Howard donald trump and nancy pelosi in a war of words as the media ramp up impeachment coverage and side with the speaker who accuses the president of losing his composure. Trumps meltdown, democrats walking out of a meeting after the president rails against it. I think he is losing it. I mean, i think he is feeling the pressure of this impeachment. I think that the Democratic Leaders actually look like petulant children. He called her a third rate politician. Of course, the president s right, her partys derangeed, psychotic, the hate trump agenda is all that matters in her world. Howard and as more diplomats testify about trump and Rudy Giuliani on ukraine, is the press downplaying republican charges of unfairness . Hunter biden sits down with abc to try to neutralize the allegations against him, airing hours before the democratic debate. Do you regret being on the board to begin with . What i regret is not taking into account that there would be a Rudy Giuliani and a president of the United States that would be listening to this ridiculous conspiracy idea. Howard the cnn and New York Times moderators go easy on joe biden with those allegations. Plus, ronan farrow presses his case against nbc for spike being his Harvey Weinstein expose. The News Organization ordered us to stop, to not take so much as a call and to cancel interviews in some cases with alleged rape victims. Howard and why, given his family history, this is, for him, a very personal mission. Im howard kurtz, and this is mediabuzz. Howard it was a rare briefing in the White House Press room, and Mick Mulvaney fielding questions of why President Trump withheld military aid to ukraine stunned the media world with this add mission about his boss he also mentioned to me thats the corruption related to the dnc server . Absolutely. No question about that. But thats it. Thats why we held up the money. What you just described is a quid pro quo. It is funding will not flow unless the investigation into the democratic server happened as well. We do that all the time with Foreign Policy. Howard but the acting chief of staff changed his tune in a statement just hours later. Quote the media has decided to misconstrue my comments to advance a biased and political witch hunt against President Trump. Let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian Military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election. He was defending himself this morning on fox. Joining us now to analyze the cover, ben domenech, cheryl attkisson, host of full measure, and reese juarez, former correspondent for the pbs newshour. So mulvaney says there was a connection between military aid to ukraine, between investigating 016 including 2016 including a dnc server. Does it wash for mulvaney to turn around and blame it on the press . I think this was an example of one of the tried and true elements of politics in media when you accidentally say the true thing. He read the soft part loud [laughter] in front of the media. I think that one thing we do need to make clear here is that historically we actually do make sorts of demands and conditions when it comes to the aid we send to other nations. We do whether its the grantmaking process, when its gone through the congressional process and others. But the real core of this question is about the president doing that connected to his own political domestic experience here and wanting to get manager out of ukraine that would something out of ukraine that would benefit him politically. Not the broader concerns that have been existent across multiple administrations about the level of corruption weve seen historically in ukraine. Howard anticipated my question to you. It usually means using aid as leverage to advance American National interests, in this case the criticism is, obvious, that it was to advance the president s personal political interests. I think it depends on who you listen to. Once that statement was made, who are you talking about when you say they made incorrect conclusions depends on the analyst. I do think some people made a leap that then claimed there had been an add mission that President Trump admission that thats what the aid holdup howard said it was a confession. Yes x. Thats not what was said with that statement. Howard Mick Mulvaney is usually very smooth with reporters. He had to clean up this mess, and he said media misconstrued, witch hunt. Can that work when there are cameras there and were able to play the exchanges over and over . If youre insisting that the thing you just heard me said is say is something i didnt say, youre playing a weak hand. And dont blame the sharks after you throw a couple of hundred pounds of chum in the water. This is what he did. And to come back now and say its been misconstrued, its plain. T its on 0s and 1s, we dont use tape anymore. When you say this is the thing my side of the game has been saying we didnt do for weeks, we did it. Get over it, get over it. Howard im sure some will appreciate your reference to journalists as sharks. On Fox News Sunday he said he didnt say it, Chris Wallace said he did. He said i realize folks misinterpreted what i said, and by the way, there are all these leaks that, oh, President Trump is considering replacing him, this is what happens when you get in trouble. Let me move on to the media going bonkers over Donald Trumps decision to hold next years g7 at the doral miami, hes pulled the plug, said he was reversing his