This is a rush transcript from "Media Buzz," November 18, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: On Buzz Meter this Sunday, President Trump attacked so-called fake news, CNN, The Washington Post, and a brand-new interview with Chris Wallace.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I'm totally in favor of the media, I'm totally in favor of free press, got to be fair press. When it's fake --
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS: But the president get to decide what's fair and what's not.
TRUMP: I can tell what's fair and not and so can my people and so can a lot of other people.
WALLACE: I understand --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: I'll talk to the Fox News Sunday anchor about the sit down. Some media outlets portray the president is angry, furious, lashing out, brooding, disengaged in the wake of the midterms and planning yet another big White House shakeup.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC: The reports coming out of the White House all suggest it is the president who is growing increasingly disinterested in his job, increasingly angry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When people come in, get in his way, he lashes out at them, whether he is snapping it all at aides or at world leaders who are calling him on his Air Force One.
KASIE HUNT, NBC NEWS: Folks, the president's temperament, impulsiveness and his personal vendettas look as if they might create some very real long-term problems for his presidency and for his party.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All across many other media outlets every third day pretty much that there is complete meltdown, that the White House is melting down, that it is practically not functioning and yet it seems to go on.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
KURTZ: Trump dismisses this dark fortress (ph) as fiction. Are they exaggerating the usual presidential frustrations and post election staff changes? What about the coverage of Melania Trump calling for a top official's firing?
CNN wins a ruling against the White House over the banning of Jim Acosta, and the president says they will just write new rules for revoking journalistic credentials. Is this a victory for the press?
Plus, Monica Lewinsky providing new details of the affair that led to Bill Clinton's impeachment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MONICA LEWINSKY, FORMER WHITE HOUSE INTERN: I was scared and I just -- I was mortified and afraid of what this was going to do to my family.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Why the former intern feels very different in this era 20 years later? I'm Howard Kurtz and this is Media Buzz.
Well, it took nearly two years, one of Fox's top anchors finally secured a lengthy sit-down with President Trump. Here's more of the interview with Chris Wallace.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: No president has liked his press coverage. John Kennedy, in your Oval Office, canceled the subscription to the New York Herald-Tribune. Nobody called it the enemy of the American people.
TRUMP: Chris, I'm calling the fake news is the enemy -- it's fake, it's phony.
WALLACE: But a lot of times, sir, it's just news you don't like --
TRUMP: No it's not, no. I don't mind getting bad news if I'm wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: I sat down with him moments ago on the set of Fox News Sunday.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KURTZ: Chris Wallace, welcome.
WALLACE: Good to be with you on Media Buzz.
KURTZ: Fascinating interview. The president says, I don't mind getting bad news if I'm wrong. What did you make of that since the president very rarely admits that he is wrong?
WALLACE: Exactly. You know, I really enjoyed and was anxious to have that part of the interview because I have not done a formal interview with him since December of 2016, since the tweet about fake news is the enemy of the people.
I've thought about it a lot, I've talked about it a lot, I've won press awards and given speeches about it, and I wanted to confront him with my thoughts which are basically, look, you can criticize the media, you can criticize coverage, I think some of the coverage of you has been biased.
KURTZ: As you pointed out.
WALLACE: But don't call us the enemy of the American people. And then when he tried to sort of separate it and say, well, I'm talking about CNN, I'm not talking about you, it's like I wanted to make the point, we are all in solidarity on this.
You know, you want to call specific stories, specific reporters out, go ahead, but don't say we are the enemy of the people because we are not.
KURTZ: The president says he is only talking about fake news but he has also said that fake news is 80 percent of the media by his calculation. Do you think -- did you have the sense that he is deeply offended by the coverage of him or is it also -- or separately the fact that he uses the press as such an effective foil?
WALLACE: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: In other words, mouth (ph).
KURTZ: Yeah.
WALLACE: I think that he really feels that he has been the victim of bad reporting and he says some -- all of our successes get downplayed. And again, I think there is some truth in that, as I have said in some speeches. Even hypochondriacs sometimes really get sick.
On the other hand, I think that he -- while he does feel in some cases legitimately agreed, I think he also thinks that it's a talking point. When he was defending it, he talked in terms of my supporters and they get it.
The fact that there's a lot of good news in the country that doesn't get reported, I think he sees it absolutely as a kind of wedge issue that helps him at the expense of the media and media criticism and also the expense of his political opposition.
KURTZ: You asked him about a spate of stories portraying him as being very angry and lashing out since the midterms. The Washington Post called it "days of fury." The L.A. Times said he has retreated into a cocoon of bitterness and resentment. Let's take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: How dark is your mood?
