Howie whats the impact of coverages Rudy Giuliani is reported to be under investigation and ambassador said he and president uses false charges to push her out. Many trump conservative allies turning on him for pulling u. S. Troops out of syria which our kurdish allies calling a betrayal an sustained military action by turkey. What a disaster, the statement, we defeated caliphate, the caliphate is destroyed, we would not have done that without the kurds who did all of the fighting. Thats what you get if youre an ally with donald trump and playing a major role and crushing the caliphate which, of course, the kurds did. The president of the United States is in danger of losing the mandate to heaven if he permit this is to happen. What exact dye do people on tv know about kurds, nothing, really, shock if anyone at msnbc ever met a occurred and yet suddenly today everyone in washington seems thoroughly outraged oh on their behalf. Why does current policy revolt on the right who back the president on impeachment and just about Everything Else . Harvey weinstein used allegations and former msnbc staffer accusinglongtime anchor of rape, shepherd smith r launch, why departure is growing so much media attention. Im howard kurtz and this is media buzz. Howie media have been on red alert on President Trump defied request saying he considers the impeachment inquiry illegitimate, partisan and unconstitutional. Turns out that the whistleblower was in cahoots with schiff, whistleblower is a strong democrat and working with one of my opponents as a democrat that i might end up running against. The whole thing is a scam, its a fix. Howie joining us Mollie Hemingway of fedderist, Fox News Contributor justice on trial kavanaugh confirmation and future of the supreme court. Gil and turner, fox news correspondent and former White House National security, ray suarez, cohost of World Affairs and former correspondent for the pbs news, the media are appalled the white house refusing to cooperate, is it fair for his approach to be cast as stonewalling . Well, i think the big problem with Media Coverage of this issue is it is focusing on impeachment or alleged impeachment at the expense of larger stories, for years we have had media reports claiming theres thousands of people in bureaucracy and Intelligence Agency to out the president. We have years long issue with ukraine where ukraine was shown to have meddled in the 2016 with the Democratic National committee, this isnt in dispute, admitted to, emails and transcripts and all sorts of things that people are acknowledging the meddling, the larger stories are not put into this discussion, when people are talking about how donald trump is responding to inquiries about a particular phone call we are not seeing the coverage. Some journalists are saying, if they dont cooperate theyll do what is done with nixon impeachment, is there a danger for the press here in covering all of the tentacles of the stories. Theres a danger of the press in part the way news has changed since 1972 and 1973. It is more possible than its ever been in the history of American Media to come to a conclusion sitting at home in your living room couch and then go out and seek confirmation from the News Business for that conclusion whether youre pro, anti, you can be convinced of any argument you want to make. Howie because of fractured media environment . Absolutely. And so this creates real challenge for people who are trying to just play it straight and keep track of a fastmoving sprawling and complicated story in a part of the World Americans dont follow closely. Howie gillian, is the president in part helping to turn this into a process on pieces of twists and turns and subpoenas and Court Battles and new people being drawn into this and could many in the public view that as just more beltway bickering . No, is my simple answer, the president is not doing that, in large part the media is making process story, every News Organization at this moment in time is keeping their own roll call vote on what democrats impeachment, everybody is quarterbacking the story, one element the media is missing the sprawling nature of this impeachment investigation compared to previous investigations by which of president clinton and president nixon, with those of those investigations was handled by wasnt congressional committee, the judiciary committee. Today we have nancy pelosi a 6 committees investigating, six in total that are looking at wrongdoing by President Trump and i think the media should be covering that. Even more than that, no impeachment inquiry, theres been no vote to launch inquiry and this is very important when we are talking about legal battles and media have accepted democrat spin that howie what about the whistleblower, the Washington Examiner was reporting that the whistleblower, we still dont kw the identity. Perhaps part of his job, since we have the call between president and ukraines leader and texts about diplomats talking about ukraine, how much does the media care about whistleblower at this point . Things got diverted when President Trump released the call, there was a whole campaign that was built around this where there would be drips of information, characterize the call