decision based on both media and democrat crazed and irrational hostility. This was pretty widely condemnedded. A couple of things. Remember, President Trump has enemies within the republican party, so both parties dislike a certain decision, theres more to it than just the fact that President Trump is, obviously, wrong. Sometimes maybe he is, but theres more to it. But i do think there is a school of thought im not saying this is the case that President Trump knows how to throw hand grenades into the mix to get a discussion about Something Else going a certain way. And he knew that the medias head would spin off its body once this was knowns announced, and it did. Howard i think he had to know that he could ride out the storm. Mulvaney said the president was surprised at the intensity of the backlash, but there the you have it. It seems to me this is something that would have been obvious to might be talking to the president about this idea, especially in the context of this political moment in which republicans have been hammering on the selfdealing part of potentially joe biden and his son. It cuts totally against the narrative that republicans have been attempting howard so let me ask you about, the other day seems like six weeks ago that President Trump met at the white house with the Democratic Leaders, nancy pelosi and her colleagues walked out. Lets play some sound from the exchange that happened when the meeting was suddenly cut short. He was insulting. Particularly to the speaker. She kept her cool completely. But he called her a third rate politician. On the part of the president was a meltdown, sad to say. Howard and the president then tweeted a picture from the meeting with the headline nervous nancys unhinged meltdown, so we have mutual accusations. And i wonder whether much in the media were quick to adopt the idea that the president had melted down as the democrats claim. You know, are we supposed to be surprised that theres a bad relationship between the speaker of the house and the president that she is working now to impeach . I mean, come on. This is not something that should surprise us at this point. And, frankly, you know, the keg a rahation of this relationship degradation of this relationship has been a long time coming. I think this is just reaching a new low, and its going to continue to get worse. The process of impeachment is going to lead to a totally toxic atmosphere not just between them, but between all republicans and democrats. Howard theres a rumor that trump is losing it, and if that is true im not adopting the meltdown language he is under daily assault over impeachment, over syria, its kind of a twofront war, actually a threefront war when you consider the doral country club. Look, thats armchairly e dick louseness. And a ridiculousness, and apart from his doctor, who knows . Writing stories about this with this as the core content of the story the, its watch what he does, not what he says and what effect it has on issues. Thats the way to cover this. I think like so many things this is a rorschach test. What you see out of the News Coverage of everything thats happening howard put that picture up while youre talking so we can see something that actually has been called a rorschach. You see nancy pelosi doing the right thing if youre a fan, taking on trump, or you see the opposite, President Trumps doing the right thing and shes having a meltdown. When you operate at def con 10 for two years and theres nowhere to go from there, higher than 10 when the scale is 110, youve left yourself nowhere to go. Howard yeah. I think the frustrating thing is that the countrys leaders cant even have a civil meeting about syria, that was the topic, without it degenerating into, certainly, there were insults and mutual charges of meltdown. Ben, this week we had testimony where john bolton was having called Rudy Giuliani a hand grenade, the ambassador told the house he was disappointed when trump told him to work with giuliani on ukraine. What about republican complaint that the democrats are doing all behind closed doors, confidential and then leaking out selected tidbits . I think this is a valid complaint, and if the conventional wisdom in washington today is that we are going to see impeachment possibly by thanksgiving, certainly by christmas, that its going to progress forward. And yet in all of this stuff still happening behind closed doors with selective leaks howard which, of course, the media are happy to gobble up. They are happy, but its unfair to the American People. And one of the things that were seeing right now, obviously, in polled evidence is that the impeachment number is settle around the same number of whether you approve of the president or not. And thats something that i think if democrats really wanted to change that, if they wanted to see that shift in a way that would favor impeachment, they need to come forward with this stuff. They need to be more transparent, have these conversations in public and, frankly, theyre not talking about evidence theres no evidence that theyre talking about things that need to be classified, that need to be behind closed doors. The American People ought to be able to judge this for themselves and not rely on selective leaks. Howard the press is calling this a shadow Foreign Policy, giuliani on behalf of the president. Is that fair . President s have used private envoys in other cases. Giuliani is under investigation and his Business