This is a rush transcript from "MediaBuzz," May 31, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
HOWARD KURTZ, FOX HOST: On the Buzz Meter this Sunday, Hillary Clinton now
has, well, the appearance of competition, but the media aren't taking
Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley all that seriously, except on MSNBC.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do they belong? Do Bernie Sanders. The beltway
media has been treating Bernie Sanders almost like a gadfly, somebody who
exists only to pester Hillary Clinton to move to the left or in the
primary. But Bernie Sanders has been bucking that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: The Republican field grows larger with Rick Santorum and George
Pataki jumping in, but are even the conservative media dismissing them as
also rands?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So it's not going to be a good run for someone like
Rick Santorum, who's been around for a very long time, who's come in nearly
last.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, today, Rick Santorum announced the launch of
another losing Santorum for President Campaign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Maybe news outlets are just trying to winnow this crowded field.
"Vogue," Marie Claire, "Cosmopolitan," and other women's magazine swooning
over the potential first female President and one editor donating to the
Hillary's campaign. Are they in the tank for her?
A look at the Denny Hastert indictment, should the press be reporting
allegations of passed sexual abuse based on unnamed sources?
Iran begins an outrageous secret trial of a "Washington Post" reporter,
accused of trumped up spying charges. The paper's editor will be here.
Plus, he's hanging it up after half a century of folksy anchor in an
increasingly shrill media universe, which remains friendly with the
politicians he interviewed, a conversation with Bob Schieffer. I'm Howard
Kurtz and this is MEDIA BUZZ.
Martin O'Malley jumped into the Presidential race yesterday, but Maryland's
former Democratic Governor generating little excitement in the media, and
being overshadowed by Vermont Senator, Bernie Sanders.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHUCK TODD, NBC POLITICAL DIRECTOR: It's very possible Bernie is the chief
challenger to Hillary and not Martin O'Malley.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he's potentially better positioned than any of
the other Democrats who are lining up to run against Hillary Clinton to
make her sweat, to give her some headaches.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think most people, when they give serious
consideration to candidates, think that a socialist will be elected
President of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: And with Rick Santorum and George Pataki joining that crowded
Republican field, even conservative pundits couldn't muster much
enthusiasm.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANA PERINO, THE FIVE CO-HOST: I think that because there are so many
additional alternatives now, and a person like Marco Rubio gets your
attention, you think, oh, that's new, that's different, I want to hear a
little bit more of that, and Rick Santorum will have to break through.
CHARLES LANE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I think Rick Santorum was lucky the
last time around Brett, because he was sort of the last plausible one
standing up against the presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I read this morning, someone thinks it's a great irony
that people aren't taking George Pataki seriously right now, but there is
no doubt you look at his qualifications on paper, easily the most qualified
Republican.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Joining us now to examine the 2016 coverage, Mercedes Schlapp, a
Columnist for U.S. News, political consultant and a Former Bush White House
Official. Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent for the
Washington Examiner and Joe Trippi, Democratic Strategist and a Fox News
Contributor. Mercy, Rick Santorum was the Republican runner-up in 2012, he
won 11 stages. George Pataki, pretty successful three-term governor of New
York. They're barely being talked about on the political shows. Is that a
mistake by the media?
MERCEDES SCHLAPP, FORMER BUSH WHITE HOUSE SPOKESPERSON: No, it's not. I
think I have one conservative blogger and radio host waiting to come out
and basically say, when George Pataki said, I can beat Hillary Clinton, he
said can someone give George Pataki a cold shower. The problem is that
there are so many candidates, there are the limited resources on the media
side, and the media is being realistic. Like, really, can these
individuals pull it off? Nowadays, everyone seems to be running for
President.
KURTZ: But being realistic on the basis of our early judgments, almost a
year before the primary starts. And I'll take you behind the scenes and we
try hard to find sound of commentators talking about particularly Santorum
and Pataki, it was hard to find.
SUSAN FERRECHIO, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Well we are filtering the
candidates, we've talked about this on the show. It's an important topic,
we're doing it. Santorum, not only did he win 11 states, he won Iowa. And
he wasn't just someone who got lucky, I disagree with Chuck Lane. I think
he appealed to voters who Mitt Romney could not get out to the polls. He
couldn't get those voters out. Part of the reason Mitt Romney lost. I
think we are perhaps, filtering out potentially significant candidates that
the voters would like. You know, Bernie Sanders, a lot of people who
Bernie Sanders' message really appeals to.
KURTZ: And Martin O'Malley, former two-term Governor of Maryland, seven
years as mayor of Baltimore, getting into the race yesterday -- and media
has to say treating him rather dismissively. You worked for Howard Dean --
2003 Howard Dean was an asterisk.
JOE TRIPPI, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think that O'Malley likes the way
things are shaping up.
KURTZ: Low expectations?
TRIPPI: Exactly.
Coming at it from a campaign operative point of view, we know, we
understand internally, that the media is going to winnow everybody else
out. They're going to try to narrow it down to two people fast. You just
want to be one of the two people. And right now, everybody thinks its
Sanders.
KURTZ: Who elected us to perform this function? You're saying this is
reality?
TRIPPI: I was talking about reality from -- as somebody who's putting a
campaign together, you understand that's going happen.
SCHLAPP: And you know candidates have to go to Iowa, they have to go to
New Hampshire. That local press is actually incredibly important for those
candidates. That's why Governor Pataki actually did more New Hampshire
press this past week than national press. We're all focused here in
Washington, but it's really in those early states that it counts.