as deeply frightening when everybody can read and say we have a problem with this and we dont have a problem with this. It made the dripdrip story, media are struggling with how to handle it. Significant that he talked to adam schiff and didnt reveal that he spoke to a member of adam schiffs staff. You have to say which committees you spoke with, which members you spoke w he left that part blank. Howie foxs Katherine Harris to report that whistleblower had been in memo that white house official told him july phone call was crazy and frightening but we dont know who has said to have said this. Theres reporting and multiple sources of contemporaneous accounts, the person said crazy and disturbing, they didnt sit by themselves saying i feel crazy and disturbed, there were conversations, memos, text messages, emails, they were all coming out, everybody trying to write the last story of this story is going to be wrong. Gillian, you worked on the National Security council under two president s, four National Security essentials were so language that they raised with white house lawyer. Just another incremental part of the story. I would say its incremental but it is also significant in the sense that its not unusual and its not bad for National Security officials who were privy to the call to talk about it amongst themselves afterwards, thats in large part that National Security council to do and convert that into Foreign Policy, so how people felt about that call and if some people did feel or at least one person felt that it was crazy that is something that they absolutely should have discussed among themselves, that doesnt mean that the persons memo to themselves saying this was crazy and frightening then becomes the truth and becomes evidence. The New York Times talk about the sprawling investigation reports that Rudy Giuliani is under investigation in manhattan for probably lobbying, disputes that, after two associates were arrested who are helping him dig up dirt in ukraine, they were arrested on unrelated campaign charges. The media love portraying rudy unhinged, there was a lot of shouting and filler busting, is it clear that rudy did something wrong . More than a year ago, 2 years i think it was, charles grassily ask the department of justice to look into violation with the contractor. Federal registration act. Whether she was acting on behalf of ukraine without being registered. Theres all sorts of violations not being looked but when they with done by democratic operatives and people like that, thats why the media needs to cover the story, what happened in ukraine in 2016, people care claim they care about meddling, theres no dispute about this, you dont see it when youre hearing stories about this, further to that i would say that when you see it only that republicans get attacked for violations, this speaks to two standard of justice that is people are frustrated, if youre on one side of the aisle you get let go and if you are on the other side of the aisle you get sent to prison. You have the ousted ambassador saying rudy and trump helped her push out of the job of representing the u. S. In ukraine with false claims. Washington post lead story today gordons, is ambassador who is on those text saying theres no quid pro quo in the phone call, person familiar with testimony, its only true that the president said and not that it was the truth. The president said there was no quid pro quo, im not saying that. How much impact does all of this have . Its going to be raining shoes in washington so many left, the idea that you can make a final conclusion on what this all means based on one Incremental Development is crazy. Just briefly, gillian, fox news poll showing that 51 say that the President Trump should be impeached removed. 40 not impeached at all, mostly democrats in favor, 13 of republicans, the president then tweeted, id never gotten a good fox news poll, whoever their pollster is, they subbing according to the president , why was there so much attention in the poll. Gillian of course, a poll is a poll and fox news polling unit is one of the strongest in the country. Hats off to chris, unbiased journalists in the News Business today, so the idea, corrupted by politics is insanity. Not wrong for people to be skeptical of polling. Fox news poll joe donnelly. Fox news donnelly said they would win and lost by 6 polls, its possible that people polls are often wrong. They are also use today push certain story ideas and thats a problem. You follow the trend and not the number. Howie the president had given shoutouts this week to fox news commentators fox friends who he likes, even though he doesnt like the polls. Rare criticism from the president of conservative journalism over military decision in syria, john spicer weighs on the coverage of when you move homes, you move more than just yourself. Thats why xfinity has made taking your internet and tv with you a breeze. Really . Yup. You can transfer your Service Online in about a minute. You can do that . Yeah. And with twohour Service Appointment windows, its all on your schedule. Awesome. So while moving may still come with its share of headaches. No kidding. Were doing all we can to make moving simple, easy, awesome. Go to