Dirt. I think its pretty clear that House Democrats are operating under the assumption, if you dont persuade, lie, lie again. I thought it was devastating to the president of the United States beth shortterm and longterm. Parts of the impeachment proceedings had been boring. Howie does the commentary share partisan and ratings dropping and lev parnas, trump tells him the ambassador of ukraine should go. Trump says nobody likes hillary. Look at the feuding thats riling up the democratic race heading into the iowa caucus, plus, some personal thoughts on the passing of jim hehrer, im howard kurtz and this is peddia buzz. Media buzz. Howie President Trump denouncing impeachment trial and unloading on one of his favorite targets, the media. The Fake News Media sun believable. People got Pulitzer Prizes on coverages of me, other people john hannity, a lot of great people, a a lot they got it right. Are you concerned about getting a fair trial . These people are crazy, they have gone totally nuts. Howie joining us to talk about it this week stephanie grisham. Why is the president aggressively going after impeachment media when its the House Democrats that brought the articles of impeachment and prosecuting trial in the senate . I think the video at the top is very good examples, we have at davos, switzerland, the president was touting the country, the phase 1 china deal, we did a press conference and i think he got two questions about what we were there for and the rest was all impeachment, they just wont, they wont let up and its to the detriment of the country because they are not hearing all the great things for the country. In fairness, he doesnt shy away from talking about it. The impeachment hoax is a massive election interference which has never been seen before, but even though this was a partyline vote, it is thanks in part to Alexander Hamilton in the constitution, why does he say massive election interference . Because they are trying to stop the next election, they are trying to stop him from being the next president for the next 4 years, they said it with their own words, he must be impeached, they have been saying since he was inaugurated. They tried it with russia and now they are doing this dance and thats what he is trying to say. Howie this tweet from an hour or two ago, shifty adam schiff is a corrupt politician, very sick man, has not paid the price yet for what he has done to the country, that sounds like a big threat. I disagree. People put meaning blind what he said, the president speaks in a very unique way, hes a counterpuncher, hes saying what its on his mind. Howie what does he mean he hasnt paid the price . I havent talked to him, he hasnt paid the price with voters, quite frankly seems like hes having a mental issue, hes obsessed with this president and take him down. Howie congressman schiff said that he believes it was intended to be a threat and youre saying political and not law enforcement. Thats ridiculous. Howie you talk about obsession, when bill clinton was brought to trial and republicanled efforts two decades ago, the impeachment of a president , very, very large story, do you have a beef with how the press is covering this trial . I have a beef with the way that its very biased and onesided, ive noticed after the breaks after senate trial schumer and the democrats are getting air time and not the republican side. Ic a lot of the networks is saying this is what he obviously meant, its clear hes very guilty, thats not true n a court of trial youre innocent till proven guilty, these people, the media have said hes been guilt from russian collusion to now this from the very start and yeah, i have a problem that. Chuck schumer has been holding News Conference an hes the Senate Minority leader. Hes made it to cameras quicker than anything ive seen, im wondering if hes knocking down for getting on the screen. Howie we dont have reports of anybody being knocked over. Lets talk about lev parna, he was with the president at the trump hotel 2 years ago and parnas released the video tape first report bid reported by abc. First we have to get rid of ambassador. The ambassador of ukraine . Yeah. Get rid of her, get her out the door, take her out, okay. Do it. Howie they are talking about marie ivanovitch, in fact, yovanovitch was not recalled until a year later, but anchors like chris cuomo and other journalists are saying this showed the president lied when he said he didnt know lev parnas. Consider where those two are from, the cable channel, now, if somebody comes to him and says, hey, you know, somebody is doing something they dont support you, et cetera, et cetera, and you to remember president zelensky said there was a problem with this ambassador and she was not supporting the president s policies, so if the president is hearing that, hes going to then turn to somebody who is next to him and say lets get her out of there, thats perfectly in line with anything he has the right to do and something he does constantly. Howie here is the president asked about this at davos, i dont know him, lev parnas, hes a groupy, he shows up at fundraisers, i dont know anything about him, he calls him a con man, but theyre having a conversation, lev parnas about going into the Energy Business in ukraine, he gave a lot of money, isnt it more accurate that the president doesnt know him well but certainly knows who he is . No, i disagree with