TRIPPI: Here's the conundrum if you're running a campaign, you need to get
attention. You can get attention by setting your hair on fire, but the
American people don't want a President who sets their hair on fire.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHLAPP: We all thought in the press that Hillary Clinton was the
inevitable candidate, the winner in 2008. That was -- we were wrong.
KURTZ: And we barely covered Rick Santorum until the last couple of weeks
in Iowa, when he started to catch fire and ended up avoiding that primary
by eight votes -- whatever the caucus is excuse me. Here's the thing. So
Bernie Sanders -- I'm not going to sit here and predict that Bernie Sanders
is going to win the Democratic nomination, but he's really getting talked
about on MSNBC, he's barely been mentioned on Fox. He seems more than
anybody else on the left to be leading a little bit of a movement. Could
the pundits be underestimating at least his impact?
FERRECHIO: I think so. Look what Hillary Clinton she is already pivoting
to the left, in part because Elizabeth Warren is not running but still
politics are popular. Bernie Sanders is the running version of Elizabeth
Warren. He is having tremendous impact. Look how far left she's gone
already. This is a candidate I thought was going to be a middle of the
road candidate.
KURTZ: Rachel Maddow on MSNBC says there's a double standard in the media.
That Bernie Sanders in some polls is at 15 percent, and yet he is still
being treated rather dismissively, whereas Republican candidates, who are
at 5 or 6 percent, get lots of coverage.
TRIPPI: Well, when, everybody is 10 percent, somebody at 5 has actually
got a -- I think, look, Hillary's numbers have come down a little bit, but
not in a way yet that says either Bernie Sanders or O'Malley or one of the
other potential candidates can mount a challenge. I think if that ever
starts to happen, the race will close. But one of them has to create that
interest...
(CROSSTALK)
SCHLAPP: And I think that the mainstream media, they want a race on the
Democratic side. It's kind of boring to just have Hillary and her scandals
be dominating everything. They want a Bernie Sanders to come and talk
about her...
(CROSSTALK)
TRIPPI: If we vote, we vote against the coronation.
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: At the same time, we're covering Hillary, you know, 98 percent of
the time and everybody else gets the rest at 2 percent. But Sanders made
some news unintentionally this week that mother Jones unearthed a 1972
column that he had published, in which he wrote, a man's typical sexual
fantasy is having a woman tied up and abused and wrote Sanders, a woman's
fantasy is being raped by three men simultaneously. What do you think
about Sanders'...
(CROSSTALK)
SCHLAPP: When you have five kids, you don't really think about fantasies
at all but what I can tell you is that the conservatives actually jumped on
this. Some of these conservative journalists basically came out. Erick
Erickson had a tweet that said a lot of people are outraged, it was like a
"Game of Thrones" rape love of Bernie Sanders. And that started making
links to Bill Clinton -- the fact that he raped women, so again...
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Well, it's not a fact.
SCHLAPP: Exactly but this was reported by some of these conservative
journalists so they tried to take a punch at it. But we know the lessons
for these politicians is that whatever you write, even whatever you write
in elementary school, it's all open to the press to look at and
investigate.
KURTZ: Attention all you grade school kids. Be very careful.
SCHLAPP: Be careful what you write.
KURTZ: And what you put on your Facebook page. Before I get to you guys
on this, it has come up with Senator Sanders on "Meet the Press" this
morning, here's how the exchange went with Chuck Todd about this article.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you explain this essay?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure. Look, this is a piece of fiction that I wrote in
1972, I think. That was 43 years ago. It was very poorly written.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: So, Sanders wasn't in college then, he was running for Governor,
actually, but 43 years ago. So should this be a story? Is it a legitimate
story? Is it an important story? Why?
FERRECHIO: Absolutely. Particularly because the left loves to accuse the
Republican party of not being the party for women, of being the party that
takes away women's rights, totally fair game.
KURTZ: Any Republican who says anything remotely controversial about rape,
Todd Akin, makes huge headlines?
FERRECHIO: Are you kidding, that changed the whole race, Todd Akin's
comments, it's the reason he lost. I think it's absolutely fair game. Why
did he write that? How do those thoughts inform him today as a politician,
as a human being?
TRIPPI: Right now everybody that works for him is just glad he's not
within five points of Hillary Clinton, because if he was, this would be --
I mean, just a gigantic story and he would be getting hammered on all
sides.
KURTZ: Right. It's gotten very modest coverage...
(CROSSTALK)
TRIPPI: But because of where he is, again because he's low right now on
the polls, this is just going to get washed over.
SCHLAPP: And Mother Jones is a liberal publication and they're the ones
that broke the story.
FERRECHIO: Kudos to them, because I think it's important.
TRIPPI: I didn't particularly enjoy reading that -- Sanders seems I'm
constantly being asked about it. I want to turn our remaining moments to
this indictment at the end of the week, where it's just stunned everybody
in Washington, who always viewed Denny Hastert during the years when he was
the Speaker of the House, straight arrow, very decent guy, so now you have
him facing charges for lying to the FBI, for making payoffs to cover up
past misconduct. The indictment didn't say what the past misconduct was.
But it took half a day at most for the "Los Angeles Times" to report, and
other news organizations, including Fox to confirm that this money,
supposedly, allegedly to cover up alleged sexual abuse with a male student
back when Hastert was a high school wrestling coach and teacher in
Illinois. Should the media report that based on anonymous sources?
