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Media decry Minneapolis killing
Published May 31, 2020
This is a rush transcript from "Media Buzz," May 31, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: This is "Media Buzz." I'm Howard Kurtz. Even with America's death toll from the Coronavirus passing 100,000, the death of one man, George Floyd, killed in the custody of Minneapolis police officers, has become the dominant media story. Journalists -- excuse me, sparking riots in that city and across the country.
Journalists wounded by rubber bullets in some instances, many police officers injured as well, President Trump urging a tougher stance toward the violence. And yet, the killing of Floyd, the officer charged with third degree murder and manslaughter in that case, transcending the usual divisions of the media, white and black, left and right.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think as a daughter of a black man and the mother of a black man, this is really too much for me today. I'm still rattled by that last story. It feels to me like open season, and that it's just not sometimes a place to be in this country for black men.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm having my own -- I'm surprised at my own emotions on TV with you. But I just -- as a white woman aware of my own privilege in this country, I am so angry. And I can't even begin -- forgive me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It looks like outrageous and even perhaps murderous behavior by Minneapolis police officers, another black man in police custody, gasping for air, on the ground, defenseless, and then shortly thereafter dead, absolutely infuriating and heartbreaking.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Being a professional isn't enough. Being educated isn't enough. Being rich isn't enough. When you have darker skin, there is no insulation for this type of behavior.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: It was a smartphone video taken by a 17-year-old girl that showed the officer's knee on Floyd's neck, even as he pleaded he couldn't breathe.
That convinced most of the media and public that this death was an outrage.
And a second video obtained by NBC made even more clear that an unarmed man was being fatally mistreated.
Joining us now to analyze the coverage, Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at the Federalist and a Fox News contributor, Gillian Turner, a Fox News correspondent here in Washington, and Richard Fowler, radio talk show host and also a Fox News contributor. Mollie, we'll get to the protesters in just a moment. But in so many cases, you have this partisan media divide where conservatives are backing the police.
And liberals are backing the black person who was either killed or wounded.
In the death of George Floyd, it seems to me you have all sides united over this Minneapolis tragedy.
MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah, it did seem left, right, whatever your political persuasion, black, white. Everyone saw that video and they were horrified by what they saw. And that is an important thing to note. And divisions have developed in this story over how people have responded to it, but it seems there is a great deal of unity on that point.
KURTZ: Richard, how has this story affected you personally? And given the history here, all these cases such as the police chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York half a dozen years ago, or even the other day, the white woman in Central Park calling police to frame a black man who asked her to leash her dog. Do you think the media are conveying that this is a deeply rooted problem?
RICHARD FOWLER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I think there are -- the reporting shows that they are conveying this is a deeply rooted problem. There is nowhere, Howard, for a black man to be safe. You can't be safe in your own home. You can't be safe in your grandmother's backyard. You can't be safe watching birds. You can't be safe selling loose cigarettes on the streets of Staten Island.
And that is where this anger comes from tonight. And for the past five nights, is that people of color are saying where is our justice? Where is our liberty? Where is our freedom? And right now, that's what's in question.
KURTZ: Gillian, in this case, as many others in recent years, it was smartphone video that show, for example, that the police account that George Floyd was resisting arrest was a lie. Without that video, of course, it's become so common with people all carrying cameras. Do you think this would even have become a national story?
GILLIAN TURNER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Who knows the answer to that? But thank God that that woman and those bystanders on the corner of that Minneapolis sidewalk had their cellphones and had the wherewithal during that moment of crisis to whip them out, get the footage that America need to see. I think what hits home for the American people and for journalists covering this is that though we're very lucky to have that coverage in this instance.
Though we were very fortunate a few weeks ago to have that cellphone footage, again, of the moment that Ahmaud Arbery was shot in broad daylight as well. These are just the horrors that we now have on camera. Think about the thousands, the tens of thousands of murders that we don't have. It makes it -- it sort of compounds the heartbreak.
A quick note on media unity here, I think it is important that the sides are united in the fact that, you know, the murder of George Floyd is a terrible thing, but it's hardly anything to commend. I mean, it's a pretty low bar when the media can widely agree that the murder of an American on an American street on Memorial Day is an egregious thing that upsets all of us. It's not really saying a lot that we can rally around that reality.