Associates have been arrested for helping in ukraine. This is not a guy from some white shoe law firm that you dispatch from the oval office. This is a guy whos been trolling the former soviet union and the somer warsaw pact nations for years, picking up clients, doing deals, signing huge consultancy contracts. He is not just some lawyer. Howard so youre saying the media criticism is fair. He was freelancing Foreign Policy for the president , a president who had an ambassador in kiev and who has a Foreign Policy team whose advice he routinely ignores. Howard he did replace the ambassador in kiev. Now, before we go to break, world news tonight and gma were reporting on turkish airstrikes in syria when they ran this report one week since President Trump ordered u. S. Forces out of that region, effectively abandoning u. S. Ial i lies allies. This appears to show Turkey Bombing civilians. Howard that was taken from a kentucky gun range, abc ran an online correction saying it regrets the error. I cant disagree, how on earth did this happen . When we come back, the president hails the ceasefire in syria as a victory, but the media say thats way off base. And later, dana perino with her exclusive sitdown with mark exclusive sitdown with mark i will always be ready. For every storm. And disaster that threatens my community. I will always be there to protect my neighbors. And my country. We are the Army National guard. Visit nationalguard. Com to learn more about parttime service. Howard the headlines called it a turning point as twothirds of congressmen disapproved of President Trumps pullout in syria. The president has doggedly defended his decision. Involved in a war between turkey if you look at the kurds. And, again, i say this with great respect. Theyre no angels. Howard after brokering a shaky and temporary ceasefire with turkey, trump proclaimed a victory for civilization. This is an amazing outcome. This is an outcome, regardless of how the press this was something theyve been trying to get for ten years. You would have lost millions and millions of lives. Howard carol, we have the president saying this is a great victory, amazing outcome, saying the kurds are happy. But reporting from the region says then tens of thousands of kurdish soldiers and others are fleeing this now turkishcontrolled region in syria with nowhere to go. This is an important point. P i, unlike almost every reporter, journalist and analyst ive heard the past couple of weeks, am not a geopolitical expert with the complex knowledge to comment whats right between syria expect kurds. Howard right. But i have found a dearth, variety of opinions about the topic, and i recently spoke to a former obama ambassador to the mideast region who told me things that just i havent heard anybody say on television such as he was shocked anybodys surprised. He said this was an obama guy, by the way that President Trump has consistently spoken since 2016 of his desire to do this, that the message on the ground was supposed to be that we were going to do this, and this diplomat heard that trumps own people, Administration People were delivering the opposite message on the ground, telling people we were going to stay there. Theres some Serious Problems with that that are bigger than what were looking at when you hear 99. 9 in one direction. Howard yeah. Interesting perspective. But it is true that on the right a majority of conservative journalists, commentators have hit the president pretty hard on syria. Not to mention republicans on the hill. Mitch mcconnell has an oped in the hill saying grave mistake. Its not the usual. The republicans in congress and, frankly, the commentator set that you see in the news are not representative of republican Voter Opinion or necessarily of american opinions regarding this. Look, you know, this is a difficult situation. Youre caught between a nato ally and turkey, a treaty ally, and a military ally in the kurds who are, frankly, a stateless people who are occupying, you know, other areas of land within dispute. Youre caught between a lot of different moving parts, and yet the opinion is all generally going in one direction. And i find that to be really troubling in this day and age, that we havent taken a step back from the last two decades of activity in the middle east which, clearly, the American People have soured on, and maybe injected some additional opinions into the mix, opinions that would be more representative of what we see from the American People and less just the conventional approach that Washington Republicans have had for years. Howard i think thats a fair point, ray. And while the media say is cease phi, both sides accusing each other of violating, you cant call it an accomplishment because consensus in the press is the president is trying to repair the damage that he caused byfect ily giving erdogan the green light to do this invasion. But much in the foreign media tend to be promilitary action. Your take. The kurds have been reliable allies when their goals are in sync with that of the United States. So in western iraq, they created a peaceful, decent operating zone without the kind of mayhem that was going on in baghdad and in the areas controlled by shia militias. And they had a lot of support on capitol hill, men like barzani would come to washington, go to all the think tanks. They had a lot of hooks howard now. Look, a similar thing was happening in northeastern syria. It was pacified. It