SCHLAPP: I don't think it's helpful. I think it gets to point where Denny
Hastert is being tried by the media first. When you're accused, you have
rights, the presumption of innocence, and he's not really speaking, his
lawyers aren't going to let him speak. Look, the media will run with the
sources, but at the end, like what we seen with Senator Ted Stevens, and
Congressman Tom DeLay where they were innocent at the end of the day, we
don't really know the full story. I think it's just a salacious story that
the media wants to cover obviously, it's shocking for all of us. But we
have to see what happens when the truth comes out.
KURTZ: Well it is a salacious story and it's also a strange indictment.
Obviously, it has to be covered. This is a former Speaker of the House,
who, you know, I guess is alleged to have -- he was going to pay this
person who has not been identified $3.5 million. He was withdrawing it
carefully from banks as to not to trip the currency reporting limits. And
yet the thing at the heart of it, which is, what was he allegedly paying to
cover up, what was he trying to hide was in the not indictment. And then
you have, obviously, law enforcement officials leaking this to the press.
TRIPPI: But, look, you didn't need to be a lawyer to read the indictment
and understand what this was likely to be. And when I saw that, I looked
at how many minutes is it before the press actually goes there. It was --
they're going to. And actually, I thought they showed restraint. I
thought it took longer and the story was sort of muted initially, before it
went into high speed gear. It went there...
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Your comment, Susan?
FERRECHIO: Very murky, murky details. Even when I read the stories now, I
still have so many questions. All you see is this massive, dark cloud over
Denny Hastert. What really happened here? What's the crime? Are they
trying to talk about a different crime or about the structuring of
payments? It's so murky and accuses him of terrible things without being
very specific. That's the problem I have with it.
KURTZ: He hasn't been charged with anything relating to this conduct of
long ago. I presume we'll find out more about this as this case unfolds.
All right, don't forget @howardkurtz, send me a tweet about the media.
What do you think about the coverage of the topics we're talking about
right now or about the show? We'll read some of your messages later on.
Ahead, Iran conducting a secret trial of a "Washington Post" reporter on
trumped up charges. The paper's editor will be right here.
But when we come back, which women's magazine editor donated money to
Hillary's campaign and are these publications basically biased in her
favor?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Hillary Clinton may be at odds with the mainstream media, but
listen to how she's fairing with a women's magazine. "Vogue" Editor Anna
Wintour, introducing Hillary at an Arkansas event, all of us a "Vogue" look
forward to putting on the cover the first female President of the United
States. "Marie Claire" Editor-in-Chief Anne Fulenwider, according to
Politico, we're thrilled that Hillary is in the race. We'd love to see a
woman President of the United States. And Leslie Jane Seymour, Editor-in-
Chief of "More" magazine is a Hillary admirer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LESLIE JANE SEYMOUR, MORE MAGAZINE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: We're going to talk
about that great woman, who I believe we just saw a poll that said she's
the most admired woman in the country, if not in the world, Hillary Rodham
Clinton. That's what we love about her, is she has stood up for women when
other people have not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Leslie Seymour recently donated to Hillary's Presidential campaign.
She put it on her Facebook, she urged other people to contribute. And
Susan Ferrechio, she told me that these donations were a personal
preference and there's no ethical concern because she says she works for a
women's lifestyle magazine and not a news organization.
FERRECHIO: I find that a really incredible statement. Because a lot of
these women's magazines have journalism in them. They have reporters who
write stories that are considered to be fair stories, impartial stories.
These are the editors of those stories. They pick the content of those
things. I think this is such an important story, because this entire
endorsement situation with these magazines is a free media for Hillary
Clinton that none of the other candidates will get. And when September
2016 rolls around and you're at the checkout with your grocery cart and
she's the nominee, I can picture every magazine with her picture --
"Redbook," "Oprah," she would be on all those covers. You know how
important that is, because the women's vote is more than a third of the
electorate in the last election. It's going to be a potentially huge
advantage for her.
KURTZ: Well "More" Magazine, like these other magazines, does cover some
politics including Hillary Clinton, has a Q&A with the White House Aide
Valerie Jarrett this month so to say, not a news organization, just struck
me as an odd defense. I know what the others keep saying they want elect
the first female President, but apparently that doesn't apply to Carly
Fiorina.
SCHLAPP: No absolutely not. Infact "Cosmo" did in the mid-term elections,
they had this shirtless male model to get out the vote campaign in North
Carolina.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHLAPP: But you know again -- and what "Cosmo" did they endorsed all
Democrats, and not one Republican woman in the midterm elections. It is
clear they have a political agenda with these magazines. It is clear that
they have a huge target audience, which is that of 15 million women that
read these types of magazines. And yes, they are the cheerleaders for not
only Hillary Clinton, but the Democratic Party.
KURTZ: African-American publications, I think, were a big help to Barack
Obama in 2008, and "Ebony" made him the man of the year, person of the
first time "Ebony" had done that. So is this unfair in your view? That
women's magazines are going to be a cheerleading squad for Hillary?
TRIPPI: Of course they are.
KURTZ: You don't sound very concerned about that Joe.
TRIPPI: No but they're also trying to sell magazines. They put on the
cover. They put on the cover what they want...
(CROSSTALK)
SCHLAPP: Right but why not Carly?
TRIPPI: Because if Carly gets anywhere near the lead or gets the
nomination, there are -- they'll put them both on the cover and say, you
go, girls. No, they will.
KURTZ: So you're saying that Hillary Clinton is the Princess Di of the
political world for these magazines, you put her on the cover, women are
interested in her, and that is going to, you know...