KURTZ: That's a good bit of perspective. President Trump tweeted -- let me just jump in to Mollie and I'll come back to you, Richard. President Trump tweeted after the riots began. Let me put up on the screen. These thugs are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd. I won't let that happen. He spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him the military's with him all the way.
Any difficulty and we will assume control, but when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Now, Twitter hid that tweet, Mollie, from a lot of people.
It's hard to -- you had to click on of something. You couldn't easily re- tweet it, saying that this was glorifying violence. Was that unfair, in your view?
HEMINGWAY: Well, President Trump's words were ill-chosen and historically fraught. He later clarified. He said that he was just making a statement of fact about how looting can lead to unchecked violence, which is certainly true. But to me, the bigger issue is what Twitter did there. And this week, Twitter's actions against the president have really escalated a war there.
They began by fact-checking his opinion about a future event, which is something you can't do by adding an editor's note that was factually incorrect itself. And then they went to straight-up censorship, not just of the president's Twitter feed, but of official government communications.
And they're doing this only against Trump and his White House, not against Chinese propaganda, not against Iran when they call for the destruction of Israel and genocide of Jews. And this is -- really seems like election meddling and it's a big escalation.
KURTZ: Well, we're going to get to that later in the program. Richard, I want to let you make your earlier point. But first, let me play a sound bite from the president expressing his own feelings about the killing of George Floyd.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: When you look at George Floyd and his family and you see what that's done to them, just a terrible thing. It was a very, very sad thing for me to see that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: And as Mollie said, the president clarified that tweet. He said he meant that people get shot and they die when there's unchecked violence, your thoughts?
FOWLER: Listen. We-- our country right now needs national leadership. And what's missing at the White House is just that. And we can have this debate about whether or not there's a battle between Donald Trump and Twitter. But let's just listen to what he said. He said that peaceful protesters -- he called us thugs. And hours after that happened, a black journalist at CNN was arrested for covering this story.
This is why African-Americans are broader than that. A multicultural coalition of folks is angry today. They're angry because the president doesn't seem to get it. That while, yes, we know about the case of George Floyd because that was caught on tape. There aren't journalists in the car with black men who are pulled over by the police.
And we begin to flinch. And sometimes, because it happened to me, we begin to see our funeral play out when we're in that interaction.
HEMINGWAY: This needs to be corrected. There is a distinction between peaceful protesters and rioters. There's a distinction between peaceful protesters and rioters.
(CROSSTALK)
FOWLER: Excuse me, Mollie. When the president -- when the president of the United States, during the middle of peaceful protests, comes out and says thugs, who do you think he's referring to?
HEMINGWAY: These were not peaceful protests. People are having their businesses destroyed. Property damage is happening.
FOWLER: Are you referring to the CNN black journalist who was arrested?
HEMINGWAY: No. There's a lot of bad behavior by local governments against journalists.
(CROSSTALK)
FOWLER: Who was he referring to, Mollie?
(CROSSTALK)
HEMINGWAY: I assume the violent rioters.
KURTZ: Yes. I'm going to agree with Mollie on that point. But I take your point, Richard. Gillian, I lived through the devastating riots of 1968, which led -- left many urban areas scarred for more than two decades. Do you think the national media are playing this, the 24/7 media on that level, or is it too soon to say, you know, whether this calms down in a few days?
TURNER: The problem with the idea that this is all going to calm down is that there is still -- justice hasn't been served, right? The first steps were taken pretty quickly here. The officers who were on the scene, all four of them, lost their jobs. That was the immediate step one. Now, one of them has been charged. But he hasn't been convicted. He has to of be tried first.
He hasn't been convicted. And justice is not going to be served until the sentence matches what every American who has looked at this video with their own two eyes sees, which is the murder of an American on an American street in broad daylight on Memorial Day. That's how you start healing these wounds. When people all across the United States see that the criminal justice system will work in the way it's supposed to, that it's intended to work.
Quick note on the riots, every time we talk about the lawlessness of these rioters, the folks --
(CROSSTALK)
TURNER: OK.
KURTZ: So I want to turn now to something that CNN's Don Lemon said about the president's comments. I just want to remind you Mollie, as you know, the president has called the family, he spoke out very quickly and said that he was shocked. Here's Lemon on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No one wants to hear from the man who wanted the death penalty to come back from the Central Park Five. No one wants to hear from the man who says there are very fine people on both sides.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: So Mollie, if liberals want to criticize President Trump for what they see as wrong, how he handled Charlottesville, even the pandemic.