TRUMP: It's very light. It's fake news. It's disgusting fake news. I wrote a front page on The Washington Post. They never even call me. Nobody ever calls me. You know, they -- they hear -- I don't even think they have sources. I think they just make it up like it's fiction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: These are two of his favorite lines. Many of the sources are made up and that nobody ever calls me, as if a reporter can just call up and get the president on the line very quickly.
WALLACE: Right.
KURTZ: And The Washington Post did quote a senior White House official on his behalf in that particular piece.
WALLACE: Right. I -- first of all, it was the first question I asked because one, I was legitimately interested. I also thought, you know, there is a lot of tough stuff I wanted to ask him about. I wanted to ask about the Mueller investigation, about staff changes, about Khashoggi, and I thought let's just talk about you.
We know this president has no problem. The weight of question began, let's talk about the state of Donald Trump. And it was interesting to me, and I will say not just in the interview, but just the entire time. We spent about an hour with him. The better part of an hour, he was very upbeat. He seemed very comfortable, very at ease in his own skin.
I have to say, because this was the first formal interview in these two years since he has been president, very at ease being the commander-in- chief. He has his command in his brief. He is comfortable in the Oval Office. He's the president and he knows it, and he's very much at east with it.
Maybe he's mad to staff, but I would say that he was very good spirited despite some tough challenging questions in our interview.
KURTZ: Well, in addition to pushing back, he is angry and lashing out. Maybe some of those stories are overstated although clearly he has gone (ph) on the attack a lot. He said the White House is running like a well- oiled machine. That seemed to be pushing a little bit.
WALLACE: Yeah. I would say, you know, it's the line -- I wouldn't be lending any money at this point to either John Kelly or to Kirstjen Nielsen. You gave them far less than full-throated endorsement. Can you imagine a president saying about a chief of staff ever, what are some things about him I like and some things about him I don't like?
I mean, I remember when Ronald Reagan made a very, very mild statement about Don Regan when I was covering him in '87. We all knew right away he was dead.
KURTZ: It certainly didn't give the notion that he is definitely staying as chief of staff through 2020. But let me ask you also, it just broken when you sat down with the president, the judge's ruling for CNN, restoring Jim Acosta's credentials in that lawsuit against the White House, and he kind of said was no big deal. We're going to play that later in the program, Chris.
But right after that press conference, let me take you back, you went on the air and talked about how you as a former White House correspondent felt about Acosta's behavior. Let's take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: I've never seen anything like it. I covered the White House with Ronald Reagan for six years. Most of the people there were serious reporters asking serious questions. But Jim Acosta, I thought, embarrassed himself today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: And after that, a CNN executive did something extraordinary, put out a statement attacking you and saying, Chris, Acosta doesn't work for state T.V. How do you -- it must be hard to sleep at night. What do you make of that?
WALLACE: I slept fine that night. Well, they were pushing back and then I doubled down on it a few days later because people were asking. It was obviously a hot story. I notice that whoever the person was at CNN who I never heard of didn't fire back.
There are two -- you know, two things, like a lot of things in life, there can be two things that are both true. One, I thought that Jim Acosta embarrassed himself. I thought he misbehaved. I have never seen anything like it. I covered the White House with Sam Donaldson. We were pretty aggressive with Ronald Reagan.
But the idea that you stand up, first just to say begin your question by saying, I want to challenge you, Mr. President, and then continue to ask questions, and then when you're told to sit down, to keep standing up and even kind of fight off an intern, I was astonished. Having said that -- KURTZ: But then the White House pulls his credentials.
WALLACE: Pulling his pass was clearly a bridge too far and it was a mistake. The president in his answer to my question about it and subsequently -- no big deal. I think they were stunned by the fact that they lost and that they were to a certain degree trying to downplay a defeat.
I would say I talked to a couple of White House aides beforehand and before the ruling came down. They said, we think we are hearing at 60-40, we're going to lose. So, they weren't shocked by it, the ruling by the judge.
KURTZ: Yeah, but it did put most of the meeting including Fox News in the position of siding with CNN, but that's not the same as condoning Jim Acosta's behavior. But as a distinction that you just made, it sometimes gets lost on people.
WALLACE: Absolutely.
KURTZ: I had this experience a half dozen times during the campaign, what would you say is the most challenging thing about interviewing Donald Trump?
WALLACE: He -- you asked him a question and he will give you an answer. But sometimes, there's a lot of other stuff around it. For instance, my first question was, how dark is your mood, and he proceeds to go into he's fine, which kind of what would have been the answer. But then he talks about the White House, then he went into the cemetery and on and on.