that, again, i believe that he was there with rudy giuliani, somebody that the president trust and the president has said many times, so if somebody that the president trusts has somebody else with him and hes giving you information that hes already heard and again from a president of another country, t reasonable that the president would listen to that no matter if he knows him or not and give a directive that its probably time for her to go. Howie now even defending the president are saying this doesnt rise to level of impeachment, some are saying, what happened with ukraine, the pressure campaign, the testimony from the careered officials in the house was not good, perhaps troubling, but doesnt warrant removal from office. And yet the president , his lawyers, you, seem to believe that theres nothing of substance here. Well, theres not and the witnesses that you talk about even career witnesses they all said that everything was their opinion, what they thought wasnt right and they all ended up saying they didnt see that he did anything wrong, they had no proof, they never heard directly from him and, again, the president has released both of those transcripts on his own, all of this is based on something he released on his own. So its true, and i would say that from yesterday our legal team, i think in 2 hours they were able to undo the 24 hours of what the dems did on the floor to have senate and i think that monday and tuesday its just going to get better and show the american truly that theres nothing there. Howie right, did a preview yesterday. Yeah. Howie more than just a career officials opinions, some of them had contact with a lot of contact with rudy giuliani, the president s lawyer, one overheard a phone call from the president , some said it was a quid pro quo. They said they overheard it. Howie these are the people whose job it was to deal with ukraine and affected by what some are calling shadow Foreign Policy. No, they have said they did not like the president , they did not like the president s policies, thats a real problem, career officials are not, you need to carry out the policies of the president , they have said a couple of them said they were not sure and had real concerns about the policy here. That is not an impeachable offense. Even national view, conservative magazine embarrassing for republicans to argue that president s cannot be impeached for any abuse of power unless the abuse took form of criminal violation of a statute. Of course, there has been argument of your side, theres no crime committed, therefore, its irrelevant. Yes, i agree with that. You answered the question. Howie the National Review is not buying it. There was no abuse of power, no obstruction of congress, i still dont understand what that means, i would say again nancy pelosi is the one that obstructed congress by silly impeachment articles for so long. Howie even liberal commentators have said they thought the second article was much weaker than the other one. More on this later, but as you know, this has become a big of a flap, npr marie louis, is that a proper response to a journalist . I dont know what happened, i dont know that there were expletives. When you agree for ground rules for interview and you ask questions that the person wasnt anticipating, thats not okay. Howie to stop you what were the ground rules that were agree today that only a certain topic only one topic to be discussed and she went off topic and talked about ukraine. I agree that reporters should be able to ask questions of any topic and certainly ukraine is the topic right now that would be discussed but if ground rules for set then she shouldnt have broken the ground rules and if he wanted to talk about frustrations off the record, she should not be talking about what was said, i dont know if it was expletive still, we are finding this to be a real problem, people are going off the record constantly in the media. Howie briefly, pompeo said, do you think people care about blank ukraine . No. I think if you view the viewership going down, clearly they dont, people forget that out in this country people have jobs that they are going to do, they go home and picking up kids from day care, people are tired of it and i certainly think they are not paying attention, im having a hard time paying attention during the day and its my time to Pay Attention to it. Howie later the bombshell allegations that saudi prince was tied to hacks of jeff bezos phone and whats so much more than a tabloid when you shop with wayfair, you spend less and get way more. So you can bring your vision to life and save in more ways than one. For small prices, you can build big dreams, spend less, get way more. Shop everything home at wayfair. Com we are back with stephanie grisham, the press secretary, questioning what it is that you do since the Daily Press Briefings have been abolished, you appear mainly on fox and largely unknown to the public, your response to that criticism . I do get invited to do other Cable Networks and i do those, i get turned down a good amount, people understand that, the Washington Post and New York Times have turned a weird obsession into this, something i think that people forget, again, is that i have 3 roles tat white house but also if you look at some of my past predecessor, i wont name names, there was somebody in a Different Administration who got made fun off for constantly