was operative. Schools were opening. People were eating three meals a day. Howard right. So kicking down this house of cards, no. The situation in syria could not have gone on forever the way it was two weeks ago, but this ending was not what anybody on either side of the Foreign Policy establishment howard and briefly, cheryl, i mean, what gets far less anticipation from the media is that donald trump ran against endless wars. He doesnt want american troops in turkey or other places. And thats a popular stance with americans. I think it is. Youre hearing from, as we pointed out, a lot of establishment figures. Sometimes its not a whole lot of difference on some issues between republicans and democrats when youre talking about establishment figures, and theres also not a lot of context given to the notion that in some instances, maybe not a lot of them, there are financial interests in play, military contractors i can tell you and militaryconnected people that are really fighting this supposed potential pullout in afghanistan. So theres more context. Very quickly, that endless wars thing . Those american troops being pulled out of syria, where are they going . Iraq and saudi arabia. Theyre not coming home. Howard its a complicated geopolitical discussion. Great to see you all this morning. Ahead, hunter biden, why a violent video showing donald trump gunning down his media and political detractors is anything but a satire. Howard im buzzed off about that video depicting a trump character murdering and attacking political opponents and media outlets. Its beyond sickening. These included cnn, cbs, nbc, pbr, pbs, the npr, adam schiff, rosie ecodonnell and the late john mccain. Rosie odonnell. Of course, some liberal commentators not buying trumps explanation and some anger on the right as well. What are the chances donald trump has not seen that video . That is code language for his followers that he hasnt condemned the video. How easy for all of you judging me that im offended and upset by the video. A member of your family has continued to have this happen over and over and over again. Howard but a few pundits on the right said this video was harmless, this was payback for the taunting of conservatives. So let me get to the part about two wrongs dont make a right when Kathy Griffin whos also in this video staged a spectacle with a severed trumplike head, i denounced her. When shakespeare in central park portrayed a trumplike figure was killed, i denounced that too. Trumps Miami Golf Club was promoted by provocateurs, one said it was clearly satirical. Heres the thing trump, the video character, opened fire in the church of fake news. There were pews there. Sorry, but when we weve all lived through a Church Massacre in South Carolina and a synagogue massacre in pittsburgh, i dont see the satire. Lawyers for the Trump Campaign have sent cnn a letter threatening to sue the network for unfair, unfounded, unethical and up lawful attacks. Cnn says this is a pr stunt and doesnt merit a response. Such a lawsuit against a public figure without showing reckless mistakes would face heavy odds if, indeed, its ever filed. Ahead, ronan farrow and the increasingly bitter dispute about nbc sparking his article. But first, how cnn handled joe biden and the others at the danny let me get this straight. After a long day of hard work. You have to do more work . 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The 1 choice o cos i know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams here i go again on my you realize your vows are a whitesnake song . I do. If you ride, you get it. Geico motorcycle. 15 minutes could save you 15 or more. Howard everyone knew that joe biden would finally face questions about his son making big bucks from the ukrainian gas giant at the cnn New York Times debate, so to blunt the impact, hunter biden agreed to an interview that just happened to air the morning of the debate. You never thought this might not look like . You know what . Did i make a mistake, well, maybe in the grand scheme of things, yeah. But did i make a mistake based upon some unethical lapse . Absolutely not. Howard that night in ohio, heres how Anderson Cooper framed the question. President trump has falsely accused your son of doing something wrong while serving on a company in ukraine. Theres no evidence of wrongdoing. If its not okay for a president s family to be involved in a foreign business, why was it okay for your son when you were Vice President . Vice President Biden . Look, my son did nothing wrong, i did nothing wrong. My sons statement speaks for itself. He spoke about it today. Howard joining us to analyze the coverage in new york, bob sexton, and here in the washington, marla National Political reporter for npr. What do you make of Anderson Cooper declaring in advice that biden and his son had done nothing wrong . It wasnt a good moment at all for Anderson Cooper. If you think hes an objective journalist i dont, so it didnt surprise me. Look, the fact of the matter is that you could make the case that theres nothing criminal in what we already know hunter biden did. But hunter biden has admitted that he messed up. So to say there was no wrong here, there was no wrongdoing is just not in keeping with the facts. And i think thats where you see cnn trying to help effectively make this go away with for the person whos the democrat frontrunner still which that, i do, find surprising. Hunter biden got