KURTZ: Right.
WALLACE: And so you went up having to edit him, not in any way to censor him, but because you are trying to get the answer out of a camouflage, out of the underbrush.
KURTZ: You said to him quite bluntly, what you call fake news is sometimes news that you don't like. The president pushed back very hard on that.
But his supporters not only I think revel in the attacks on the press, but at the same time, they, you know, it is true as you noted that a lot of the coverage of this president, warranted or not warranted, is negative. So it's not like he doesn't have something of a case in lashing out at the media coverage.
WALLACE: Well, this gets us back to the Acosta confrontation and the question I asked him which was, why did you call on him in the first place? And to a certain degree, this seemed to be, you know, a perfect symbiosis (ph) here. The president knows if I call Acosta, he'll do something obnoxious and that will fire up my base.
I don't think he thought Acosta was going to go as far as he did, and Acosta gets the spotlight to do something and get a lot of attention. It went further I suspect than either of them wanted. But I think they knew at the moment that the president called on Acosta, this was going to be a pothole and they would both be able to play it to their benefit.
KURTZ: Chris Wallace, thanks very much for saying that with us.
WALLACE: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KURTZ: Ahead, more on CNN beating the president in court over the banning of Jim Acosta though it's only the first round. But up next, President Trump absolutely unloads on Robert Mueller, calling him an Obama guy. We'll take a hard look at the coverage.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: President Trump told Chris Wallace he's finished writing answers to Robert Mueller's questions, denounced the Russia investigation in the harshest terms yet, tweeting that it is a total mess and has gone absolutely nuts.
"They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. They are a disgrace to our nation and don't care how many lives they ruin. These are angry people including the highly Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for eight years. They won't even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side. A total witch hunt like no other in American history."
Joining us now to analyze the coverage: Emily Jashinsky, culture editor at The Federalist; Sara Fischer, media reporter for Axios; Mo Elleithee, former DNC official and Fox News contributor who runs Georgetown University's Institute of Politics.
So, the press, Emily, is covering this as a really overheated escalation on the president's part. Disgrace, absolutely nuts, even by the standards of all the previous Trump attacks on this so-called witch hunt.
EMILY JASHINSKY, CULTURE EDITOR, THE FEDERALIST: Right. When the president is tweeting in all capital letters, very angry things, it is understandable that the press would focus on that a little bit, maybe more a little bit in fact. KURTZ: Yeah.
JASHINSKY: But at the same time, the president has some frustrations about the scope of this investigation into what's supposed to be collusion that I think are rarely acknowledged to the extent that they should in the press.
So, again, it's sort of like when you are talking about your interview with Chris Wallace, two things can be true. I think that's the case here.
KURTZ: Sara, as a factual matter saying that Robert Mueller worked for Obama for eight years is hardly the full story.
SARA FISCHER, MEDIA REPORTER, AXIOS: I mean, he not only didn't just worked for Obama for those years, he was hired in the Bush administration and he is a registered Republican. So this is not somebody who is just some Democrat out to get him. He's a Republican who is trying to do his job.
And even though the media is conflating some of his roles, where he supports, where he doesn't, none of us really know what's going on in Robert Mueller's head. He has never given an interview.
KURTZ: That's right. He doesn't try to compete in that space, Mo. President also telling Chris Wallace he will probably not be sitting down for an interview with Mueller. He didn't make it 100 percent, he said probably. Insiders tell me that Trump is just sick in this investigation, wants to bring it to a head.
Could this escalation be a product of Trump having been immersed with his lawyers in preparing these answers to the Mueller questions and that kind of setting him up?
MO ELLEITHEE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF POLITICS: Yeah, look, I don't know what triggers Donald Trump. He has been frustrated with this investigation since day one, right? I mean, he has been frustrated, he finally got rid of Jeff Sessions who he has been wanting to get rid of because of this investigation.
KURTZ: And because the attorney general recused himself.
ELLEITHEE: That's right. That's right, because the attorney general took himself out of position where he could have stopped this investigation. So, the president's frustration, I guess I get it. His reactions, I don't.
I think it just doesn't serve him well politically frankly. I think if he were to sit back and say, fine, there is nothing there, but I will fully cooperate and show you that there is nothing there, I think it will away this -- that is not how he is wired.
KURTZ: I do note that, I remember from the Ken Starr days that he is not the only president to push back --
ELLEITHEE: That's right.
KURTZ: -- special counsel an independent prosecutor. All right.
ELLEITHEE: That's right.
KURTZ: So in the interview with Chris Wallace, Chris asked the president about the appointment of acting attorney general, Matt Whitaker, who of course has a history of slamming the Mueller investigation.