saying i refer you here, i refer you to here, sarah, you know, she would go out there and answer everything as honestly as she could and branded a liar and became snl character, so i think because none of that is going on with me i may be doing it right, also i just had a stat given this morning to me that the president has tweeted or retweeted more than 300 times in the past 5 days, so that is people, not just the media, the American Public hearing directly from him every single day several times a day, theres no way, i could say anything better than what him saying on his own. Hes always doing press conferences. Howie that leads me to the next question. So far. Howie i fully get the argument that the president provides extraordinary access to the press, constantly talking virtually every day, but the counterargument that he can sidestep questions easily and theres no chance for journalist to follow up on contradictions with the top spokesperson at the white house. Well, he did a press conference 3 days ago and able to answer questions. We put subject Matter Experts at the podium all of the time that can answer followup questions. I would probably be, refer you to treasury rather than having cabinet secretary mnuchin out there. I think that people are hyperfocused on 3 times a week, 20 minutes a day briefing when i think the way we are doing it is actually better and i think the American People and the media are being served a lot better. Finally, you apparently get a lot of hate mail, breitbart reported, brain dead lying twit, despicable piece of s, a whole lot of stuff that i cant read on the air, do you see vile connection stuff and the way youre covered . Lately because the pressure has somehow got, the pile on has gotten a lot more, the hate mail and threats are definitely increasing, its dangerous. I recognize yes, of course, it bothers, it bothers me for my family, i know the media, they get threats as well, i definitely see a correlation with the pileon and threats increasing. Howie stephanie grisham, we appreciate you being here, thanks. Thanks. Howie up next secretary pompeo, was it really off the record howie mike pompeo as we mentioned earlier was doing an interview when host began pressing the secretary of state of whether she tried to block shadow Foreign Policy toward ukraine, pompeo said he ran the policy and the interview quickly ended, kelly said an aide summoned to the secretarys private living room and he berated her. He shouted me about the same amount of time as interview lasted, he was not happy to have been questioned about ukraine, he asked, do you think Americans Care about ukraine . He used the f word in that sentence and many others, he asked if he could find ukraine on a map. Pompeo said in a statement that kelly lied to him after agreeing the conversation was off the record, she denies that any such agreement and npr questions her integrity and says the network would be intimidated. Kellys questions were fair and not exactly unexpected. The tabloid scandal that surrounded jeff bezos affair with Lauren Sanchez has burst back into the news with extraordinary report. Un investigators say account belonging to prince saudi prince, theres no proof that this is how the national inquirer, and the Saudi Foreign minister dismissed allegations that prince hacked bezos phone and silly, the un findings that bezos exchanged numbers after Washington Post wrote piece criticizing the regime and sent Whatsapp Message and immediately increased by 30,000 , Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered which the regime denied but sentenced 5 saudi nationals to death, a month later the princes account sent bezos a photo that looked like his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez, the expose ran in 2019, bezos response, this week he tweeted a picture of himself and others at Memorial Service for Jamal Khashoggi. Ahead my thoughts on the remarkable legacy of jim lehrer who i interviewed so many times, first our team weighs on polarizing coverage of the marathon impeachment ntment just got rescheduled for today. Amanda needs right at home. Our customized care plans provide as much or as little help as her mom requires. Whether its a ride to the doctor or help around the house. Oh, of course tom, i am really sorry. Ive gotta go. Look, call right at home. Get the right care. Right at home. Hey frank, our workers comp insurance is expiring, should we just renew it . Yeah, sure. Hey there, Small Business owner. Pie insurance here with some sweet advice to stop you from overpaying on workers comp. Try pie instead and save up to 30 . Thirty percent . Really . Get a quote in 3 minutes at easyaspie. Com. Wow, that is easy. So, need another reminder . No, no no, im good. Uh, yes please. Oh. Ho ho ho, yeah need workers comp insurance . Get a quote in 3 minutes at easyaspie. Com. Howie held for hour after hour day after day House Democratic managers led by adam schiff and cipollone. Cannot be indicted, cannot be impeached, it makes him a monarch. Frankly they have no charge, when you look at the articles of impeachment, theyre not only ridiculous but dangerous to our republic. Howie joining us to analyze Mollie Hemingway and mo elleithee, runs georgetowns university, get to trial in a minute, but the tape released by lev parnas shows President Trump to get rid of marie yovanovitch, trump lied when he said he barely knew this