That's fine. But when he does -- when we would agree is the right thing, they don't want to hear from him either.
HEMINGWAY: Yeah. There just seem to be a lack of leadership in almost every sector of our society, political, media, and otherwise when it comes to something like this, where we need people to have good ideas about how to improve things. We take instances like this and we make them very political and we make them nationally political.
But if you really want to improve relationships between police forces and the communities that they're supposed to serve, you need to actually have some changes. And this type of hysterical reaction that's not focused on what's actually causing problems doesn't lead to that. The media could serve a very good function here.
KURTZ: Richard, I've got 20 seconds for a response. Richard.
FOWLER: Listen. Yes, I think the media can serve a function by really broadcasting what's happening, because what's happening on the streets go far beyond George Floyd. What's happening on the streets is pain that has deeply rooted in the black community. In 1955, Emmett Till was lynched, right? In 1992, Rodney King was beat by police officers.
Just about six years ago, Eric Garner was choked and he says I can't breathe. And here we are again, in 2020, talking about the same case and nothing has changed. And that's why people are angry. And the president seems to be missing that anger and the historical roots of it.
KURTZ: Well, I would just point out that --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: I will get to that in a moment. I just want to point out that Derek Chauvin, the officer who was charged who had his knee on Floyd's neck for nine minutes. That didn't happen until days of media coverage, and of course, the unfortunate violence. When we come back, covering the riots that erupted in cities across America last night, with journalists among those being injured, that's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Television screens were dominated last night by the riots that broke out from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, from New York to Philadelphia, to Richmond to Indianapolis, and other cities in the wake of George Floyd's killing. A photo journalist for WCCO in Minneapolis was struck in the leg by a rubber bullet, and this is what happened to MSNBC anchor, Ali Velshi.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got protesters now moving closer and the police continue to fire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sounds like they're chanting do it, do it, like they're daring the state troopers to fire on them again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, guys. I got hit. Yeah, I got hit. Hold on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Ali Velshi struck by a rubber bullet. Mollie, I do see the media starting to question the police handling of these violent disturbances. I don't see a lot of media debate about the protesters, if you want to call them that, the rioters who are looting stores, setting police cars on fire, setting police stations on fire, except to try to distinguish them from the many thousands who have tried to protest peacefully.
HEMINGWAY: I actually do see a bit of a difference between how local media are handling these violent protests -- violent riots versus peaceful protests and how national media seem to be conflating them a bit. And it is important that -- just seems that we have seen not enough attention paid to people who are having their communities destroyed, their businesses burned, and the destruction that comes along with that in the long term, particularly given that the media were so upset when people were peacefully protesting lockdowns a few weeks ago.
They don't seem to be having that same tenor of coverage when it comes to these violent riots that are hitting so many and destroying American cities.
KURTZ: Right. Richard, when journalists talk about the anger, given all the history that you recited in the last segment among these protesters. Can that be read as some kind of justification for the looting and the violence and the fires, or do you think that is not what is intended by much of the coverage and commentary?
FOWLER: Look -- I'll say this. I think majority of -- 99.9 percent of these protests have been peaceful. I was -- I know folks that went to one, likely be going to one this afternoon, because we're calling for justice. And at the same time, yes, there are folks who are engaging in violent acts and that's wrong. But let's be very clear, right?
And let's understand that if you saw what happened in St. Paul, the mayor said very clearly. All the folks that were arrested for engaging in violence, none of them lived in St. Paul, right? And so we have agitators here. And it doesn't matter what party they belong to.
(CROSSTALK)
HEMINGWAY: I did a fact check.
FOWLER: I did not interrupt you. I did not interrupt you.
HEMINGWAY: You said something factually untrue.
(CROSSTALK)
FOWLER: Let me finish. Thank you.
(CROSSTALK)
FOWLER: Here's what's true. What's true -- go ahead, Howard.
KURTZ: I was just going to say it was reported by Minnesota's governor and President Trump that there were many out-of-state agitators. Later, it turned out local news organizations found out it wasn't true. Please finish your comment so I can move on.