this job knowing that its because of who his father was. The same as the job in china which, by the way, he just stepped down from that board. And for the media to try and make this go away just adds to the narrative that theyre playing favorites and theyre not trying to be neutral party, which i dont think they are. Howard fine to say no criminal wrong doing, but yeah, probably should have said that. Howard yeah. Hunter bidens appearance, here you have the former Vice President praising hunters judgment, but hunter told amy robach hes guilty of poor judgment, he gave ammo e to his fathers opponents. So here you have joe biden pointing to his son, but he was willing to admit some screwups. Yeah. The question that Anderson Cooper asked biden, which is if you dont like this president s children benefiting, you know, ivanka trump got all sorts of trademarks from china, why was it okay for hunter to do that howard that was a good question. Which biden did not answer. Now, that is the legitimate question. The appearance of impropriety. Put aside any criminality for which there is no evidence at this point, and i dont think biden answered the question. But also none of the other candidates pressed that. None of them, including the anticorruption candidate Elizabeth Warren. Howard yeah. There was dovenning silence deafening silence. It was reported that diplomat george kent testified that he raised concerns about the ukraine job back in 2015 and was brushed off by a biden staff ther. Fox covered this a lot. Msnbc covered it next day twice that we could find, two sentences in uninstance, one question to a congressman in the other. Doesnt fit the narrative, perhaps . [laughter] i think thats absolutely the problem for them. Look, anybody that is paying attention to this knows that hunter biden, with no expertise in natural gas, with no expertise in ukraine, while his father is the point man on Foreign Policy there, had to know in advance, okay, he had to know that this looked really bad and really gross. Apparently, there was this Quick Exchange with joe biden where he said, you know, i hope you know what youre doing. He was cashing in on who his father was at the time, and i just think that from the media perspective we went through this whole charade when Hillary Clinton was running in 2016 that some of the stuff with the Clinton Foundation didnt look again, theres a difference between ethical and legal it didnt look preposterous. Bill clinton getting these checks from different foreign entities while hes supposed to be running a charity, and then the donations completely collapsed in 2016. Those of us who were skeptical, this time around theyre doing the same thing. Oh, hunter biden, nobody could have known. Everybody knew. Howard i want to play another sound bite from the debate. Mark lacy of the New York Times pressing Elizabeth Warren on the cost of her health care plan. Will you raise taxes on the middle class for, to pay for it, yes or no . Senator warren, would you acknowledge what the senator just said about taxes going up . So my view on this and what i have committed to is costs will go down for hard working middle class families. Howard he tried three times and when he said a what the senator just said, he was referring to Bernie Sanders who howard wrote the damn bill. Because she says im with bernie on health care who had just helpfully or maybe not just reminded everyone that his plan does raise taxes for the middle class. Dont kid yourself. He did that to undercut her. Howard well, i give the reporter credit for trying. Amy klobuchar, it was left to her to bring up, hey, this would throw 150 Million People shes now the can cofrontrunner, shes coming under the kind of scrutiny she hasnt up until now. Howard she took a lot of flak. The pundits were unanimous saying Elizabeth Warren is now the frontrunner because she got the most most attacks. Does it really matter given within hours we were back to covering impeach. And the debate vanished from the airwaves . These debates are one step at a time. Theres still four months to go. Dynamic is shifting slowly. Now all of a sudden the other candidates ignoring joe biden, thats going to get more and more howard ratings went down for this debate. Buck, last question, ive got about half a minute. I thought the moderators were fine, but most of the questions seemed to be from the left. Should buybacks take guns off the street, should we pack the Supreme Court to protect abortion, and then everybody got to beat up on trump over impeachment. Your thoughts. I just think theyre going to have to be careful with this because if they try to go back to the center, things like having every democrat raise their hand in an earlier debate when they said they would pay for health care for illegals, these farleft positions appeal to the base, i think they appeal to cnns audience. They may raise issues when they actually have to get undecided voters, moderates, independents. Right now its ratingsdriven. Howard great discussion. Nice to see you. After the break, ronan farrow tells fox that nbc didnt act journalistically. The Network Calls that a smear. Thats it. Thats next. If you have medicare, listen up. The medicare enrollment deadline is only weeks away. With so many changes, do you know if your plan is still the right fit . Having the wrong plan may cost you thousands of dollars out of pocket. And thats why i love healthmarkets, your Insurance Marketplace. 