xfinity. Com moving to get started. Especially on the right focused on abandonment of americas kurdish allies and turkey continue to go bomb the region, dozens of kurds reported to have been killed and 130,000 people to be displaced and the president defends on other grounds. We are all over the world fighting wars, half of the places nobody knows what theyre doing over there. Howie who slew of conservative journalists and commentators and you have lindsey graham, nikki haley and republicans sharply criticizing the president , what do you make of this . Im not sure i would agree that the caucus gives a tremendous amount of support to President Trump. I would say theres a grotesque of representation of Foreign Policy approach in newspapers, donald trump did run on campaign to get out of syria, he was elected to do this will from the people to not have such entanglements and you see that so much in the newspapers and in our tv coverage, president obama, 16 times said we would never have boots on the ground in syria and yet donald trump gets elected saying he will get us out of the situation, 3 years into the presidency finally happening, you dont hear the voices articulating why thats important, why the American People want this. Howie it is true that the president talked about endless wars, the media much more concerned about syria and turkey and the kurds lets just say than most average voters . Absolutely. Thats one of the ways that the administration could move away with the policy. The president didnt win on green lighting and being perhaps in direct confrontation with russia. Howie gillian, reported by fox and Many Organizations that pentagon was blindsided by the president s move, the kurds certainly were; not a heads up to president ial allies like lindsey graham. The press seems concerned with style and geopolitical decision. At this point we dont know what theyre doing anymore. Military presence is actually working on cross purposes. A few thousand u. S. Troops stationed in u. S. Border, we knew precisely what they were doing. That deserved to be looked at first. The president tweeted today. Turkey and the kurds, air strikes and the video footage and report of atrocity. Absolutely, the turks killed one on many including an infant, they have been attack hospitals, theyve actually been hitting close by the u. S. Military installations on the ground, so the turks have been disingenuous with President Trump and with everybody about what theyre actually trying to achieve in that region. Ethnic cleansing of the kurds. Nbc richard said that President Trumps syria decision is stain on history we are seeing commentary from from a lot of people instead of doing straight news. Theres an avenue here, we dont have good purporting on the ground and that can make it hard and we are getting input and this is something we have seen across media outlet, we dont have good on the ground reporting on this. We did not have an aim of defending this, you know, this particular group of ypg fighters in their battles with erdogan. We had an agreement with them. They were helping us wipe out isis. We had shared interest to take down the isis caliphate and we accomplished that and the American People yes, they found shared interest in defeating isis and thats what the American People understood, the idea that we would change, move the goal post and have different agenda items is not something that American People signed onto that and they should say that and get the American People the goal post didnt move is the point. One missing word in all of this coverage is again, abandoning the kurds again. We did it in the early 90s in the end of the first gulf war, thats whats boiling some of the Foreign Policy circles. Howie on the point ray suarez, gillian turner, Mollie Hemingway, good to see you. The New York Times gets ripped by joe biden, the president also gets a few media roughing up the nba retaliated by single tweet backing protestors in hong kong, it ruptured some lucrative ties between beijing and probasketball, canceling events and broadcast of preseason games to be played in the country, how on earth did it come to this when cnn reporter Kristina Mcfarland tried to ask westbrook about controversy. I wonder if the events this week and the fallout whether you both feel differently about speaking out in that way in the future . Its a legitimate question. Howie are you kidding me . Sensor reporter to avoid offending china, nba later apologized to her, removing fans with prohong kong signs, problem nba commissioner adam silver began by apologizing to beijing for the rockets tweets sparking criticism that he was kowtowing to totalitarian regime. I understand that there are consequences from that exercise of in essence his freedom of speech and, you know, we will have to live with those consequences, we are not apologizing for darrell exercising his freedom of expression. Howie except you were initially apologizing and now basically trying to salvage that huge market in china. It was inevitable that the sports fan in chief would weigh in. Wrong to be putting pressure on the nba . The nba is a different thing, i watch this guy steve kerr, little boy so scared to be answering the question, he couldnt