FOWLER: Sure. Thank you. Listen, I think at the end of the day, what we're saying here and what's happening is that black -- African-Americans have been condemned for every way we protest. When we kneeled in the NFL, we were condemned. When we protest peacefully, we were called thugs. So what else do you want people to do?
KURTZ: Gillian, President Trump has just gone coverage saying that liberal governors and mayors have to get much tougher on these crowds. But I see Democratic mayors from Minneapolis to L.A. and black mayors in places like Atlanta saying that this violence is unacceptable. How much coverage should this inevitable blame game get?
TURNER: Not a lot, because politicians are going to do politics, no matter what. And that includes the president of the United States who is running for re-election. What matters here is not how these rioters and these protesters vote. It doesn't matter right now who people choose -- who the kind of elites in this country are choosing to blame for this.
Again, what matters is the focus and the coverage going forward of how justice is sought, how justice is pursued. A quick note on the rioters, which came from a source, who is a psychiatrist last night, he pointed out to me, the media needs some empathy here when they -- to take into account the fact that when things go bad, it is in human nature to make things worse.
This is why we see things like during the Coronavirus pandemic, drug abuse is spiking, alcoholism is spiking.
KURTZ: I have to jump in.
TURNER: People's natural tendency is to make things worse.
KURTZ: I have to jump in. Since you mentioned the Coronavirus, we passed a grim milestone this week, 100,000 Americans dead during this pandemic.
Quick answers here, Mollie. Washington Post said, well, President Trump didn't have any special commemoration, a moment of silence, no collective sharing of grief. Though, that he did tweet the next day about his heartfelt sympathy and love for those who have died. Is that kind of criticism fair?
HEMINGWAY: Well, the media seem to pick an arbitrary number, at which point to have a big shared media event. And then they were upset that not everybody else participated in it. What would be nice is for our media to do a much better job of accurately conveying who is precisely most vulnerable from this virus and get more focused attention on that.
Nursing homes account for more than half of these deaths. We need to do more there. And then when we focus on them, we can also understand that what we've done to the general population has all sorts of bad effects, including some of what we've seen this weekend.
KURTZ: Richard, quick response please.
FOWLER: This is simple. The Coronavirus is disproportionately impacting African-Americans, people of color. At the same time, we are dying at the hands of police. At the same time, 100,000 Americans are dead and 40 million Americans are unemployed. And I'm asking the question. I think a lot of media members are doing the same thing. Where is the White House?
Where is presidential leadership?
KURTZ: All right. I would just point out leaders across the country have to be involved in these solutions. But thank you all, Richard fowler, Mollie Hemingway, Gillian Turner. Up next, a black reporter for CNN is arrested while covering the Minneapolis riots. And protesters attack the CNN building in Atlanta.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Omar Jimenez, a black journalist from CNN, was arrested along with his crew while covering the Minneapolis riots, even though he was trying to comply with police instructions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're getting out of your way, so just let us know.
Wherever you'd want us, we will go. And so we walked away. I'm sorry?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're under arrest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Do you mind telling me why I'm under arrest, sir? I am thankful that it happened on live TV so that you were able to see it. I was able -- I lived it. And people around the country were able to watch and see how it unfolded, so there's no doubt as to what happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Joining us now, Griff Jenkins, who has covered many protests as a Fox News correspondent. And Griff, sometimes police -- reporters get briefly arrested when they refuse a police order to move. Clearly, that happened here -- and a white reporter, a black or white was not arrested.
GRIFF JENKINS, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Howie, it was outrageous to watch it even the second time I watched it. I watched it live the first time, because the police should not be arresting journalists. The First Amendment is under attack, not only from being caught in crossfire and sometimes being assaulted perhaps by the police intentionally. We'll get into that in a moment.
But Omar Jimenez did exactly the right thing. His episode should be shown in every journalism class in the nation for years come, because he was trying to work with the police. That's what we do. Where should we be? How can we cover this? We need to cover this to be a transparency for the nation.
KURTZ: Well, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz did apologize to CNN for what he called the inexcusable arrest. Now, there have been lots of incidents. On Friday night here in Washington, a Fox News crew, including Leland Vittert, were chased by cursing protesters. They were punched. Bottles were thrown at them. Leland described it as a frightening experience.
And in Atlanta on Friday night, CNN headquarters was attacked by a mob, I guess I'll call it, that smashed windows and they defaced the CNN logo. You see it there. What's behind the anti-media anger in this context, Griff?
