that prompted zucker to fire chris cuomo and the state investigation of his brother, andrew cuomo, allison gollust worked earlier for the then-governor. zucker found cuomo if improperrerly aided his embattled brother. he didn t try to get zucker fired, but his lawyers took some steps as a warning shot in the negotiations to have cnn pay off cuomo s contract. as this source put it, chris dropped the knife that was used by zucker s enemies. the cuomo camp want to contend that zucker dumped his biggest star for a conflict of interest, but with jeff gone, that argument evaporates as a way of cuomo collecting his remaining $18 million. by the way, msnbc, which loves to attack fox, has not aired a single word on zucker s ouster. nothing to see here. jeff who? that is pretending a friend ask one-time boss w an absolute dereliction of duty. the larger issue is how zucker transformed cnn from there a reporter-driven network to a left-leaning outlet that crusaded against donald trump.
and he d still have an overwhelming lead. the maga base doesn t need to see him repeating applause lines, and most view the indictments as a partisan vendetta, and each charge has pushed up his polls. now, let s say my calculation is off and reporting on the courtroom dramas knocks so points off his 10 points off his total. so what? trump is at 59% in the latest wall street journal poll and could still win the nomination without breaking a sweat. the biggest possible pitfall i see is that he loses iowa or new hampshire and that upends the race. love him or detest him, trump knows how to drive the the news cycle. he can attack his critics on truth social, post videos and do tv interviews. the idea he ll somehow be silenced is a fantasy. i m howard kurtz, and this is mediabuzz . howard: with a federal judge setting a march 4th trial date for the justice department s indictment do on election interference charges, that s the day before super tuesday, the commentators
claims illegals plus 25 olympic files and 200 pages of records include then vice president biden talking about hunter biden s business deals. stone walled on getting those records he told maria what is potentially in those files. we learned that when he was receiving e-mails pertaining to ukraine his son hunter was copied on them which we ve always heard that white house said hunter biden wasn t a employee or any part of the government. meantime president biden laughs off a reporters question about congress s request for his bank records on thursday. talk to me about do you want [laughter] let s talk about why i m here. meantime house speaker kevin mccarthy has to get the vote on spending bills or face a government shutdown in 27 days mccarthy told maria he wants a stop gap funding bill or else everything including the biden investigations will be halted. i would actually like to have a short-term cr only to make our arguments stronger. because maria, if we shut
that the necessary security would hinder recovery efforts on the ground. lucas tomlinson s live at the white house with the latest. hello, lucas. reporter: that s right, president biden and the first lady set to arrive any moment now, they ll be going to hive oak located halfway between tallahassee and jacksonville. as you mentioned, governor desantis will not be there to greet him. president biden spoke to reporters on the ramp before departing from andrews. [inaudible conversations] i don t think he s going to be there. reporter: do you have a message for him in. we re going to the take care of florida. reporter: a spokesman for governor desantis office says the governor will be in dixie county today which includes horseshoe beach, one of the hardest hit areas, about an hour south of where biden will be. a spokesman said, quote, we don t have any plans for the governor to meet with the president today. in these rural communities, the security preparations, as mik
ukraine s former top prosecutor who says he was forced out because he was investigating burisma, that ukrainian energy company where biden s son hunter was a board member. translator: i did not want to deal in unproven facts, but my personal conviction is that, yes, this was the case, they were being bribed. the fact that joe biden gave away $1 is billion in u.s. money in exchange for my dismissal, my firing, isn t that a alone a case of corruption? reporter: shokin says this admission from biden years later validates his claim. if. i m leaving in six hours, if the prosecutor s not fired, you re not getting the money. well, son of a [bleep] [laughter] got fired. and they put in place someone who was solid at the time. reporter: white house pushing back strongly on shokin sing accusation in a statement, quote: a former ukrainian prosecutor general whose offices own deputy called a hotbed of corruption drawing demands for reform not only from then-vice president biden