(CROSSTALK)
FERRECHIO: She was the worst-selling magazine cover in 2014 for "People"
magazine, so I would argue that Hillary Clinton does not sell magazines.
They're doing this because they support her.
TRIPPI: I think the idea of a woman President -- they may think sells
their magazine. I'm not getting into why -- I'm just saying, I don't think
they're looking at this as journalists. I agree with what she said. This
is about celebrating the potential of the first woman President in history.
Women's magazines are going to do that.
SCHLAPP: Not just the first woman President, the first Democratic -- they
want a Democrat in office. It's who they support.
TRIPPI: I don't think that's wrong. But I also believe if Carly were the
front-runner right now on the Republican side and leading all the
Democrats, they would be talking about the first woman...
(CROSSTALK)
SCHLAPP: She'd get on "Good Housekeeping."
KURTZ: I'm going to excuse myself while you two beat up on him. The point
you made about just one magazine, "Cosmo" endorsing all female Democrats in
the 2014 midterms. Look, it's a magazine, the editor is entitled to their
opinion but then you get into we're a not a news organization but...
FERRECHIO: But they have political reporters.
KURTZ: Political reporters whose work they publish, who make themselves
out to be journalists. But also they are going to influence politics.
These magazines, to be fair to them, they don't just cover beauty and
fashion and relationships.
SCHLAPP: They don't. More and more of these magazines infact talk about
very serious issues. "Marie Claire", "Elle", all of them, go read the
headlines when you're standing out the checkout counter, if you can stand
it, Howard. They do serious journalism. It's not just fashion and makeup.
FERRECHIO: But my favorite thing about "Cosmo" is that they put on one of
the articles, 20 moments to prove how sexy voting can be. I mean come on,
really.
KURTZ: I can say where your fetishes lay, the shirtless guy, all right.
Mercedes Schlapp, Susan Ferrechio, and Joe Trippi thanks very much for
joining us.
Ahead, as Bob Schieffer hangs it up today, we talked to him about the
challenge of pinning down politicians and whether President Obama has
gotten a pretty easy ride.
But up next, the "Washington Post" Editor on the outrageous secret trial of
his reporter in Iran.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Iran has been holding "Washington Post" reporter Jason Rezaian
since last July on trumped up spying charges and this week the regime began
a trial that's being conducted entirely in secret. Joining us now is Marty
Baron, Executive Editor of "the Washington Post." Marty, what happened
when you tried to have reporters in a position to cover Jason Rezaian's
trial and what does that tell you about the process?
MARTIN BARON, WASHINGTON POST EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Jason was our
correspondent in Tehran, he was our only correspondent in Tehran and now
he's been imprisoned for ten months. Most recently with the trial
starting, we asked for a visa to have a senior editor to attend, mainly to
serve as a witness to see whether he was being treated fairly. We never
got a response from the Iranian government to that request, and we're not
allowed to observe the trial.
KURTZ: This all must be so frustrating for you and your colleagues at "The
Post," to say the least. Have you worried at all by being openly critical
of the way this is being conducted by the Iranian government, you might be
plotting the regime to be harsher towards Jason?
BARON: I don't think so. This is a harsh regime. However you judge it.
And we have to say the truth. I think we have to speak with more clarity
about his situation, and it's been an outrage from the beginning. Here's a
guy who was picked up and put in the worst prison in Iran and held in
isolation, without charges. He's now facing trial, it's a close trial.
His lawyer is only being given an hour and a half with him, and his lawyer
only found out that the trial was being held a week in advance of the trial
itself.
KURTZ: His lawyer got an hour and a half total with his client?
BARON: An hour and a half, per client.
KURTZ: Excuse me. I want to give you a chance to address this. There was
a report in Iran, the Iranian media, that the government believes he might
be a spy because of some correspondence with the Obama administration.
BARON: Right. Well, this shows how ridiculous it is. In 2008, Jason was
a freelance correspondent in Iran. He wasn't working for us at the time.
It was years before he worked for us, and he apparently was looking for a
full-time job and when the Obama administration -- during the transition
period, they were taking applications from people and he submitted an
online application, through the normal channels, got a form response, and
was never hired. So the notion that some sort of application like that and
a form response and never being hired is evidence of being a spy is just
preposterous. It shows how silly it is.
KURTZ: Is his detention which you've been fighting since last summer and
the U.S. government is talking about as well, more complicated because he
had dual Iranian citizenship.
BARON: It is more complicated, because he has dual citizenship, the
Iranians don't believe that the U.S. government has anything to say and
shouldn't even be involved in this case. They view him as an Iranian
citizen and he will be treated under Iranian law and that the U.S.
government has no role in that case.
KURTZ: Do you think that his fate, really this case itself, could be tied
up with the nuclear negotiations that are going on between the U.S. and
Tehran?
BARON: We don't know, exactly, but there's been a lot of speculation about
divisions within the Iranian government. He was picked up by the
revolutionary guard, he's being tried in a revolutionary court, which deals
with national security matters, and there have been divisions between the
revolutionary guard and the government of the President Rouhani and his
Foreign Minister Zarif over these nuclear talks. Whether Jason's case has
anything to do with that, as a matter of speculation, I can't really
speculate, but there has been --- a lot of people have focused on that.
KURTZ: And by the way, it's not just that reporters aren't being allowed
to cover this trial, his family was turned away as well. Is that correct?