JENKINS: It's been growing for a long time. I saw it in Ferguson when, of course, their Michael Brown -- they got tired of the media being there. And they turned on us. They burned a journalist's car. I came under attack and I had to flee a live shot at that time. But then we saw it in Baltimore.
And now, it's reached a peak that it's become extremely dangerous.
Thank goodness Leland and Christian (Inaudible) are OK and got out of there. But it is both a combination of police now showing a -- we will arrest you sign that they never did before, and the protesters attacking you. Journalists need 19 eye balls in their heads because it's coming at them from every direction. And really, I think out of all this, while I realize that journalists put themselves in these positions, as I have done.
It is important that both mayors, police chiefs, and ultimately all hopefully of our leaders help to fight for the First Amendment and the protection of journalists. I was proud of our CEO, Suzanne Scott, when she put out a statement supporting Omar Jimenez, in saying that this is unacceptable and it needs to stop.
KURTZ: Right, and a statement supporting Leland Vittert and his crew. Look, last night in Pittsburgh, a photo journalist named Ian Smith was brutally beaten by protesters -- we put that picture up. He said they stomped and kicked me. I'm bruised and bloody but alive. My camera was destroyed.
Another group of protesters and pulled me out and saved my life.
So when you get out there on the frontlines, you not only have you to worry about police. You have to worry about protesters turning their anger on the media. We got a half a minute.
JENKINS: Well, I'll just leave it with this. And that is, thank you to the journalists, from Leland to the Ian Smith, to Katie Kane (ph) a woman lost an eye. She lost her sight in Minneapolis on Friday night here -- surgery.
Thank you to the journalists willing to do this, because never before have we needed them more, and they're standing up for it, Howie.
KURTZ: Yeah. They are out there to tell the story. And I'm great to have you been in this situation to explain that, Griff Jenkins, thanks so much.
Next on "Media Buzz", Twitter keeps fact-checking President Trump and he hits back with an executive order that could rein in all social media companies.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: President Trump has declared war on Twitter. This after the company branded two of his tweets misleading for the first time. Jack Dorsey social media network is slapping a warning label on the tweets, involving the president's opposition to widespread voting by mail.
Here they are. "There is no way (zero) that mail-in ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged and even legally printed out and fraudulently signed. This will be a rigged election. No way."
Trump responded to the move on Twitter naturally with a threat.
"Republicans feel that social media platforms totally silence conservative voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen."
The president issued an executive order that could lessen the legal immunity of Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other tech giants for questionable content posted by their hundreds of millions of users.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The choices that Twitter makes when it chooses to suppress, edit, blacklist, shadow, ban are editorial decisions, pure and simple. They're editorial decisions. In those moments, Twitter ceases to be a neutral public platform, and they become an editor with a viewpoint.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Joining us in New York, Buck Sexton, host of "The Buck Sexton Show"
podcast and a former CIA analyst, and in Los Angeles, Leslie Marshall, radio talk show host and Fox News contributor.
Buck, is Twitter engaging in a double standard here by singling out these presidential tweets on mail fraud, citing NBC, CBS, and the Washington Post because Twitter has never gained to have its own fact-checkers?
BUCK SEXTON, HOST OF "THE BUCK SEXTON SHOW," FORMER CIA ANALYST: Yeah, and people have been pointing out, Howie, that there's been very little fact- checking of, say, the Iranian supreme leader going on in Twitter. I mean, if you're going to get into this game, you're obviously going to then run afoul of people who are looking at this as singling out, as targeting individuals for political purposes.
So they also in this case picked a tweet that was about what could happen in the future. It is an opinion to say that he thinks the election would have a lot of fraud in this. So this just tells conservatives what we've known for years, there is a double standard, they do push against us in ways they don't against the other political side, and this is the president finally taking action on it.
KURTZ: Leslie, Buck kind of set up my question to you, which is while many Republicans as well as most Democrats agree that mail fraud has not been a major problem in the past, president was doing a forecast in November, I warn, I fear that there will be widespread fraud. Why isn't that acceptable political rhetoric?
LESLIE MARSHALL, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, first of all, if he is giving an opinion -- the problem is that Twitter has to decide who they want to be when they grow up and they haven't defined themselves. They don't have the staff clearly like you said, Howie, to have their own fact-checkers. If they're going to fact- check, it's going to be across the board.
