. And roseanne says she is sorry
would have led to National Conservative programming that would have competed with fox news. Trump said the decision was disgraceful. He said it would have been a great and muchneeded conservative voice of and for the people. The fcc said the news was misleading. Roseanne barr got an apology doover after the racist tweet about jal are you jarrett. Reeseian who said she thought jarett was white. Said this. If you are watching im so sorry you thought it was racist and you thought my tweet was racist because it wasnt. It was political. Im sorry for the misunderstanding that causedy
illworded tweet. And im sorry that you feel harmed and hurt. But she has got to get a new haircut, seriously. Howie thats better than the Youtube Video she posted where she called jarett the b word. Herselfhumiliation was pretty sad. This is pretty sad, but maybe it stops the bleeding. Im howard kurtz. Check out my new podcast. You can subscribe at apple itunes or foxnewspodcasts. Com. I post my daily columns