BARON: That's right. His mother was in Iran, had been allowed to come
into Iran, and she was waiting there for a couple of weeks so that she
could attend the trial. She was denied entry into the trial. His wife,
who's also facing charges of her own, and she will face her own separate
trial, she has not been able to attend the trial either.
KURTZ: That is just amazing. And let me just say, this is all too
reminiscent in my view of 1979. I think Jason Rezaian essentially is being
held as a hostage. To call this a trial is very difficult. The trial has
recessed, we don't know when it's going to resume. And you and everybody
who loves this guy are in the dark.
BARON: That's right. They started the trial. There were a few hours it
was held, then it was suspended, and we don't know when it will be -- it
was adjourned and we don't know when it will start up again.
KURTZ: Good luck with your efforts, Marty Baron. Thank you so much for
stopping by this Sunday morning.
BARON: Thank you.
KURTZ: Ahead on MEDIA BUZZ, did Al Sharpton really involve god and climate
change? I'm talking about the Texas floods.
But first, are Sunday talk shows still vital in this digital age, a
conversation with Bob Schieffer as he signs off today from "Face the
Nation."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Bob Schieffer was a Texas radio and newspaper reporter who forged a
remarkable career at CBS News as a correspondent and analyst, evening news
anchor, and for the past 24 years, the host of "Face the Nation".
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that the best you could do? This thing seems to be
a disaster.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If, as you say, there is nothing there, Mr. President,
how can so many reputable, respected professionals keep pressing along with
this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, that's your characterization, not mine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It appears that the White House strategy is going to be
to picture you as a pretty boy, a lightweight. Does that bother you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, it doesn't bother me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I didn't know better -- and I do know better I would
think you might be a Democrat. Do you think you could get the Republican
nomination making those statements and taking those positions?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You add that to the fact I'm one of the most
conservative members of the Senate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Today is Schieffer's last day, his final "Face the Nation"
broadcast before it's taken over by reporter John Dickerson I sat down with
him in his office at CBS.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Bob Schieffer, welcome.
BOB SCHIEFFER, FACE THE NATION MODERATOR: Thank you.
KURTZ: Over the years, you've been doing this a lot of years, has it
become harder to knock politicians off their scripted talking points?
SCHIEFFER: Well, everybody is much more sophisticated now in information
management, but you know the politician's role is to deliver a message.
Our job is to get to the truth as best we can. And we have two different
assignments. And so, I think it's just part of the game. But, yeah, it is
harder.
KURTZ: I was at a "Face the Nation" anniversary party for you and I was
really struck because Joe Biden and John McCain, opposite sides of the
spectrum, both came and sang your praises. So you have known everybody in
this town for decades. The younger generation, part of the wrap is, well,
maybe you guys were too cozy with the politicians.
SCHIEFFER: Well, you know, the thing now is, nobody in this town knows
anybody anymore. The politicians don't know each other anymore. They're
only here for a couple of days a week and then they're back home, raising
money. I think it was better in the days when people kind of knew one
another. Yeah, there were these charges about being too cozy, but, it
seemed to me the town worked a lot better in those days. I don't think
anybody would argue with that.
KURTZ: Many people in this country, as you know, think the three broadcast
networks are too biased, too liberal. Would you agree looking back in the
media gave Barack Obama an incredibly easy ride in 2008, and for much of
his presidency?
SCHIEFFER: Well, I think the whole political world was struck by this
fellow who sort of came out of nowhere with this very unusual name and when
he won out in Iowa, I think people sat up and took notice.
KURTZ: But isn't it the job of journalists to be skeptical of the young
phenom?
SCHIEFFER: Yeah, it is. It is. And I don't know, maybe we were not
skeptical enough. It was a campaign. Howie, my feeling is it is the role
of the other -- of the opponents to make the campaign. I think as
journalists, basically, what we do is we watch the campaign and we report
what the two sides are doing. I think it is the politicians who make the
campaign.
KURTZ: But don't journalists have an adversarial role to play when you
have a Presidential candidate in the chair facing you...
SCHIEFFER: Sure.
KURTZ: -- You want to be tough on that person?
SCHIEFFER: Well, I think you want to get to the truth. What you're trying
to do is find out who this person is and who he's about. I don't think
that always has to be adversarial.
KURTZ: You took over as the CBS Evening News Anchor after Dan Rather was
forced out over the scandal about George W. Bush and the National Guard.
You were supposed to stay a little longer, you ended up staying a year and
a half. Was that a tough spot for you, coming in at a time when CBS'
reputation had really been battered by what happened?
SCHIEFFER: Yeah, it was. Maybe I didn't know it at the time. When they
called me, they just called me one morning and said, go up to New York, we
need you to do the evening news. And I got to New York, and they were all
in meetings and I couldn't figure out who had called me. And then I stayed
for a week. And they said, we need you another week. And it became six
weeks. And it actually wound up being nearly two years I was there. But
CBS was in a tough place at that point and...
KURTZ: It had to be awkward for you.
SCHIEFFER: Dan had always been a friend of mine.
KURTZ: You two are from Texas. You'd known him for years and years.
SCHIEFFER: So that was difficult. But, you know, they needed somebody to
do the evening news. And they needed somebody to get things back on
course, and they said you're the one we've chosen to do that. And of
course, I had a whole lot of help in doing it.
KURTZ: What about the trends as somebody who -- I mean, your first job in
journalism was a radio station.
SCHIEFFER: Yeah, when I was in college, and then a newspaper reporter.