If it's just going to be a platform to opine, to present one's opinion, then they've got to back off and let that go. But I do want to jump in on what Buck said because, you know, there have been tweets, as you remember, about Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden, and Twitter refused to take it down. So it's not always that Twitter is the bad guy with conservatives. They've done it to Democrats, liberals, progressives, as well.
KURTZ: A lot of liberals are not happy with Facebook or Twitter. Buck, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence that Twitter's Yoel Roth has tweeted in the past that Donald Trump and his team are actual Nazis, that he is a racist tangerine. Trump has called this guy a hater. Jack Dorsey, the CEO, said there is someone ultimately accountable for actions of the company, that's me, please leave our employees out of this.
SEXTON: Look, this is reminding everybody of what anyone who is paying attention already knows which is that the Silicon Valley giants in the social media space usually share the politics of the overland faculty lounge. I mean, it is a very far left institution, talking about Facebook, talking about Twitter, and that they're going to have employees who are playing speech police.
It's preposterous if you believe that these should be neutral platforms.
Now, we can solve the debate about whether it's a private company -- I mean, it is a private company but can they do whatever they want? Well, a lot of speech regulations out there that deal with commercial entities, media properties.
I work in radio. I am a syndicated radio host. You can't just say whatever you want on the air. So, it gets in the greater complexity there. But, yeah, the left wing bias of Silicon Valley, we keep seeing it come up again and again.
KURTZ: All right. Leslie, the president's executive order would weaken the legal immunity of the social media giants enjoy because they've got all this content from all of us and all kinds of people and they don't really police it very well. You talk about Twitter needing to grow up.
I think even though the president may be acting at a peak, it raises an issue. Why shouldn't they just be treated like media companies that are responsible for some of the vile content and propagandas posted on their sites?
MARSHALL: I didn't say that they need to grow up. I said they don't know what they want to be when they grow up. But, look, Howie, here's the problem when the internet came, you know, around people, when the internet first came into being. People were saying, well, how is this going to work with the First Amendment and how is this going to work if it's not being regulated?
That's what we're seeing right now. A question, how is this handled? You know, Buck brought up a point. We're both syndicated talk show hosts. On radio, you can't say certain things. But if you have a podcast or an online broadcast, which I do as well, you can.
KURTZ: Yeah.
MARSHALL: You can say many more things. You can say those nasty words you're not allowed to say by the FCC.
KURTZ: All right. Don't say them here. Don't say them here.
MARSHALL: It's a very different --
KURTZ: Let me jump in. Let me jump in because I want to get back to our top story which I know you both want to talk about, the riots across America in the wake of George Floyd's killing. Buck, you're in New York where police cars were set on fire among other things. New York Times had a headline yesterday. The president fans the flame, saying that the nation is on edge, ravaged by disease, hammered by economic collapse and so forth.
President Trump's first instinct is to look for someone to fight. Is it fair or unfair journalistic observation?
SEXTON: Completely unfair. I had the president on my radio show last week.
We spoke specifically about the George Floyd case. He said it was horrible, that the Justice Department was looking into it, that he expected authorities to bring swift justice. He said exactly what I would want any commander in chief to say because there isn't a whole lot of debate or discussion about how horrible what happened in Minnesota was.
That said, if you're looking for people that are fanning the flames, I saw protesters here on the streets, I walked amongst them several times because they're all over the city, they're screaming profanity at police officers, they are calling them racist murderers, it's appalling.
And then on top of that, you add the destruction of property. NYPD cars were lit on fire. The media is always soft-pedalling this. Oh no, this is an expression of rage. No, this is looting, this is arson, this is violence and it needs to be stopped.
KURTZ: Let me get a response from Leslie. You're in Los Angeles where a state of emergency has been declared. Do you see the media as soft pedalling the violence and the fire setting and the looting which in some cases have caused people's lives?
MARSHALL: Absolutely not. Without media, we would not have seen the death of a man through someone who fortunately was filming it on their phone.
Look, the president is not being responsible. He has talked about shooting the looters.
You know, we have something called due process in this country. Second of all, the majority, overwhelming majority of the protesters are not looting, are not being violent, and are not shooting, which the president again is not doing. A president, a true leader, Howie, should be trying to make calm. You have to remember, it is not just the death of this man.