guy. He spoke a few times about knowing him and each time i dont know him but ive met him, hes a groupy and hangs around but hes saying at the same time that he doesnt know him, i think hes conveying he doesnt know him well and i dont think this video tape necessarily says anything contrary to that, but do i think its interesting that we are focusing on the video tape and not the underlying issues, one of the problem with coverage is taking bigger look, think of what is said in the video, being told that theyre waiting for impeachment. Its not the only negative thing hes heard about her, zelensky saying he undermines him as well. Howie critics in the press, mo, says take her out, gangster talk. The contradiction is the president s denials . The president says he doesnt know him well, thats fine, i kind of have issue with the president , one who he doesnt know very well at all and talk about incredible by Foreign Policy issues, calls into question judgment, for me, but this president and big underlying theme throughout this entire trial has been, you know, can the president question the president s credibility and this, its more ammo for those who find the credibility questionable. Howie organizations that have been portraying the trial, stunning portrayal of incriminating evidence and the news organizations saying it doesnt prove anything. Well, weve had the media really leading impeachment effort going back years now, they own this impeachment and they clearly care very deeply, very much want to support adam schiff who is sort of their political ally and they have been unreliable narrators, the proof is kind of in the pudding when you look at ratings, its not particularly compelling, you have senators fall ago sleep, other people are struggling, that balance in the coverage not just on those issues but on the strength of the cases, they clearly favor one case and they almost ignore completely any type of defense from the president. Well, of course, the defense by the president s lawyers just began yesterday, in a counsel of hours theyll do more this week, but when Pat Cipollone said on behalf of the white house, democrats trying to perpetrate the most massive interference in american history, that drew media skepticism. Because the claim has drawn skepticism from the Intelligence Community as well. Theres nothing to back that up. , look, i think the coverage of this trial reflects the very tribal nature of our politics. If youre in incline to support the impeachment of the president , you will tune in to certain media outlets, reach certain newspapers and sort of get the case you want to hear, if youre incline to not approve of the impeachment of the president , right, this network hasnt been covering during prime time the full impeachment trial at times, right, and im not saying critically other than to say, that the Media Coverage has reflected, right, thats different than what we saw during the watergate hearings when there was only 3 networks, everyone tuned in. That was more of a bipartisan impeachment. I have a couple of things to get to before i have to take a break, chuck schumer, Senate Minority leader, wants a complete narrative, not filter through the lens of fox news, made reference to fox evening shows, why is this making this about fox . Well, mostly because fox has great ratings and has a ton of viewers and what not, i actually think that its time for people to be more honest about whats going on here, we have other networks that have just completely lost the plot when it comes to showing things in a balanced and host of other networks say they refuse to have anyone that has tens of millions of that support president. Its not just everybody who is, you know, representing the range of opinion on the right, and you have hosts who are clearly marked as opinion hosts versus news hosts and i dont even know who has supposed to be a news host at some other networks as they get more howie on that point, msnbc, chris matthews, chris wallace, both cant stand donald trump. One quick point on senator schumer, ive known him since he was a brooklyn congressman, if he thinks fox is so evil why has he appeared on fox 75 times since 2005. Joe lockhart, tweeted, over heard combo from senators that only fox news and later he said, okay, maybe i made up the combo, but you know exactly thats what theyre thinking and he apologized. Yeah, i know joe and we are living in an area era that its dangerous to take satire to twitter, people take it out of context. The same people who take the most umbrage of what joe did were also the same people who defend the president s many inaccurate statements as well as you know the point hes trying to make, dont take him quite so literally, again, its a very tribal thing, you attack the people you dont like when they do it. Howie coming back how is impeachment playing as a Television Show with adam schiff the lead actor this week and does that matter. Later, Bernie Sanders getting tougher media scrutiny now hes surging in the polls. Howie adam schiff, the lead house prosecutor with Opening Statement with high praise from pundits. I thought it was dazzling, best second courtroom address like a courtroom that ive ever heard. I thought adam schiffs opening was brilliant. Rivetting. Drew praise from all sides. Howie some fox commentators with such reactions on cnn and msnbc. They were too deep in bliss to Cable Television