Part of my program this week, i will see you next week. Stay tuned for reliable sources. Middle of the night votes, secret meetings, shifting story lines, countdown clocks. The fiscal cliff mellow drama was a bit of a blur for journalists to figure out what was happening on the hill. I am advised there is no deal yet. Theyre still in talks. Unless something drastic changes in the next five hours, america will go over the fiscal cliff. How did the press handle the craziness and was a small deal hyped as something bigger . Hillary clinton out of the hospital after suffering a blood clot. This after some fox commentators doubted and mocked her illness. Shes suffering from acute benghazi allergy which causes light headedness when she hears the word benghazi or is being asked about it. Could it be time for an apology . Al gore sells his current tv channel to al juzeera. Does the arabbased network have a shot at making it in america . The press that the Republican Party has become extremist. Do they have a point . Ill have something to say how Lance Armstrong lied to me. Im howard kurtz and this is reliable sources. Most normal americans were taking some time to celebrate on new years eve and watch bowl games or sleep it off on new years day. But here in washington, many journalists were working around the clock as the white house and congress tried to avert the dreaded fiscal cliff. It was one tough story to cover with endless twists and turns. While i was talking to you, wolf, i got a message, an email saying from a senior democratic source saying the goal is tonight. Mr. Vice president , were live on cnn, do you have a deal . Happy new year. House republicans staged a new years day revolt to avoid the fiscal cliff. America went over the fiscal cliff at midnight, but we are still waiting to see if it will be a hard fall or a soft landing. Despite some hopeful signs very early this morning, we are still in a freefall. We have news and that is that the House Republicans have decided just to take up the clean senate bill. Were on the threshold here of passing the passage and i think we may have just made it at 214. Joining us now are two reporters who work the marble halls in covering the story. Cnn senior Congressional Correspondent dana bash and Jonath Jonathan weisman who covers for New York Times. What was it like trying to get information around the clock during all that latenight craziness in that mad house . It was not easy. I tell you, youre really being manipulated because youre getting strategic leaks and getting calls and then youd have these moments of just pure blackout, nothing. No information at all and you were just, you know, working the phones and sending out emails. Just trying to get anything at all because there was, like you guys, trying to put it all on the air. We were trying to get it online all the time. The demand was 24 7, really, for any information at all. During these periods of confusion and blackout, as jonathan said, you had to do live shots. Anchors would come to you and say, so, dana, what is the latest . The American People watching cnn watch the sausage being made and they actually watched our, how our journalism works. How it really works. It was really all out there for everybody to see. As you saw just in that clip me saying to wolf, wait a minute, i got an email saying that changed. It was all happening realtime. What you just said about the leaks was very interesting. And, you know, at certain times, as jonathan said, they went totally dark. But at other times all of a sudden you would get a call and say, heres something thats in the deal. You know that theyre doing that for a reason. And one of those times. What would that reason be . One of those times i got a call from a congressional source, democratic source saying that something was happening. And it, it was clear to me right away that it was not something done to kind of tweak the republicans, muitch mcconnell. It was done to push back against the democrat in the white house. So, my challenge was to talk about what we heard, but also to do a transparentally. To say this was told to us on purpose in order to try to push back against the Vice President. Democrat to democrat. Im getting whip lash just listening to this. If youre getting calls or emails and reaching out to staffers and strategists on both sides, how do you guard against being spun . Its hard to check anything in that type of vortex . The other side was always guarding, too. I remember this one moment where sources close to the negotiation, which happened to be reflecting the position of the white house, were giving us one thing and then, literally, ten minutes later, i get an email from the Speakers Office saying, are you on capitol hill . Were going to have a briefing in ten minutes and i was actually at my house. This was like 9 00 at night. I said, i cant possibly and we tried to wire in and everything, but it was i mean, it was a game of, i dont know of chess or checkers, but everyone is watching everyones last move. For us, you know, we did have to reflect, as dana said, reflect what the purpose of the information was as much as what the information itself was. As the action shifted to the senate and as joe biden and Mitch Mcconnell started their private dealmaking, were you getting into John Boehners people, he was cut out of the action or the occasional blackout. They were cut out. They were kept aprize. Certainly john boehner was talking to mitch mcconal and their offices were talking to one another. I had senior senators coming up to me in the hallways saying were learning whats happening in these private talks from you. Thats scary. Why are you finding that scary . How about us . Youd hear something and then a senator would tell you something and youd say, how did you learn that . Because you had to make sure that they werent learning it from us. Well, it sounds like a closed loop and were there any times when you were fed and went with it or didnt go with it erroneous information or misinformation or misdirection . Absolutely. At one point we were being fed that the income threshold for where taxes were going to go were solid. 