KURTZ: All right.
MARSHALL: They've been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and by unemployment as a result of COVID-19 and by hundreds of years without any reparations or justice.
SEXTON: You literally have journalists who have been standing in front of -
-
KURTZ: I got to -- guys --
SEXTON: -- saying it is mostly peaceful.
KURTZ: Guys, we've got to get to a break. I do want to say the president clarified it. He said he was not talking about shooting looters. He was talking about looters getting shot. Obviously, there are differences of opinion on what his original tweet meant.
After the break, the president is also taking heat from some of his own media allies for pushing an unfounded conspiracy theory linking Joe Scarborough to an aide's accidental death 19 years ago.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: President Trump is taking flak from some media conservatives but still continued to tweet an unfounded conspiracy theory about the 2001 death of a woman who worked in Joe Scarborough's Florida congressional office despite a heartfelt letter from her husband.
After calling the MSNBC morning host a nut job who might or might not be linked to the death of Lori Klausutis, ruled an accident by the police, Trump tweeted, "Psycho Joe Scarborough is rattled, not only by his bad ratings but all the things and facts that are coming out on the internet about opening a cold case. He knows what is happening."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
D. TRUMP: Now, it is a very suspicious thing. I hope somebody gets to the bottom of it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're suggesting that Joe Scarborough was responsible?
D. TRUMP: A lot of people suggested that.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST: It is heartbreaking. The cruelty is unspeakable. And yeah, you know what, it's not just Donald Trump. It's been happening for 19 years. Donald Trump is right. It wasn't his original scummy thought. Then other vile people driven by hatred and petty politics, thinking that they were going to hurt me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Buck Sexton, forget the liberal media, the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page said that the president, ugly even for him, it's a smear. Conservative New York Post editorial page, is that really the president you want to be, sir? Conservative Washington Examiner, crazed Twitter rant vile and unworthy of his office. These are his allies.
SEXTON: look, the president fights very hard against people and sometimes he throws a punch that land in the wrong place. I think this is an instance where you see this and say he has a very personal feud with Joe Scarborough. Scarborough has been separating out the family for a moment.
It's terrible they have to go through this. I'm very sorry that they have to be dragged in through this again.
But Scarborough and Trump -- Scarborough was effectively saying the president was a traitor for the last few years to the country. There's just a deep hatred between these men. I think the president is trying to just goad Scarborough a bit and also see the media reaction to this while we are still in lockdown and everything else.
But yeah, if you're asking did this one -- was this one that a lot of people that really support this president or hardly wish he could take back? I think the answer is yes.
KURTZ: OK. Leslie, the New York Times noted that Fox didn't cover the story in prime time, but didn't point to my coverage on this program and on special report. My question is, are the media so inert (ph) to presidential insults? And look, his supporters love it when he watch people particularly those who are taking him on, critics in the media, that this isn't that big of a story?
MARSHALL: Perhaps for some of his supporters. But, you know, I've been a guest on some conservative talk show host programs and they said this was going too far. There are a couple of things here. When you are a leader and especially president, you're going to be attacked. You're going to be attacked by the media. You're going to be attacked by the political party that you weren't the choice of.
But to personally attack an individual and it has ramifications for that family, to dredge that up, and when the family says stop, you've got to stop. And what bothers me further is somebody around him, maybe Ivanka, somebody needs to say, daddy, stop, that's gone too far.
Right now, we're in a pandemic. There are riots in the street. If he and Joe Scarborough want to go in the back and duke it out or duke it out on Twitter, fine. But there is no reason to drudge this family and make them relive a very painful wound, this man and the loss of his wife.
KURTZ: Yeah, I agree with the distinction between two people who are in public arena, Scarborough and the president, and the family which didn't ask for the spotlight. One of the media conservatives who are defending Donald Trump here is Rush Limbaugh. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUSH LIMBAUGH, TALK SHOW HOST AND CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL COMMENTATOR
(voice-over): So Trump is just throwing gasoline on the fire here, and he's having fun watching the flames, and he's having fun watching these holier-than-thou leftist journalists react like their moral sensibilities have been forever rocked and can never recover.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Buck, he was sort of making that point a moment ago. My question is, you know, having thrown the punch, having talked about this conspiracy theory, remember, Scarborough was in Washington when this woman died in Florida from, you know, it was ruled to have been a heart problem that caused her to fall and hit her head, why didn't the president stop when even conservatives were saying, please, move on, the country is in a pandemic?