answer the question, he was shaking, i dont know. Are you okay with chinese pressuring nba over hong kong . They have to work out their information. Howie steve kerr and Gregg Popovich have criticized him in the past. Other troubling allegations about the network and Harvey Weinstein, first sean spicer on impeachment, syria and the media howie joining us now from los angeles is sean spicer, the former White House Press secretary and now Senior Adviser to the american first pac, sean im trying to remind you at white house podium asking why many media conservatives including fox and elsewhere are now castigating the president on decision on syria and kurds and military assault, this isnt one that can be blamed on liberal media, is it . No, but i think that theres two different issues, politics of it and the policy of it. When it comes to the politics on it the president has been clear that he made a commitment during campaign trail that he would get out of endless wars and you have seen him not just in syria but throughout the globe, afghanistan and else can where, talk about pulling back u. S. Troops and bringing them home after years of fighting wars that he didnt think were just or appropriately started. You have seen him take that case to the American People, he did it yesterday at speech with evangelical leaders where he talked about the fact that he is bringing troops homes and keeping commitment, thats separate than the policy of it and you see Republican Leaders and frankly leaders on Foreign Policy elsewhere, they are fighting him on the policy, the interesting thing i see in political standpoint, more credit for keeping his word than anything else because most people dont get into why we are in syria, who the kurds are and who the turks are and they understand that we have been fighting in interventions in countries for years on end and lost focus on why we are there and the president s commitment to bring them home resinates more than policy does. Howie on impeachment many journalists and pundits ratcheted up rhetoric since the president a few days said hes not cooperating with the white house investigation that he views illegitimate. I know he think he says that they are being unfair, prime opportunity to accuse the white house of stonewalling . It does give them an opening, i dont know that its fair, if you look both at nixon and clinton impeachment, the house did vote and certain formalities that are afford today that, to the president then in terms of being able to call witnesses having due process, philosophy and democrats want to have it both ways and talk about impeachment and they dont want to put 31 democrats in trump seats on the record as far as what theyre going to vote and easy to say stuff and to go through the motions without actually having to call a spade a spade and thats where i think that they are playing and pelosi want to talk about where they dont want to put records, and you can move forward and its a different game. Put your remembers on the record, she knows that shes been swaging far left right now but shes trying to have it both ways and walk the tight rope and not put democrats at risk and her majority. Howie speaking of the democrats, the president says again and again that the prez which he now calls the corrupt media is partners with the democrats in this whole impeachment investigation and do you buy that, do you think its true of all journalists . Well, ive never ive always said that you dont throw the baby with bath water, theres a lot of journalists that dont do a good job, a lot of journalists take things to extreme, i dont think its smart to cast all of the journalists with the same broad brush because you cant hold up the ones that do do a good job and there are several, if you look back to mollies point a moment ago with respect to syria, you have a lot of journalists even with respect to syria policy decision who are coming out and giving their own opinion, richard angle example was spot on, hes talking about it being a stain, thats not reporting, thats commentary, youre seeing the same thing with impeachment, they are shielding hunter biden and joe biden from their past while going after the president and theres a fair question to ask why did hunter biden get 50,000 a month from Ukrainian Energy company when he had no experience in the energy field whatsoever, the only experience he had was being son of sitting Vladimir Putin that was leading in ukrainian issues. Howie absolutely fair question to ask. Absolutely, i agree with you. Howie, here is the difference, not just asking the question but i read commentary over and over again in some of the news stories where itll say biden did nothing wrong, well, thats not their job, we dont know if biden did or didnt do anything, we dont know why hunter biden got that job, for journalists to make assertion, basically them coming to defense of democrats and biden without knowing the facts, its amazing how they rush to defend biden and immediately crucify the president. Howie distinction between appearance of getting all the money with no experience which stinks and criminal wrongdoing, youre still in dancing with the stars, you dropped curse words and had to be bleeped, what were you thinking . No, thats not accurate. If you go fake news . Fake news . Well, i did not, no, i was excited but i didnt howie okay. Im i am definitely excited to go out every week but ive heard the live version of this. Howie all right. Great to see you as always, thanks so much. Thanks, howie. Howie we will watch him dancing, coming up joe biden calls for impeachment, slams the New York Times really and why conservative journalists are so divided over the trump presidency, jon information a presidency, jon information a goldberg is up great weather, great friends. You just saved a bunch of money by switching your boat insurance to geico. It was easy. Folks, can it get any better than this . Is that what i think it is . That is an armada of tiny sushi boats. Awesome i forgot to pack lunch. You had one job. Chopsticks wasabi and soy comin in a little hot. It only gets better when you switch and save with geico. Joe biden who came out for impeachment the other day was unhappy with New York Times as Deputy Campaign chief firing up a letter over its coverage of the allegations about hunter biden profiting from the family name in ukraine and elsewhere, the paper played outside role in smeared campaign, baseless Conspiracy Theory spread by the likes of breitbart and russia propaganda before stories like times reporter ken vogul, joining us joe, onna goldberg, launched conservative news site, so what explains the Biden Campaign is so outraged, allegations appearing by hunter biden. You know, builds himself as investigative conservative reporter, associated with breitbart and one of the guys who has pushed a lot of the ukraine stuff into the media bloodstream. Published an oped. I agree, oped pages are different. Pinned up raged from the coverage its had in the past. Where is hunter . Hes now quit the board of the chinese backed Investment Firm and he wont do any foreign business if his dad wins the presidency. I mentioned earlier biden and impeachment, one to have last ones, take a look at it. I believe he should be impeached, we have to remember that an impeachment isnt only about what the president has done, its about the president and the threat of president composing the nation. So biden is dropping like a rock, i dont think he is going to make it. Howie should the prez focusing that hes not doing any interviews and just doing speeches. He doesnt give good interviews. He doesnt give good speeches very much. He has lost the step. I think one of the reasons he had to come out for impeachment, first of all the base demands it and second of all, his experience is basic the biden name is at the center of the case for impeachment and very difficult for him to sort of tap into that excitement among democrats unless hes actually for impeachment, t a political for him whether impeachment makes sense, makes sense to call on it. Howie why is it that so many conservatives in the media have felt really free to pounce him on this issue unlike so many others . I think its indefensible on two levels, first of all the policy is indefensible, President Trump is right to brag about how he helped me defeat isis and clear out isis but one of the prices that we paid for clearing out isis was making a commitment to the kurds that we were going to honor commitments to the kurds and so i think just on a policy level, literally detraying the kurds is outrageous and indefensible but the way the policies was implemented, if this was your end goal, policy that you want to pursue, build support for it, make the case for congress, work within bureaucracy and pentagon, dont blind side them all and throw them in the last minute. Howie what explains the fact that so many commentators, journalists on the right as well, a number of republicans feel its okay to criticize the president on this sharply whereas on many other issues they are pretty much supporting him . Well, i think first of all, on the actual policy itself theres just legitimate concern about it but beyond that politically, this also gives you an excuse to say, hey, look, im not in the tank for the president , i criticized him on this stuff but i also think impeachment is unwarranted. Hes not attacking them in a way that you think he would on some issues. Howie you will report news and commentary, doesnt come through the filter of the mainstream media, do you mean that many conservative colleagues have become cheerleaders for this president . I think that theres a lot of cheerleading going on particularly on the opinion side of things, particularly sort of pundit side of things, one of the things that we have seen inn the last 40 years is that the parties have gotten much weaker, a lot of people in the media have taken party function and carry water for party and some of the oped research is fine, look into what the other side is doing, that kind of stuff doesnt offend me in any way, but i also think that theres a place for committed conservatives like steve and i and the people who are hiring to hold our side accountable from time to time. Howie we will be watching with interest, jona goldberg. The bombshell accusation against matt lauer new on the record allegation by exstaffer that matt lauer raped her years ago and response from former colleagues . You know, this is shockingsing and appalling and i honestly dont even know what to say about it. Allegations of a crime and i think thats shocking to all of us here that sat with matt for many, many years. There were multiple secret settlements years before, over a period of 6 to 7 years, a period on which on matt lauer . 