400 billion. It wasnt 400 billion. It was 450 billion. Im sorry when you spend so much time on the hill, the numbers become meaningless. 400,000, im sorry. I know that might sound like a little thing, but not a little thing. The democrats were working hard to keep that as low as they could. We had to go back and correct it. Is this a situation where we only often find out what happened behind the scenes later politico and others reporting in a tense moment before a meeting harry reid and we didnt know that at the time. We didnt know that at the time but the reason we learned that is because each of those men were sort of bragging about it to their caucus in caucus meetings. You know what happens when you tell more than five people, especially in an open meeting. It gets out. Boehner, i was told by one member who was sort of acting it out to his colleagues, acting out what he did at that time when he said the blank the blank yourself and vice versa and reid was also talking about it to his democratic colleagues. So, it definitely was one of those examples at that moment of breaking tension, but also for those of us covering it, a real window into these men and how they really feel about each other. Right. I mean, there are real personalities and people get ticked off and theyre anxious and theyre tired. You were probably all tired. I wonder whether or not because the press is kind of deadline ornianted and you go on the air and go online and you can write in the New York Times we have a deal. A deal to extend tax breaks for most americans, but no spending cuts, push the sequester back two months and all of that. Really wasnt much of a deal and i wonder if the press, just because of its volume, made it seem like a bigger deal than it was. I actually, humbly disagree with you, howie. Remember, since 2001, since the first bush tax cuts went into play, we have had this bizarre tax code that has always been haunted by a sunset. Eventually, something was going to end. This deal that was just passed with very little debate, very quickly for the first time in more than ten years, we have a permanent tax code right now. Thats my point. To the extent that the country has a huge debt problem and still has a fiscal crisis. Basically, not a single dollar has been cut and all that is going to happen too much. You all be up half the night. Let me touch on one other point. In the craziness in the late nights, no mention in most of the reporting that i saw until afterwards about the aid for Hurricane Sandy and i wonder if that was an oversight and everybody was focused on one thing and forgot unless you live in new york or new jersey 60,000 that was supposed to be voted on and wasnt. I didnt talk about it very much on tv. We did write stories on it on cnn. Com. Our congressional producer wrote a story when the Senate Passed it. But part of the reason we didnt focus on it that much is because we were told by eric cantors office and those who were really shepherding it that it was going to happen. It was really, genuinely, a lastminute move by john boehner to pull it. Thats why it sent all of us in the media, the governor of new jersey into a tizzy. Washington has a hard time doing more than one thing at once. That goes i can say the same thing about the media. Hurricane sandy and the devastation that it unleashed, particularly in the states of new york and new jersey and else where was a huge story, but now its kind of faded and everybody has moved on, unless you live in those communities and it wasnt until the politicians from those states went crazy that we got back on. Doing one thing at once also applies to this business. How tired did you get doing this and how do you stay awake at 2 00 in the morning . We were working on adrenaline so much that the first day i could take off was friday. I worked basically two straight weeks. You know, we had harry reids rocking christmas, rocking new years eve. We all stumbled off the hill at 4 00 a. M. What happened friday . I didnt get out of bed from friday until this morning. Anyone out there taking finals and crammed and been up all night and then the next day gets sick, knows the feeling we have right now. Jonathan still recuperating. Dana bash, thanks for stopping by. Those conservative pundits dismissing Hillary Clintons supposed illness hasnt had much to say since she was diagnosed with a blood clot. Will understand. Oh no, its actually my geico app. See . I just uh paid my bill. Did you really . From the plane . Yeah, i can manage my policy, get roadside assistance, pretty much access geico 24 7. Sounds a little too good to be true sir. Ill believe that when pigs fly. Ok, did she seriously just say that . Geico. Just click away with our free mobile app. Officemax can help you drive supply costs. Down. And down. Just use your maxperks card and get a case of x9 paper for only 1cent after maxperks rewards. Find thousands of big deals now. At officemax. for those nights when its more than a bad dream, be ready. 