The president said that if Whitaker took any steps to curtail or reign in the investigation, the president said he leave it up to Whitaker, that he would not going to intervene. And then there was this question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Did you know before you appointed him that he had that record and was so critical of Robert Mueller?
TRUMP: I did not know that. I did not know he took views on the Mueller investigation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: The president is a little skeptical on that point, that he finally gets to the point his own acting attorney general who has a well-documented record, and he had no idea that he was a Mueller critic?
JASHINSKY: I find that hard to believe as well. I'm not sure how big of a deal that is, but at the same time, the president in his interview with The Daily Caller this week when he was asked about Whitaker, he did immediately transition into talking about the investigation. So I find it hard to believe. It is not something I'm going to freak out over.
KURTZ: All right. Just real quickly, there is a lot of media chatter about indictments are coming any day now, this week, but then they didn't come. This is part of the speculation about why the president was lashing out.
FISCHER: Yeah, of course. I mean, you would expect him to be a little bit anxious about what could potentially come out here, but I think some of that coverage too might be a little bit overblown. We don't know what they are really looking into. We are hearing reports that he is talking to even some like third-level players in this investigation.
KURTZ: I was making that point. We are down to talking about Roger Stone, his associates. I am not saying that that's not important, but it is not -- it doesn't seem like from what we know now that there is another major indictment, the worst and yet, that was a lot of press speculation about the president's comments.
ELLEITHEE: Everyone should just stop speculating. I want the president --
KURTZ: Really?
ELLEITHEE: I want the president to just chill out and let this thing happen, right? And that's what Democrats are demanding. So should the press. The press should just chill out and let this thing play out. We will find out when it is time for us to find out. Mueller doesn't screw around.
JASHINSKY: The speculation has created such a circus and that's really so unfounded in so many cases.
KURTZ: All right. I am also in favor of speculation but I am not holding my breath.
(LAUGHTER)
KURTZ: Ahead, top news outlets portraying Donald Trump is angry, furious, lashing out since the midterms. Is that on target? But first, a devastating New York Times investigation of Facebook's some pretty unsavory tactics by Mark Zuckerberg's company.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Facebook has been telling us for a very long time that it's going to do better. But a New York Times' expose reveals that the company deliberately denied that the site was awash in Russian propaganda and hate speech and phony news and use some pretty sleazy tactics to neutralize critics.
Marck Zuckerberg and his deputy Sheryl Sandberg spent years minimizing Facebook's many problems and then only reluctantly promising to do better.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO, FACEBOOK: Personally, I think the idea that, you know, fake news on Facebook of which, you know, it's a very small amount of the content, influenced the election in any way, I think, is a pretty crazy idea. We didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibility and that was a big mistake. And it was my mistake. And I'm sorry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: But reporting by the Times shows the top Facebook executives warned that if the social network was too aggressive in going after Russia, Republicans would accuse the site of favoring Democrats and users might feel duped. Times reporter, Nick Confessore.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICK CONFESSORE, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: This is a company that knew there are things going on with this information as early as 2016, but didn't tell their own board or the public what they knew until the fall of 2017, when the damage is already done.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened is they kept escalating the problem. First, oh, it's not so bad, maybe it's a little worse. I remember the Times saying it's like cockroaches. They will come out. They are everywhere. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have any two individuals made more money while doing more damage to the United States?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Facebook hired a Republican P.R. from Washington, Definers Public Affairs, which choose an affiliated conservative news site to blast out articles accusing rivals, Google and Apple, of unsavory business practices.
And Facebook's firm did Apple research on critics, trying to link them to big time Democratic donor George Soros as well as taking up information on senders preparing to grill Sandberg.
Zuckerberg and Sandberg insist they didn't know about the work of the firm which the company has now fired. And they say they have done nothing wrong. Sandberg told CBS some allegations in the piece were absolutely not true.
It is a very dark portrait of a tech giant that once got so muc good press. The question now is whether Zuckerberg can finally police Facebook's content and whether the global machine he built is beyond repair.
Coming up, illegal setback to the White House as a judge temporarily restores Jim Acosta's credentials. But is it the free speech victory as some are claiming? And later, the creator of Spider Man and so many other superheroes is dead. I'll have some thoughts on Stan Lee.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: CNN sued the president and top White House officials for revoking Jim Acosta's credentials, a lawsuit that Sarah Huckabee Sanders dismissed as more grandstanding by CNN.