SEXTON: Well, one thing about this president is no one can tell him what to do, and I do think the he tends to double down whenever there is an outcry, oh, you can't do that. This is really in part of the point that Rush Limbaugh was making.
And I will say that Rush is also illuminating that at a time when there are far more important things. That's not to say that this was all fine and this was a clean Twitter fight so-to-speak. But there are far more important things going on in the country. The outrage from the media over this, over say what is going on right now with the 40 plus million people who have lost their job.
And this isn't about whataboutism. This is about focus and outrage from the media. And also, we see even with General Flynn and the revelations that the FBI effectively did entrap this man and hid evidence and all the other things that have come out. But there's so much more outrage about this.
The New York Times piece on this looked like this was the greatest injustice done in this country in a very long time. They need to scale it back a little bit except their audience I suppose expects this.
KURTZ: All right. Final thought from Leslie Marshall.
MARSHALL: I think in November, we are going to see people who are tired of a president not being presidential, who are tired of a leader not leading and not leading by example, and who are tired of a leader personally attacking whether it's a member of the media or individual citizens who he is the president of even if they didn't elect him to be.
KURTZ: Well, just remember the media are not very popular, whether or not this particular case was over the line, as I believe it was. Buck Sexton and Leslie Marshall, thanks very much.
Still to come, the president celebrates the latest media layoffs, a bitter clash between two CNBC hosts, and some final thoughts on the rioting across America.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Cable news can get pretty heated, as you know. On CNBC's "Squawk Box," in fact, hosts Joe Kernen and Andrew Ross Sorkin savaged each other in a debate about the stock market and COVID-19 deaths.
JOE KERNEN, CNBC HOST: You panicked about the market, panicked about COVID, panicked about the ventilators, panicked about the PPE, panicked about ever going out again, panicked --
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN, CNBC HOST: Joseph, you didn't panic about anything, and all you did was try to help your friend the president. That's what you did, every single morning on this show. Every single morning on this show, you have used and abused your position, Joe.
KERNEN: That's totally unfair.
ROSS SORKIN: You have used and abused your position.
KERNEN: I was trying to help investors keep their cool, keep their heads.
And as it turned out, that's what they should have done. That's what they should have done.
ROSS SORKIN: Here's the news.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: I have to side with Joe Kernen. It is fine for colleagues to go
(INAUDIBLE) on the issues, but Sorkin impugned Kernen's motives by accusing of doing Trump's bidding. All Kernen has done is interviewed the president a few times. By the way, they made up the next day.
President Trump is once again celebrating media layoffs during this tough economic time. "Great news: The boring but very nasty magazine, The Atlantic, is rapidly failing, going down the tubes, and has just been forced to announce it is laying off at least 20 percent of its staff in order to limp into the future. This is a tough time to be in the fake news business."
Now, The Atlantic, which backed impeachment, did recently run a piece headlined, "Donald Trump, the most unmanly president." But editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg found a silver lining to the tweets, saying, we have never got more subscribers in a day than we did today.
Finally, for a nation reeling from the devastating coronavirus and an economic shutdown, the race riots that have broken out across the country after George Floyd's killing makes it seem like we're living to an endless nightmare.
As I watch journalists being arrested, shot in being, it's a reminder that this can be a dangerous profession. And for all the media's flaws, my colleagues are out on the streets trying to bring you the story of these terrible clashes.
Now, we need to do a better job of capturing the black community's frustration and anger over the years, but also to hold accountable those who use tragedy to unleash violence and lawlessness. We need to minimize the political blame game involving President Trump or anyone else in politics. America is burning, and we in the media need to rise to the occasion.
That's it for this edition of "Media Buzz." I'm Howard Kurtz. Thank you for joining us during these turbulent times. We hope you'll check out our Facebook page. We post my daily columns there. You can talk back to me on Twitter at "Howard Kurtz." Check out my podcast, "Media Buzz Meter." You can that at Apple iTunes, Google podcast, foxnewspodcasts.com, and Spotify.
We're back here with much more. It seemed like we had a pretty packed hour today. See you next Sunday, 11:00 Eastern, with the latest Buzz.
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