7 nondisclosure agreements, this is years before this incident and the firing and i spoke to Senior Executives who were told about the earlier incidents. With matt lauer . Indeed. Lauer fired 24 after accusation, confidential settlements over the years and Harvey Weinstein essentially threatening to reveal some allegations about lauer. How bad does it damage the credibility . Immensely. They may be deploying careful legal language but reconcile the specific reporting which based on what hes told us about his book and what has come out from the book in news outlets it is very specific, well sourced, based on documentation, to say hes seen settlements and multiple ones is almost impossible to reconcile with nbcs story, nbc did not do independent review, they did not hire an outside group to examine what happened with the matt lauer case. Other news outlets back in the height of me too, nbc did not do that. Howie obviously many media organizations including fox, cbs and others have problems with these kinds of accusations and settlement, nbc staffers, while she was very drunk matt lauer anally raped her and is it too late for matt lauer who says it was a mistake to remain silent to redeem his reputation . I dont think theres an opportunity for matt lauer to redeem reputation, he has every right to defend himself but not be persuasive to anyone and i doubt actually frankly that it would have been persuasive to anybody at the time. Howie theres a hillary an toll this, Harvey Weinstein was big democratic donor, seeking her cooperation or interview on Foreign Policy book and according to farrell hillary spokesman called farrell, big story that youre working on, its a concern to us, show it shows tentacles on Harvey Weinstein. We should not take a single call, they told us to cancel interviews, the question for years has been why. Howie now farrell not only did nbc spiked the story, he left and went to new yorker, a month later he published a piece that won pulitzer prize, he had women on the record, taped confession from weinstein in groping incident but andy says the story was lacking insufficient evidence, who is winning this argument . I think farrell is winning the argument, producer backs him up and key piece that farrell had famous audiotape when he was working at story for nbc, he had audio clip, taped confession, nbc by own admissions didnt think the story was worth pursuing in a certain time frame. Howie trying to get in hotel of italian model. That would seem to be a story. Pulling back and, you know, thats huge, you dont have that audio clip and not go, peddle to the metal on a story like that. Important piece of the farrell pusle, the producer backs him up on this that weinstein had stuff on matt lauer. A lot more to unpack here, thank you so much for joining us, still to come shep smith is leaving fox news, we will look at his surprised shepherd smith has been anchor since understand launch stunned the media world with announcement on friday. Recently i asked the company to allow me to leave fox news after requesting that i say they obliged, its my hope that the facts will win the day and the truth will always matter, that journalism and journalists will thrive. Im shepherd smith fox news new york. Tributes poured to sean hannity. Fox news president jay wallace called him newscasters of generation. Better newsman you probably cannot find, a bigger more emotionally connect today connected that you cannot find. Howie there were praise from rival network, its no secret that President Trump was no fan of shep, sometimes jabbing him on twitter and on friday he made sarcastic comment on departure questioning on ratings even though he was number one in time slot. A new direction for fox, when shep approached management last month and said he we wanted to step down and he was asked to reconsider. Thats a fact. Whether or not you like shep smith outspoken to factchecking the white house this is an extraordinary newsman, one who loves spending hours on the air when hurricane struck and he left his mark. Thats it for this edition of media because im howard kurtz, i think youll enjoy daily pod as and you can subscribe at apple itunes, goggle play, fox news podcast. Com or like facebook page, we post daily columns and original videos and lets continue the conversation on twitter with so much to talk about in this crazy news environment, we are back here, you know the time, we will see you then with the latest heather good morning to you, monday october 14, happening at 4 00 a. M. On the east coast. Nearly a thousand detainees roaming free as the fight in syria reaches a boiling point, what this means for u. S. Security and how the president is teaming up with congress to tackle the crisis. Joe biden backing his son hunter after he resigns from the board of a chinese company. No one in my Family Associated with me will be involved in any foreign operation whatsoever, period, end of story