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In an interview with bret baier, he talked about growing up as the son of woody allen and how that may have affected his work on sexual harassment. I very openly discuss in this book how i myself struggled with this painful part of my history, how it was weaponized against me by people like Harvey Weinstein. His sister was sexually assaulted, so he cant report on these stories objectively. That is not the case. Its not what any journalist has thought. What is the case is that i cared about this issue profoundly. Howard joining us now from new york, kat timpf, and i always wondered whether his background had kind of propelled him toward this crusade of investigative work on sexual misconduct. It was bracing to hear him say that Harvey Weinstein and others have used it against him in an attempt to discredit him. Hes pretty candid. Absolutely. And i think thats something thats totally unfair because the truth is these are the things that are more pervasive than many people realize because people dont talk about them. They dont talk about them for many reasons, because theyre uncomfortable, they could be afraid of not being believed or, in some cases, people have signed ndas and they cant talk about it even if they want to. So it was disqualifying being close to someone whos been sexually assaulted, if that disqualifies you, then no one would be able to report on them. Howard now, the responses to bret seemed very measured. He said he included nbcs side, matt lauers side in his book and Hillary Clintons side. Hes worked for her at the state department after reporting that it felt like a gut punch that Hillary Clintons people tried to pressure him to stand down against weinstein who, of course, was one of her big donors. How do you think hes coming off in this sort of war of words against nbc . I think that the revelation that powerful men have structural protection if they decide to use their power to abuse women, for a lot of people thats not really a revelation at all. Its more like an expose on the sky being blue. I think people see this and they, you know, may have experienced something similar in the workplace or they know someone who has experienced something similar in the workplace. And again, because of ndas, i think one of the issues is that it actually prevents the people who know the most about this issue, unfortunately knowing about it because theyve been through it, from being able to speak about it. So i think that theres a lot missing from the conversation. I think these things are shocking because theyre being talked about, but theyre not really as shocking as many people might think. Howard well, that leads to my next question which is nbc news president Noah Oppenheim insists he and other executives had no prior knowledge of allegations against matt lauer, but ronan comes back and says, well, there were secret settlements, some of them with lauer accusers, and theyre vague we dont know how much money was paid out to these women. And unlike when fox news and cbs and other media analysts grappled with similar problems of misconduct by executives and others here and there, theres been no outside investigation by nbc. Right, absolutely. And so were supposed to trust nbc saying that nbc didnt do anything wrong. I dont think that that applies in any situation. I mean, when people do things that are wrong often times theyll say, not me, i didnt do that. And thats why you do need an outside investigation. I think that if nbc really didnt know, then why not vindicate itself with that outside investigation . But the fact that theres never been one speaks volumes. Howard can kat, just a quick answer on this. Does the criticism of the network sting because the network has never been able to convincingly explain why it abandoned the story two years ago that kicked off the me too era. Yeah, absolutely. And its not doing a good job of explain it now either. Its kind of a blanket denial, no explanation. And, again, independent investigation necessary. Howard all right. On that note, great discussion, thank you so much, kat timpf. Good to see you. Still to come, why is facebook refusing to police live political ads . Dana peep know on her live conversati heres to the straggly ones. The first ones. The hey, i look good with this ones. The black, brown, red, and grey ones. The itchy ones. The ones grown by dad. The ones grown for dad. The i nearly didnt do it this year ones. And the absolutely filthy ones. They all raise awareness. Raise funds. Start conversations and save lives. cos whatever you grow, will save a bro learn more at movember. Com howard Mark Zuckerberg has been having small, off the record dinners with pundits to counter criticism that facebook discriminates against the right. The guests have included ben shapiro, tucker carlson, guy benson, cnns Mary Katherine hamm and hue hewitt. Dana perino asked zuckerberg whether Silicon Valley is buys buys biased against california. Look, california is an overwhelmingly leftleaning place, so i understand why people would ask the question are my ideas getting a fair shake. And all that i can say on this is this is something i care deeply about. Howard i spoke earlier to the host of the Daily Briefing and cocohost of the five from new york. Dana, welcome. Thanks for having me. Howard facebook has occasionally had to apolo squeeze for selective punishment against conservatives. Do you have the sense that Mark