KURTZ: So you've spent your whole career in the news business. What about
the trend towards politicians and making the transition to become
journalists or commentators or even anchors?
SCHIEFFER: Oh, you know, you can get to journalism in many different ways.
Mike Wallace was a game show host and he turned out to be one of the great
questioners of all time.
KURTZ: He did all right.
SCHIEFFER: Tim Russert was a political aid and he turned out to be a
terrific, terrific moderator of "Meet the Press." I learned a lot from him
while he was there.
KURTZ: While you two were trying to beat each other.
SCHIEFFER: We tried to beat each other's brains out. And we maintained a
really good friendship. And I tell you, it's kind of like in sports, sure
you want to hit a home run, but when you hit a home run off the best
pitcher in the league, you feel a little extra. And when I beat old Tim, I
felt like I'd really done something. And I guess Tim felt the same way.
But we -- off-camera, we were very good friends. We had seats next to one
another at the National's games for many years. I have always had great
respect for my competitors. I mean, you can't be a dodo and kind of get to
this level. They're all good.
KURTZ: As you know, some critics say, the Sunday shows are not as
important as they used to be, in an age when politicians are interviewed on
cable channels around the clock when they can put their own videos online,
is there some truth to that?
SCHIEFFER: We still get about 3.5 million people every Sunday and that's a
pretty good-sized crowd. And I think the reason people watch the Sunday
shows, I think the Sunday shows are special. I think the talking heads on
Sunday morning are different than in some other hours of the day, because
all of those shows are about trying to move the story forward. They're
news driven, information driven. They're not about anchor antics, they're
not about showing off.
KURTZ: There's no cooking.
SCHIEFFER: Yeah, we don't have a cooking segment. And I think there's
still a need for that. I think the reason that people watch any news
program is because they want information that they think they need. And I
think that's what draws people to a news program. If they don't think they
need to know something, they'll watch an entertainment show or something
else.
KURTZ: The great commodity in television is youth. And you've been pretty
successful in "Face the Nation," and you're 78. What possibly explains
this?
SCHIEFFER: Well I don't know I think I've just been here for a while and I
think there's some value in that, maybe I don't scare people.
KURTZ: Bob Schieffer thanks very much for sitting down with us here at
CBS.
SCHIEFFER: Thanks, Howie.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Bob told me he's going to take three months off and decide what to
do next. And his last guest on Sunday was Jeb Bush. Schieffer has a very
funny story about hanging out with Walter Cronkite and other anchors of
that era at a bar. Check it out tomorrow on our newly redesigned homepage
foxnews.com/mediabuzz.
Coming up next, why haven't conservatives done comedy as well as left-
wingers, Greg Gutfeld on trying to break the mold.
And later, SNL's Kate McKeanan does a mean Hillary Clinton. Does it matter
that she's a big fan?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: The conventional wisdom is only liberals can have successful comedy
shows. Greg Gutfeld is about to challenge that notion with a new program
that debuts tonight. I checked in with him from New York.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Greg Gutfeld, welcome.
GREG GUTFELD, THE GREG GUTFELD SHOW HOST: Thanks, thanks for having me.
KURTZ: You have been stunningly vague in describing this new program. So
asking for a friend, are you going to bring on guests and make fun of them?
GUTFELD: No, I never do that. I'm a congenial host. I look at a show, so
it's kind of a cocktail party that you invite people over that you like,
and you have good-natured fun. Maybe play a little yahtzee, some parchisi,
get a little drunk, you spill something on the sofa, maybe a fight breaks
out. Somebody has to go to the hospital.
KURTZ: So you'll be drinking on your new show? You've admitted it.
GUTFELD: Non-alcoholic beverages. I'm a big chocolate milk fan.
KURTZ: The wrap has always been that conservatives don't do comedy very
well. The most successful comedians, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, David
Letterman, are liberals. Do you buy that?
GUTFELD: To an extent, I do. Most of the right-wingers aren't funny.
Most left-wingers aren't funny, because, surprise, most people in general
aren't funny. But what you have is that most liberals go -- more liberals
than conservatives go into comedy, so you end up with more funny liberal
comedians. That's the math. I stole that from Andy Leiby.
KURTZ: Good to give credit. Why do you think most right-wingers are not
funny? Is it not in their DNA?
GUTFELD: It's that they tend to go into other professions. It's kind of
like saying, why are there no left-wing military commanders.
KURTZ: Ok.
GUTFELD: Pretty easy, because you need to have, you know objective,
conservative values to fight wars. There are no -- like, there are no like
left-wing MVP, NFL quarterbacks. There aren't. I can't name a single one.
KURTZ: How about left-handed?
GUTFELD: Try and think what else. People always say why there are no
right-wing comedians. Why are there no left-wing, you know, military
commanders, or professional athletes? It's hard to find a liberal golfer.
KURTZ: So, will you be rationing the news in a sociopolitical critique or
are you just going to kind of be goofing around?
GUTFELD: Well, it might be a mixture of both. I'm looking at -- the way I
describe this show, it's like what Peewee's playhouse did to kid's shows,
and I'm going to do to basic news format shows. It's going to be an
unpredictable, surprising, hopefully not boring, train wreck.
KURTZ: And hopefully...
GUTFELD: I like...
KURTZ: Hopefully the humor will be a little evaluated from the Peewee
level, I hope.
GUTFELD: He was a genius.
KURTZ: Sure, absolutely.
GUTFELD: If I could be half as good as Peewee, I'd be happy.
KURTZ: Here's my final question. Do you think there is something of a
hunger for humor in the audience these days because the news can be so
depressing?