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You dont want to go to a meeting or an event, you have a diplomatic illness. This is a diplomatic illness. How can she get a concussion when shes been ducking everything . This makes no sense to me. Hillary clinton, i guess she passed out somewhere. Is she unconscious somewhere . She cant testify. Secretary of state, of course, later diagnosed with a blood clot near her brain but since released from the hospital. Joining us to talk about this Anna Marie CoxPolitical Columnist for the guardian and tim carney. What does this tell us about the media culture they make fun of whether or not Hillary Clinton was actually sick. It is all theater. When it becomes all theater, they dont seem real. She has been on stage for a long time. Probably doesnt help that she was sort of consciously part of the drama, you know, when she was first lady. There was a lot of show. You know, during the clinton presidency. I do think its remarkable that we are able to skip right over the, oh, thats too bad part. The moment of sympathy that youre supposed to get, i think, before you say the joke. Its too soon moment. No such thing as too soon any more. The conspiracy theories start right away. Again, hillary played a part in that sort of thing herself. Her beat up on benghazi fair game. But was some of this out of bounds . If people knew she was sick and attacking her and making fun of her for it, that would be one thing. People would doubt her account i dont think is extraordinary. Theyre not doubting her account, theyre doubting her illness. New York Magazine said if a republican was in this situation, would liberals believed them . Some wouldnt have. Hillary does have, this is not a conspiracy, she does have a trouble in the past. You have lots of liberals who said, i dont i can trust hillary. Not the right thing for these pundits to do it, but you understand why. Mockery which is like, oh, yeah, lets see your doctors note. Youre really sick. They are calling her a liar. That doesnt trouble you . I wouldnt have done that. It does trouble me, yes. The sort of thing that happens. I dont know it is unprecedented. I mean, i dont know. Can you say this happens on both sides . I think one difference is that i think that because a lot of journalism happens sort of main stream journalism, thats where your liberal bias comes in. I think that longer pause, that too soon pause. No equivalence here. Were talking about paid pundits and contributors on fox news versus some morons on twitter. But when george bush sr. Was in the hospital and things looked dicy, there were left wingers on twitter who said, he should die. He should die a painful death. Not the same as professional pundits, but its ugly. Thats much uglier and not the same. I mean, its much not anyone on fox news was calling for a painful experience or death for hillary. They were doubting her. Again, like we do live in a culture where everything is under doubt. Lets also point out that this comes out of a narrative of benghazi where everything has already been called into account and there have been changes in the story. Things were very murky. And, particularly hillary herself has a history of sometimes not being fully forthcoming. Thats not a conservative thing to say. The state department has pushed back on this and when a fox news correspondent asked at a briefing, how come she cant testify after getting the explanation about her health problem, the secretarys spokesman wrote a letter saying the transcript of what you said would have been wrong otherwise putting asinine words in your mouth. State department not happy with some of this. If you know like the state department did what is going on is real unless she is really sick in that way and you watch people saying these kind of things that hannity was saying on the air, yeah, you have every right to be angry. They shouldnt have said it and i do think it is beyond the pail. I understand how it happened and thats what i was trying to point to. It is also one thing to behind, in the green room or whatever or even on twitter, do you really think thats true . If you have no evidence whatsoever. A history is one thing, but no reason to doubt this. I like people to apologize when they make errors and to my knowledge, these people havent done that. As a journalist, i like people to say the truth and not make weird accusations out of no where based simply on suspicion. And this is, when you think about it, also, this is the kind of thing that, you can do a lot before you start saying that you have a blood clot. If youre really dodging the press, there are levels of dodging that you can do before you say like her life is in danger. Let me touch on the big fiscal cliff battle that we talk about at the top of the program. Crushing defeat for john boehner and the House Republicans who are cut out of the action at the end. Was that a fair portrayal . I dont think so. I think boehner mishandled the first part of it. It was a bad idea and he didnt execute it well. On the other hand, what he did is he had a rowdy bunch that wanted to put spending cuts in at the last second. He had a way to crush it. So, did boehner get a bum repfrreap prom the press . He did but early on he had been failed. I think they say any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. I think boehner had a good landing. He might have limped away from the plane. It could have been so much worse. The dissension in the ranks is really bad. In the end, he pulled them together and thats what counts. Ross doubt who has a column today making the case, look, boehner has done impressive things and averted bad catastrophes. When you look at who else is in that conference, im not sure if there is another leader who would have been able to to that. Joe biden got great press for coming to the hill last minute and cutting the deal with Mitch Mcconnell and passed the senate and the house. A lot of times the press makes fun of joe biden. A lot of times joe biden makes fun of joe biden. And also there are reasons to make fun of him. I think the way he handled that. He is an oldschool politician. I think he and boehner probably get along pretty well. He reminds me of lbj. He is making deals and hes touching people, hes doing it a lot on personality. My main criticism, not enough of the press focus on the substance. Is this going to get passed . That was my next question. There was no spending cuts. Not only no spending cuts, 70 bill