Zuckerberg is deeply concerned or is he doing a Charm Offensive . I think every morning he wakes up, and he has so many problems that he has to deal with, and the perception that the company is biased against conservatives has certainly been manager that he had to deal with. You know, back in 2016, you know, one of the things we talked about is part of the response, the dealing with the perceived bias against conservatives. They changed out the whole news and it cost them 100 billion in one day. He said it was worth it because they really needed to make a change. Sometimes that is a problem. I do think that he takes it very seriously because he knows that a lot of conservatives are on facebook and are actually doing quite well on facebook. A a great example is our commander in chief, President Trump. Howard well, facebook has decided not to police the content of political ads which has drawn a lot of criticism from democrats about certain trump ads. You asked zuckerberg about this. Take a look. I just think in a democracy its important for people to see for themselves what politicians are saying. And, you know, political speeches are the most scrutinized speech that is out there. So thats already happening. Howard so i know its a murky area, but how does a tech company decide that it will allow content that might be filled with lies by either side and then zuckerberg just kind of throws up his hands and says, free speech, you guys figure it out . Maybe there should be some rules, and i think youll see a debate about that going forward. About a month ago, facebook put out a policy saying we are going to take a stand and make a policy that politicians should be able to put out their information and that we are not going to decide what is true and what is false. Now, that has upset some on the left, in particular senator warren being the leading charge on this which is to say how can you in good conscience, Mark Zuckerberg, put up an ad that you know is false. This is what i would say to that howard i think its a mistake for a company that has taken so much heat for allowing misinformation and propaganda in its news feed, but your thoughts . Again though, who do you want policing whats truth or not . So, for example, are they going to get into with a situation where every time Senate Warren puts out an ad about medicare for all and she describes how she would pay for it and lets say somebody from the Trump Campaign says thats not true, you should take that ad down, i mean, this would be a never ending saga. And i think what Mark Zuckerberg is saying is lets take a step back. Bigger picture. Is america for free speech . Is that one of our greatest values . Howard zuckerberg was caught on a leaked audiotape for saying if Elizabeth Warren was president that would, quote, suck. But can you really blame him . Anybody who has a company doesnt want it broken up, and they will try to make arguments against it. Mark zuckerberg says he absolutely will try to do that. I think for some people youd think, well, why would you break up facebook . Like, are a hundred more facebooks going to be better . Better for competition . Possibly. But i think theyre going to have a really hard time making that argument unless donald trump decides to get behind it because there could be wisconsin partisan bipartisan support for it. Howard finally, just briefly, how did you get this interview . Yes. I had an opportunity to participate in some of this Media Outreach that hes been doing behind closed doors which is, basically, open up to people a little bit. You dont see him very often. Its not his natural habitat. Hes very polite. He is so thoughtful. He is a genius. But going out and doing media interviews is not something that he likes to do, so we really appreciated that he gave fox news an exclusive interview and so much time in order to ask him lots of questions. Howard fascinating conversation. Dana perino, thanks for joining us. Thank, howie. Howard thats it for us. Im howard kurtz, i hope youll subscribe to my podcast at apple i tubes, google play or fox news podcast. Com. Now, just a personal note, i was here late the other night covering the democratic debate going on the air, but i had another tv going, and it had the Washington Nationals game. And i was watching at the nats beat the cardinals to get into the world series, and i gotta say, at times the game packed a lot more punch than the threehour debate. I kept turning off the sound. Dont tell anybody. When i moved to d. C. , there was no baseball teem. There was no Baseball Team here for 33 years. The last time there was a washington franchise in the world series, 19 33. You know who threw out the first ball . Fdr. I was watching Fox News Sunday, and he had a special guest come out. You see teddy roosevelt, one of the four president s who made the rounds at the nationals game. World series fever here in the nations capital. Hope youll join us 11 eastern next sunday, see you then with the latest monday october october 21st, 3 soldiers dead and 3 wounded after Armored Vehicle flips over in water during training. Carley secretary of defense making unexpected visit to afghanistan at the same time as nancy pelosi and secret delegation of lawmakers, what it means for peace talks with the taliban . Tulsi gabbard taking aim at Hillary Clinton for calling her a russian agent. Do you stand up against hillary and the party power brokers, they will destroy you and discredit your message