GUTFELD: I think it's always been that way, since we first populated this
earth 4,000 years ago -- I joke -- just in case. Everybody likes to hear
something funny, because that brightens their day, because the earth --
life on earth is hard. It's brutal, there's a lot of pain, there's a lot
of tedious stuff. It's good to have a laugh, especially when times are
tough.
KURTZ: Now that I don't have to stay up until 3:00 in the morning to watch
you, I'll be checking out the new show. Greg Gutfeld thanks very much for
stopping by.
GUTFELD: Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: And the Greg Gutfeld show will air every Sunday, 10:00 p.m.
eastern, starting tonight.
After the break, guess who's rooting for Hillary, the actress who
hilariously mocks her on "Saturday Night Live," why that's a problem, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: In the storied history of "Saturday Night Live" there's rarely been
an impersonation as devastating as the way as Kate McKinnon plays Hillary
Clinton, a woman consumed by ambition.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And finally tonight, I want to address that pesky
media. After this little glick, I shall rise again from the ashes like a
phoenix, like a Hillary Clinton and I will ascend to the high office of
President and claim my rightful place in history, if I choose to run, I
don't know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: McKinnon portrays a former first lady who struggles to seem real.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Citizens, you will elect me. I will be your leader.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So let's try one where you don't say I or even your
own name.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That will be easy, got it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, it is I, Hillary Clinton.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Now, Kate McKinnon has told The Hollywood Reporter the obviously
she's rooting for Hillary, which makes sense for her career I guess.
Clinton is her ticket to fame right now just as Darrell Hammond spent many
years playing Hillary's husband.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe if there's one thing my presidency will be
remembered for, it will be honesty and integrity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: The same with Will Ferrell doing George W. Bush.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are almost out of time. I will instead ask each
candidate to sum up in a single word, the best argument for his candidacy.
Governor Bush?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Strategiry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: And Dana Carvey doing Bush's father.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But I wouldn't be present at this juncture.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: But here's the thing. McKinnon also made clear that she admires
Hillary, "I'd be so nervous to meet her. I find her so re-splendid. When
Tina Fey did her immortal portrayal of Sarah Palin...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can see Russia from my house.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: We never knew whether she viewed the V.P. candidate as a
(inaudible) the way she was portrayed and it's disappointing that Kate
McKinnon is revealing to conservatives as well as Liberals that she's a
Hillary fan. Now -- from me at least, her impersonations won't seem quite
as biting. Still to come, your top tweets, Reverend Al's stunning comments
about the Texas flooding and a salute of sorts to the most patient man in
television.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: I am buzzed off at Al Sharpton. Now in the past, I've been buzzed
off at right-wing televangelists who react to hurricanes and other
disasters by saying god is punishing homosexuals, where people have
abortions of whatever. The media always pile on. Now, here's MSNBC's own
Reverend Al at the wake of those deadly storms in Houston tweeting, do you
think the Texas flooding is related to climate control or god's rebuke?
I'm just so sick of people who politicize tragedies with their own agendas
left or right, these 23 people died in those storms, mainstream media
rather quiet about this time.
Time for your top tweets, are the media giving short shift to some of these
2016 candidates.
TWEET: They're all gentlemen, but have no chance of ever being podus.
TWEET: It's not the job of the media to tell us who is the serious
candidate and who is not.
And finally, C-Span's veteran journalist Steve Scully suddenly gaining a
bit of fame, here's how John Alver's HBO show is now describing Scully.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The most patient man on television endures the American
public.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know what's going on in this world right now.
Obama is a Muslim, and that's all I got to say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Obama is not a Muslim but thank you for making your
comment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jews are behind all of this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We should probably send in Special Forces similar to
Rambo. I don't know enough about the military to.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll blow your head off and it's done.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Having our government doo do absolutely nothing, it's
freezing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ok.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's what brings us to idiocracy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ok.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Scully told me he grew up in a family of 12 kids hearing opinions
ranging from Rush Limbaugh to Rachel Maddow's, and he used to it. He loves
hearing all kinds of viewpoints but if someone crosses a line with
derogatory language, you're out of there. Plus, Steve Scully says his kids
now think he's cool because he's on John Oliver.
That's it for us here at MEDIA BUZZ. I'm Howard Kurtz. Go to our Facebook
page and give us a like. We post a lot of original content there. You
write to us at MediaBuzz@FoxNews.com and you can be part of our buzz
feature. As you know, we'll be back here next Sunday morning at 11:00 and
again at 5:00 eastern with the latest buzz.
4266291315001
Bernie Sanders suggests return to 90% top tax rate
Is he right or wrong?
4266326896001
Do you need a college degree to be president?
Scott Walker attacks 'elitist mindset'
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: On the Buzz Meter this Sunday, Hillary Clinton now
has, well, the appearance of competition, but the media aren't taking
Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley all that seriously -- except on MSNBC.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC: Today belonged to Bernie Sanders. The Beltway media has been treating Bernie Sanders almost like a gadfly, somebody who exists only to pester Hillary Clinton to move to the left during the primaries. But Bernie Sanders, you know what, has been bucking that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: The Republican field grows larger with Rick Santorum and George
Pataki jumping in, but are even the conservative media dismissing them as
also-rans?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATIE PAVLICH, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: So it's not going to be a good run for someone like Rick Santorum, who's been around for a very long time, who's come in nearly last.