and adam schiff speech is a brain stem massage with whats more concerning you saw people presenting themselves as straight news reporters, these people must have no pride whatsoever, this is a man who spent years claiming that he had evidence as Ranking Member of select committee on intelligence of donald trump colluding with russia to steal the 2016 election, that was dangerous and that was damaging to the country in terms of Foreign Policy and administration of government, he had access to the same information that devin nunes had about the fisa applications, he told people theres nothing to worry about beyond reproach, he lied about relationship with the whistleblower, he lied on the transcript, on the day he started hearing politico said he misrepresented evidence in this situation. Journalists need to hold this person accountable, there have been no accountable for adam schiff damaging lie that is hurt the American People. Howie looking at the role in the senate floor, you had all of the people heaping praise on him, you dont hear many say Pat Cipollone do a good job. It goes back to the conversation we were having in the last segment, the president s team is going to be hailed as the best in generation and in other places they will be vilified. Howie the ratings on first day, 11 million, not a great number, the next day it was under 9 million, fox was number 1 throughout the week, this is a serious constitutional matter, but is it working as a Television Show . No, it isnt, during the watergate hearings there were 3 networks, it was new, we havent seen anything like this before, the country was rivetted by it, it took a while to get there, it took about a year for people to get interest in it, you saw still a lot of interest in the clinton impeachment but less so, i think this is now as we as we progress through history as theres more news outlets, as social media makes everything howie 2 or 3 hours a day and to the extent the democrats are using with graphics, video clips as a form to move public opinion, if its not working in television, maybe its not working. I dont think its about whats happening in the current moment, not too long you had explosive ratings for Robert Muellers testimony when people believed there was more to russia. These are boring, we had to sit and watch these, its difficult to watch, its not just about the topic which is very complicated and that people have seen, they have made their decision, they either think theres something good or bad here. The way they choose to repeat, repeat, all days into the wee hours of the night and people say ive heard this 14 times, i cant hear it again. This is not an argument, i do think if there were witnesses you would see ratings go up, do i think if there was new faces an new information being added in you would see more howie so on thursday, for example, we did a check, msnbc ended up carrying 9 hours of the proceed, the whole day, cnn under 8 hours, fox which have been airing nighttime opinion shows just under 4 and a half hours and thats drawing criticism, is that shortchanging the hearings even if people what do you do forth when somebody puts forth an impeachment that doesnt have much substance . I think a little bit of this is on our politicians as well, they should know that this is an important power, they should be wielded carefully and not use abuse it for the purpose of hurting trump in 2020 or whatever the goals are. Howie every word should be carried on cable news but at the same time it is 24 hours of democratic arguments and i find myself taking breaks or lowering the volume and i do this for a living. I would once again make the point that some of the people who justify decisions to cut away from coverage are also the same people who get frustrated when other networks cut away from president ial press conference or president ial rally where the president is repetitive and repeating the same problems. By way of example, when there was the Inspector General hearings which was very fresh, very new, kind of a conclusion the years of false coverage about russia hoax, a lot of people didnt cover it like they should have, they gave story ammo every day but once shown to be false they didnt cover that. Look, i think it should be covered, it should be covered gavel to gavel, let the viewers decide how repetitive it is and boring it is but this is a big news story. Howie they can always go watch netflix, apparently some are, hillary, bernie, donald getting into a battle as to who is likele with 8 days before the Iowa Caucuses personal loan up to 100k. Wthats why xfinity hasu made taking your internetself. 