Many major news outlets are backing CNN's suit, including Fox. In a statement by Fox News president, Jay Wallace, secret service passes for working White House journalists should never be weaponized. While we don't condone the growing antagonistic tone by both the president and the press secretary recent media mails, we do support a free press, access and open exchanges for the American people.
The federal judge issued a temporary ruling for CNN on Friday, not on First Amendment grounds, but because the White House violated Acosta's due process in revoking his credentials. That happened after last week's news conference.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That's enough. That's enough.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Mr. President, the other folks.
TRUMP: That's enough.
ACOSTA: Pardon me, ma'am. Mr. President...
TRUMP: That's enough. I tell you what, CNN should be ashamed of themselves having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Chris Wallace asked the president about the judge's ruling.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: What they said though is that we have to create rules and regulations for conduct, et cetera, et cetera. We're doing that. We're going to write them up right now. It's not a big deal. And he misbehaves, we will throw him out or we will stop the news conference, or somebody else. I am not just saying this about Acosta. CNN writes very fake news.
ACOSTA: I want to thank all of my colleagues in the press who supported us this week. And I want to thank the judge for the decision he made today. And let's go back to work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: I believe the judge made a point of saying this is a narrow ruling, it's not on First Amendment grounds. It's about a White House decision- making process that the judge said was shrouded in mystery. But with Acosta now back at the White House at least for now, is it something of a win for press freedom?
EMILY JASHINSKY, THE FEDERALIST: I wouldn't say it's a win for press freedom. I think it's a win for CNN. And the president politically is smart to downplay it and say listen, it was about due process. It was about you know we are going to implement rules for conduct at the briefings, which I hope to God take because they have turned into such big circuses. And Acosta is a big part of that.
And so, if moving forward, this can be a good thing because the White House will implement rules and reporters know they have to abide by them, unless they debate about this legal argument. Maybe that's a good thing. I don't know.
KURTZ: All right.
JASHINSKY: I mean, this story is just -- let's talk about Jim Acosta.
KURTZ: Well, we have to throw in Chris Wallace. And maybe, we will just turn the cameras up to show the reporters to deprive him of air time.
SARA FISCHER, AXIOS: Now, Fox News has been taking some heat from stands online, Sara, for CNN's behalf, as if that amounts to condoning Jim Acosta's conduct as opposed to saying we don't think the president should be able to somewhat arbitrarily take away credentials.
FISCHER: Well, some of those stands should take back from 2009 when all the media backed Fox News against the Obama administration, so...
KURTZ: When Fox News left out...
FISHER: That's right. The thing is when it comes to access to the White House, the White House press corps tends to stand in solidarity, so they can protect themselves, so that if they're subject to these types of things in the future, they're subject to the same type of support.
But going back to what you said, both things can be true here. You can disagree with Acosta's conduct and still think that the White House acted in bad faith by taking away a press credential without due process.
KURTZ: I'll come back to it. Let me first play some comments by CNN commentator and lawyer Jeff Toobin about the significance of the decision.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF TOOBIN, CNN COMMENTATOR: This case was not certainly just about CNN or even about the White House.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
TOOBIN: This was about government officials in statehouses, in city halls, whether they can throw out reporters who they view as annoyances.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Do you agree with that broader interpretation and in the court hearing, a Justice Department lawyer said well, the president has no obligation to let any reporter even on to the White House grounds? He can ban them all. While, that may be true, but it would be politically challenging.
MO ELLEITHEE, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF POLITICS: And I agree with that. Look, I think Jay Wallace said it very well in his statement from Fox News that press access should not be weaponized, that the president can come up -- this judge ruling may give the president and the White House the ability to now come up with some sort of a process, so that there can be due process. But I worry about a president or a White House press secretary saying I don't like your coverage.
And therefore, I'm going to call you rude or pick a fight with you, so that I have then grounds to throw you out. That is not beyond the realms of possibility with this White House where the president calls people whose coverage he doesn't like the enemy of the American people. It's worries me that he is setting his precedent that can be...
KURTZ: Well, Acosta also picks fights in the way he lectures and debates the president when he gets the chance.
By the way, Sarah Sanders has sent a letter to Acosta, a formal letter. They are still trying to proceed with revoking his credentials permanently. So whether or not this raises issues -- constitutional issues of free speech, because eventually, if the case proceeds, the judge will get to that. It kind of shifted the spotlight from Jim Acosta to the president's attacks on the press.
JASHINSKY: Right. But I do think one thing that has been lost in all of this about the entire conversation in regard to access in this White House is that Donald Trump called on Jim Acosta in the first place at this press conference. And that's what started it. He's happy to talk to the people that spread what he calls fake news.
KURTZ: Well, he likes the confrontation.
