strategist and former communications director at the blue dog coalition. ladies, welcome. nice to see you. mike: so, senator lindsey graham s reaction to the durham report, let s put it on the screen. quote, the durham report is damning. it shows the fbi became a political weapon. they wanted to get trump, they didn t care how they did it. they took the rule of law and threw it over to try to get a political outcome. kristin, what s the fallout this? i think, you know, the fbi has to be held accountable. i don t think it should overshadow, they talked about january 6th, and as somebody who lived in d.c. and the causes for that terrible, awful day, you know, i don t want to, you know, read too much into this. look at what people like to politicize what the fbi does, but if you want to do that, you look at what happened with, you know, with hillary clinton in the day days before the election. i think, you know, people on both sides of the aisle like to take what the fbi does and th
western civilization today is not russia, it s probably more than anything else ourselves and some of the horrible usa-hating people that represent us. howard: so, jim, trump says stop the war today, which would obviously leave russia as, in charge of those areas. but saying we ourselves are the greatest threat, that s been attacked by a lot of liberal pundits. okay, i ll i attack it too. donald trump has never been able to distinguish between who he s mad at and the country s biggest enemies. and i apple sure that he is full of concern am sure that he is full of raging fury at president biden, alvin bragg and anybody else who s pissed him off lately much more than vladimir putin or xi jinping who he used to sing the praises of during the pandemic. howard: kristin, i just have time for a brief comment. he cares about himself, and he uses the media to deliver
interest. there are a lot of times i feel like it gets overhyped, but it is an indisputable fight between the republican party. and i think a lot of people who are preferring desantis to trump were kind of surprised by this answer, and that s one of the reasons it s turned into such an intense flashpoint. howard: excellent point. kristin, the phrase that really set off the media was this is a territorial dispute whens, in fact, a unprovoked, bruisal invasion concern brutal invasion by russia with heinous war crimes, kidnapping kids and so forth, so a lot of people jumped on that phrase. i think they did and, you know, desantis the, i i think he s going to come to regret those comment. i get that he was trying to, in the media, you know, separate himself from the president, and, you know, as he looks forward to a potential presidential bid himself. but that, i don t think that s, you know, the thing that s going to to be working for him in the end.
that s going too far, beijing. we could overlook the genocide, but that s too much. [laughter] that would look bald. but i do think this has been a cumulative concerns about tiktok, and we were chatting earlier, basically it lifted listed off all the security problems, the underage use problems, you reach the point what would tiktok have to do to say, all right, you re out of here? all of these things have piled up for a long time now. howard: there shouldn t be a special sense about journalists, but if they were surveilling businessmen, it d also be a big story because it goes to the credibility of the company. agreed, but i also think that journalism is the fourth estate, it s very important, and it s critical to the first amendment. so i think it s actually very alarming, you know concern. howard: something we can all agree on, i hope. that s the end of the show. kristin hawn, jim geraghty, thanks for coming by. that s it for this edition of mediabuzz. i m howard kurtz, you ca
howard: ron desantis ignited a fierce media debate when he challenged the continuing flow of u.s. military aid to ukraine. the governor did that as one of many candidates, or potential candidates, responding to a questionnaire from tucker carlson s show. while the u.s. has many vital international interests, becoming further entangled in a territorial the dispute between ukraine and russia is not one of them. that is sort of a jaw-cropping statement. here s another example of the republican party just basically saying the hell with it, we re going to throw in our lot with vladimir putin. howard: joining us now, jim geraghty, senior columnist at national review and kristin hawn. this is a rare instance of desantis the getting hammered by the right and the left for saying the u.s. protecting ukraine is not a vital national