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. Here is the quote, nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done, he was a career politician, its all just bologna. I know she said that nobody likes me, right, this is not the kind of rhetoric right now when we are trying to bring the Democratic Party together. When hillary said nobody likes him, nobody likes her, thats why she lost, nobody liked her. Howie now i was surprised by how much Media Attention was focused at Hillary Clinton swipe at Bernie Sanders and the president weighed and everybody went to town. Likability is one of the issues that really matters but its so subjective, i think the media needs to be careful. I think theres true with what shes saying, she worked with other people and got legislation passed and he hasnt, he seemed likable to voters and its a hard argument to make, but what shes trying to say, among people who control the Democratic Party, they dont like him, something similar that you would have heard republicans say about President Trump as he was winning the nomination. Howie from the media point of your view rather an analyzing medicare for all, nobody likes him, nobody likes you, seems middle school. Yeah, look does have it have an impact . It might have an impact, who knows, we are days away from the iowa caucus, its hard for the candidates to breakthrough right now which is hard to fathom that in the final week before voting starts, its hard to breakthrough because of the noise in washington right now, bernie is surging right at an important time in iowa, but he arguably you could say has been challenged the least on what he is out there proposing, on price tags than any other candidates. Howie you set me up which is fox news poll out today has joe biden 26, Bernie Sanders 23 nationally, closest ive been in polls ive seen and New York Times poll has Bernie Sanders up 7 in iowa, cnn poll has him up 9 in new hampshire, Elizabeth Warren did go ahead get the des moines register. And sanders had to apologize to biden, has it been a rough media week for bernie . You dont get to take a bigger look at these things, the story i want to read is why did Bernie Sanders always pull punches right at the end, he did this in 2016, he was doing a really good job and he said he was going remove any question about Hillary Clintons emails, take off the table, here you have someone saying that joe biden has corruption problems that would make it hard for him to run against President Trump, whatever you think, thats a good point and he apologizes for it, why does he not go for the jugular where hes at the cusp of victory. Howie there was a story of 1985 letter that Bernie Sanders wrote mayor in which he called the Democratic Party intellectually bankrupt and people forget he was an independent and pressing him, how much your program is going to cost and struggle to give an exact figure, those are the kind of questions that Bernie Sanders had not been getting until now because there was a collective feeling but he has strong following but hes not going to win the nomination, thats starting to shift. That might be part of it, it might also be that the press focused on whoever was surging at the moment. Elizabeth warren was surging and she start today get tougher questions. Howie why does the journalists wait thats my question, its been pretty clear for a while that you have a toptier of democratic candidates, 5 or 6 people deep focus on all of them, ask them all the same tough questions. Help you separate yourself from the pack. Thats exactly right. Howie hitting tough questions, i call hitting major league pitching and all candidates need to demonstrate if youre getting softballs and that sort of thing and hard to breakthrough in this environment and i continue to say that while the outcome will be huge is getting so much less coverage of impeachment and four candidates that are senators who are stuck here for another week for the trial. Mo, Mollie Hemingway, thank you. Thanks. Howie still to come, some personal reflections of jim lehrer and place in journalistic history. Se. Howie jim lehrer was a president ial debate moderator. Did far more than anyone else. As he was retiring in 2011 from pbs, lehrer said he was finished. Ive done enough of them. I survived. I have psyche scars with me. Howie he agreed to one more debate, drew criticism, for losing control and not pressing candidates. Governor romney you would like to ask a the president directly about something he just said . Howie that was his criticism. He told me had no apologies. His job was to stay out of the way. The pbs newshour he founded with Robert Mcneil in 1975. Offered its highest tribute. Were heartbroken here at the news hour. Jims remarkable legacy of journalism is with us every day. Howie it was accident of history that he had a bill clinton interview on the day the Monica Lewinsky story broke. Kenneth starr, independent counsel, investigate allegations that you stubborned perjury, encouraging 24yearold woman, former white house intern to lie under oath. Mr. President is that true . That is not true. That is not true hugh h. Howie he thought Hillary Clinton ton would canceled but he didnt. I had his own set of rules. Finally, im not in the entertainment business. Howie i love that line. Jim was gracious to me, and other journalists. He touched so many lives. Jim lehrer was 85. That is this edition of mediabuzz. Im howard kurtz. Subscribe at apple itunes, google play or fox news podcast. Com. Well look for your feedback. My interview with stephanie grisham, impeachment, iowa, well listen to it all. Back next sunday with the latest buzz. Arthel President Trumps legal team preparing to resume Opening Statements tomorrow. When the Senate Impeachment begins its second week. Welcomewelcome to americas nes headquarters. Im arthel neville. Eric im eric shawn. The president s lawyers spent two hours beginning their defense attacking lead house manager adam schiff, accusing the democratic impeachment managers of trying to overturn the 2016 election. Failing to provide all the evidence. Charging that the president s and allies they said blocked needed documents and testimony. Alan