JASHINSKY: Yeah, they are constantly calling on him. Obviously, this White House has a relationship with the New York Times. They have a relationship with all these different media outlets. And so, as much complaining as there is about access in this White House, the White House does provide a lot of access and does -- is happy to engage with these outlets.
KURTZ: Yeah, the president takes a lot of questions, although last week, you know, he really snapped back at one reporter. He said it's a stupid question and he went after them.
ELLEITHEE: I mean, that's right. He'll take the question. But when a legitimate question comes, he'll immediately snap at them, call them fake news, throw them under the bus to revoke their press credential. So, you know...
KURTZ: He does that sometimes, not all the time.
ELLEITHEE: But then -- but then, he launches into the personal attacks. There wouldn't have been any oxygen there...
KURTZ: There wouldn't have been any oxygen there if Jim Acosta had given up the microphone. This was the thing that prompted criticism from many of his colleagues including Chris Wallace. Let me ask about the hearing, Sara. The government lawyer went before the judge and said, you know what, CNN has all these other reporters who come to the White House, and they're pretty credential people. So you know somebody else could cover the president and Acosta could come to the White House by watching on TV. That seems to me to not get in the way in which why this isn't important principle to news organization.
FISCHER: This is an important principle because you are setting a precedent about how we are interpreting laws for the future. A lot of these questions, by the way, had to your point -- they've come up in local jurisdictions, but we have never seen it playing out with a sitting president in the White House.
And so, it's not about whether or not, oh, you've got 50 other reporters to cover this.
KURTZ: Yeah.
FISCHER: It's insuring that the law is upheld to apply to every single person at all times.
KURTZ: My point is that no news organizations want to light any politician be in position of saying who could cover him or her. You know, just get someone else and Acosta is their guy. Also, you know, some at the White House say, well, by doing this, they took Acosta's oxygen away for a week. But they also gave a lot of oxygen obviously to others.
And finally, this is why I said it was a strategic misstep. And that is for all the controversy surrounding Jim Acosta, even among his colleagues, the White House kind of turned him into a journalistic martyr, because other organizations felt they had to stand with CNN even with reservations about Acosta, who is now -- at least for now, back on the job.
All right. Next on Media Buzz, huge media hype about another White House shake-up or is it just some routine personnel moves after the elections.
And later, Monica Lewinsky shedding new light on her ordeal in a documentary and why she still thinks Bill Clinton should apologize.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: President Trump is being described by major media outlets as angry since the midterms, as well as lashing out and resentful and bruiting and disengaged and undergoing days of fury, that according to the Washington Post, also LA Times and Politico. And this is said to be fueling his push for another White House shake-up aimed at such targets as Homeland Security Chief Kirstjen Nielsen and how many times have we been through this one, Chief-Of-Staff John Kelly.
Oh, I thought we were going to a sound bite. All right. So, Emily, the president does seem resentful about the coverage of Paris. He brought up the coverage of him not visiting the cemetery in France, this potential shake-up. But then he tells Chris Wallace well, that Washington Post story about fury is based on fictional sources. Your take on that and these similar pieces?
JASHINSKY: And bringing in the similar pieces, we talked earlier about the phrase, the cocoon of bitterness. There was something...
KURTZ: Yeah, that was in the LA Times.
JASHINSKY: That was LA Times, the post-story referred to as temper and splenetic tweets. I think some of this is absolutely over the top. I also think there is another thing to say about the president not actually hiding a lot of his frustrations. As we mentioned earlier, he's tweeting out in all caps. I mean, it's not as though he's necessarily trying to say that he's not frustrated with these things. It's more about the chaos in the White House. That's what frustrates him. And when you have these narratives constructed on the accounts of anonymous sources, I understand why he would take issue with this.
KURTZ: Unless the anonymous sources are senior White House officials and top advisors as they sometimes are, the media had this chaos narrative. And it would be a big deal if Trump dumped John Kelly, who he did not give a resounding vote of confidence in the Wallace interview after he would stay in 2020. But you know, Ryan Zinke, Kirstjen Nielsen, in any other administration, I think the press will treat this as a normal turnover after the midterm elections, in which the party lost one chamber.
ELLEITHEE: I think there are two things at play here. One is you've got a White House staff that likes to talk to the press. They like to do it anonymously. They like to leak for different reasons. That makes them feel more self-important, right. So that's number one is you have a White House staff that likes to talk.
And two, you have a White House staff that doesn't necessarily know what's in the president's head. And so, they may be hearing something or interpreting something or putting something out there about a staff shake- up. But I will say this, we have gone through this cycle umpteen times now with this president where there is a leak and a denial. And then, the thing actually happens, not long afterwards.
KURTZ: It also reminds me -- reminds them of the spring of 2017, when there was such constant leaking and back-biting and sniping anonymously by people around Donald Trump. And it died down for a while under John Kelly. And now, it really seems to be back. And some of these leaks may be coming from places like the State Department and Homeland Security and the NSC where certain officials have been targeted, which leaves me to my question for Sara.
The First Lady of the United States Melania Trump publicly issued a statement, none of us have ever seen anything like this, calling for the firing of John Bolton's deputy at the National Security Council, Mira Ricardel, who has since been transferred. The president was asked about that again by Chris Wallace. And he said well, she is not exactly for the United Nations. I mean, she's not diplomatic, but he liked her anyway. Other first ladies have obviously - Nancy Reagan was one who yielded power behind the scenes. But this -- did this deserve all the coverage it got because of its unique nature?
FISCHER: It is unique. And it's unique for Melania. She tends to be somebody who stays in the background, who doesn't speak out a lot. In fact, the only other time she was really speaking out that causes media ripple was when she made comments about I can watch whatever I want with CNN. So it's newsworthy that we are getting inside Melania's head.
KURTZ: Shoot all the jacket (ph).
FISCHER: Of course.
KURTZ: Yeah.
FISCHER: But does it have any actual weight to it? At this point, we can't really tell.
KURTZ: Well, I mean, she did -- this woman is losing her job, even though she will be going elsewhere. So you talked about the press being wedded to a chaos narrative. But sometimes the White House does seem chaotic.
JASHINSKY: Oh, yes.
KURTZ: You have a fuller portrait.
JASHINSKY: No, I think there is a very fair point to be made. And to some extent, the fact that there are chaos narratives, stories coming out of the White House probably means that there is chaos because people are leaking for various reasons.
That being said, I do think it's over the top when we're talking about the cocoon of bitterness, I don't know how accurate that is.
FISCHER: We also don't have a wind to point to right now. He just went through the midterm elections, where the Democrats swept these whole Sessions...
KURTZ: Republicans won the Senate.
FISCHER: That's right. Democrats took the House.
KURTZ: Yeah.
FISCHER: But you have this drama unfolding between Sessions and Whitaker. You have the whole media narrative around his trip in Paris which didn't go very well. I think he does not have a lot of winds to point to, so it makes it look tumultuous.
KURTZ: Well, the president says that the White House is a well oiled machine. That's what he told Chris Wallace. As a brief comment, that's fake news.
ELLEITHEE: I mean, it's not a well oiled machine. I think that anyone that says that, it is chaos. Now, that may be fun for Donald Trump. Donald Trump his entire life, his entire career tends to harness chaos, or at least tries to. He thrives on that person. I don't think it serves the White House well and the government well, but that's his style. So to deny it is just to deny a simple fact.
KURTZ: You know, maybe it's not chaos, it's just conflict in letting the different factions go at it, but it deals in to the press. Mo Elleithee, Sara Fischer, excuse me, and Emily Jashinsky, thanks so much for joining us this Sunday.
After the break, Monica Lewinsky says she considered suicide during the ordeal that led to Bill Clinton's impeachment. Why her comments resonates now 20 years later.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Twenty years after the impeachment of Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky is offering new details about ordeal as that woman in an A&E series that begins tonight, speaking for instance about being confronted and questioned by the FBI.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MONICA LEWINSKY, FORMER WHITE HOUSE INTERN: I remember look out the window and thinking that the only way to fix this was to kill myself, was to jump out the window. And I just felt terrible. I was scared. And I just felt mortified and afraid of what this is going to do to my family.
And you know I still was in love with Bill at the time. So I just felt really responsible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Joining us, Gillian Turner, a Fox News correspondent and a White House official in the Bush and Obama administrations. Boy, that was hard to watch. And you know, Monica Lewinsky has been mocked and denigrated by the media for a very long time. When you watch that interview, when you see her is tearing up, in this climate, it drives home how Bill Clinton should be the one who should be ashamed.
GILLIAN TURNER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, you can't help but think how different the media coverage would be where this story breaking today, in this climate, in the Me Too and the Time's Up era. It's hard to imagine she would receive the same treatment from the media that she received then.
KURTZ: Yeah. And that's the thing about watching it now. We're talking about events from 1998. Let me play another sound bite from A&E and ask you a question on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEWINSKY: The moment we were actually in the back office for the first time, the truth is that I think it meant more to me that's someone who other people desired, desired me. However wrong it was, however misguided for who I was in that very moment at 22 years old, that was how I felt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Well, we know what they were doing in the back office. She was very candid. She loved Bill and she felt desired. I mean, this was the side of Monica Lewinsky we haven't seen. She was a famous 22-year-old intern. You went to the White House when you were 23. Did you think about what happened to her?
TURNER: I did. When I joined the Bush administration, the National Security Council, I just 23 years old. And it sunk it for me, seeing the Oval Office in person for the first time, being in the West Wing, being around people that had worked in the Clinton administration, who were still there. It dawned on me anew how incredible this escapade in American history had been, understanding exactly how many people would have been aware internally that something was up, trying to understand how an intern, sort of low on the totem poll you can be at the White House, gain access to the president in the first instance, and managed to have time alone with him. All of these things were not things I thought about as a teenager when the story was breaking.
KURTZ: Right.
TURNER: But occurred to me anew with a lot of impact when I was in my early mid-20s.
KURTZ: Right. Monica Lewinsky says she thinks Bill Clinton still owes her and the country an apology. Well, he apologized to the country. And also, just to see it there as a real thing, it certainly is striking.
Now, she writes a piece in Vanity Fair saying she would like to be freed from her victimhood. But she says that's not up to me, it's up to the social mob, and the media, which sounds about right.
TURNER: Yeah. And that's one of the notable things that came at the end of that piece, where she said the reason she was doing this docuseries in the first place and talking about this ancient history now is because she can, which was a reference to when President Clinton was interviewed by Dan Rather. He was asked why he was having a relationship with a young woman that wasn't his wife, Bill Clinton said because I could.
KURTZ: Right. She doesn't want to be defined by this scandal for the rest of her life, although so far, that's what happened.
TURNER: Well, I think it's her opportunity from her perspective.
KURTZ: Yeah.
TURNER: It's her opportunity to tell the story as her own, to reclaim the narrative from the media, from President Clinton.
KURTZ: All the people.
TURNER: Exactly, to make it her own. That is sort of not to get too pop culture, psychoanalytical on you, but that's a very common way to treat and help victims recover at this point, to reclaim narratives and make them their own. So it's a little bit of that probably.
KURTZ: Well, I wonder if today's climate would all the way help liberate Monica Lewinsky and she wouldn't be stuck at the age of 22 and what happened to her and the FBI and all of that. Gillian Turner, great to see you. Thanks so much for joining us.
Still to come, why I feel a personal connection to Spiderman and the late Stan Lee. And I have something I have never shown before on national television.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOBEY MAGUIRE, ACTOR WHO PLAYED SPIDERMAN: Not everyone was meant to make a difference. But for me, the choice to live an ordinary life is no longer an option.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Stan Lee, the Marvel legend who died at 95, was a superhero to me, as a kid who actually had a letter published in Spiderman 22. This is the guy who revolutionized the comics, moving away from those cardboard super duper characters to create such wise-cracking figures as the nerdy teenage Spidey, Ironman, the Hulk, the X-Men, Fantastic Four, people who had problems when they weren't fighting bad guys, as Stan Lee told the New York Times.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STAN LEE, MARVEL LEGEND: What I tried to do was take these characters, who are obviously bigger than life and fictitious, and make them seem real. They have got these powers. They do wonderful things. But what are the things that worry them, what are the things that frustrate them?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: I learned to write by reading the Marvel comics and began to draw my own called the Defenders. I never showed this before. It's all in these notebooks. I also liked that Stan Lee credited the writers and artists in each issue. Well, the Marvel stars are now huge and lucrative, movie franchises, that has its roots in the 1960s with Stan Lee's angst written heroes, plots which included social issues, all for 10 cents an issue.
Well, we're doomed, at least those of us in the television news. China has created an anchor powered by artificial intelligence. And how can we compete with those? They don't require sleep or long lunches or big salaries and they don't make mistakes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHINA'S A.I. ANCHOR: This is my very first day in Xinhua News Agency. My voice and appearance are modeled on Zhang Zhao, a real news anchor with Xinhua. The development of the media industry calls for continuous innovation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: That's not how it's done, buddy. You got to have some sparks, some sizzle. Put some into it. Well, that's a relief. That anchor is never going to get any ratings. I hope.
That's it for this edition of Media Buzz. I'm Howard Kurtz. Hey, check out my new Podcast, Media Buzz Meter. We kick around the day's most important or fascinating stories every single day.
You can subscribe at Apple iTunes, or Google Play, or FoxNewsPodcast.com. Check out our Facebook page. We post my daily columns and original video. Let's continue the conversation on Twitter @HowardKurtz.
All right. Out of time. Back here next Sunday.
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