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL, MSNBC: Well, today, Rick Santorum announced the launch of
another losing Santorum for President campaign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Maybe news outlets are just trying to winnow this crowded field.
Vogue, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, and other women's magazines swooning
over the potential first female President and one editor donating to the
Hillary's campaign. Are they in the tank for her?
A look at the Denny Hastert indictment, should the press be reporting
allegations of passed sexual abuse based on unnamed sources?
Iran begins an outrageous secret trial of a "Washington Post" reporter,
accused of trumped up spying charges. The paper's editor will be here.
Plus, he's hanging it up after half a century of folksy anchor in an
increasingly shrill media universe, which remains friendly with the
politicians he interviewed, a conversation with Bob Schieffer. I'm Howard
Kurtz and this is "MediaBuzz."
Martin O'Malley jumped into the Presidential race yesterday, but Maryland's
former Democratic Governor generating little excitement in the media, and
being overshadowed by Vermont Senator, Bernie Sanders.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHUCK TODD, NBC POLITICAL DIRECTOR: It's very possible Bernie is the chief
challenger to Hillary and not Martin O'Malley.
STEVE KORNACKI,'UP WITH STEVE KORNACKI' HOST: I think he's potentially better positioned than any of
the other Democrats who are lining up to run against Hillary Clinton to
make her sweat, to give her some headaches.
JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: I don't think most people, when they give serious
consideration to candidates, think that a socialist will be elected
President of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: And with Rick Santorum and George Pataki joining that crowded
Republican field, even conservative pundits couldn't muster much
enthusiasm.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANA PERINO, THE FIVE CO-HOST: I think that because there are so many
additional alternatives now, and a person like Marco Rubio gets your
attention, you think, oh, that's new, that's different, I want to hear a
little bit more of that, and Rick Santorum will have to break through.
CHARLES LANE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I think Rick Santorum was lucky the
last time around Brett, because he was sort of the last plausible one
standing up against the presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC: I read this morning, someone thinks it's a great irony
that people aren't taking George Pataki seriously right now, but there is
no doubt you look at his qualifications on paper, easily the most qualified
Republican.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Joining us now to examine the 2016 coverage, Mercedes Schlapp, a
Columnist for U.S. News, political consultant and a Former Bush White House
Official. Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent for the
Washington Examiner and Joe Trippi, Democratic Strategist and a Fox News
Contributor. Mercy, Rick Santorum was the Republican runner-up in 2012, he
won 11 stages. George Pataki, pretty successful three-term governor of New
York. They're barely being talked about on the political shows. Is that a
mistake by the media?
MERCEDES SCHLAPP, FORMER BUSH WHITE HOUSE SPOKESPERSON: No, it's not. I
think I have one conservative blogger and radio host waiting to come out
and basically say, when George Pataki said, I can beat Hillary Clinton, he
said can someone give George Pataki a cold shower. The problem is that
there are so many candidates, there are the limited resources on the media
side, and the media is being realistic. Like, really, can these
individuals pull it off? Nowadays, everyone seems to be running for
President.
KURTZ: But being realistic on the basis of our early judgments, almost a
year before the primary starts. And I'll take you behind the scenes and we
try hard to find sound of commentators talking about particularly Santorum
and Pataki, it was hard to find.
SUSAN FERRECHIO, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Well we are filtering the
candidates, we've talked about this on the show. It's an important topic,
we're doing it. Santorum, not only did he win 11 states, he won Iowa. And
he wasn't just someone who got lucky, I disagree with Chuck Lane. I think
he appealed to voters who Mitt Romney could not get out to the polls. He
couldn't get those voters out. Part of the reason Mitt Romney lost. I
think we are perhaps, filtering out potentially significant candidates that
the voters would like. You know, Bernie Sanders, a lot of people who
Bernie Sanders' message really appeals to.
KURTZ: And Martin O'Malley, former two-term Governor of Maryland, seven
years as mayor of Baltimore, getting into the race yesterday -- and media
has to say treating him rather dismissively. You worked for Howard Dean --
2003 Howard Dean was an asterisk.
JOE TRIPPI, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think that O'Malley likes the way
things are shaping up.
KURTZ: Low expectations?
TRIPPI: Exactly.
Coming at it from a campaign operative point of view, we know, we
understand internally, that the media is going to winnow everybody else
out. They're going to try to narrow it down to two people fast. You just
want to be one of the two people. And right now, everybody thinks its
Sanders.
KURTZ: Who elected us to perform this function? You're saying this is
reality?
TRIPPI: I was talking about reality from -- as somebody who's putting a
campaign together, you understand that's going happen.
SCHLAPP: And you know candidates have to go to Iowa, they have to go to
New Hampshire. That local press is actually incredibly important for those
candidates. That's why Governor Pataki actually did more New Hampshire
press this past week than national press. We're all focused here in
Washington, but it's really in those early states that it counts.
TRIPPI: Here's the conundrum if you're running a campaign, you need to get
attention. You can get attention by setting your hair on fire, but the
American people don't want a President who sets their hair on fire.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHLAPP: We all thought in the press that Hillary Clinton was the
inevitable candidate, the winner in 2008. That was -- we were wrong.
KURTZ: And we barely covered Rick Santorum until the last couple of weeks
in Iowa, when he started to catch fire and ended up avoiding that primary
by eight votes -- whatever the caucus is excuse me. Here's the thing. So
Bernie Sanders -- I'm not going to sit here and predict that Bernie Sanders
is going to win the Democratic nomination, but he's really getting talked
about on MSNBC, he's barely been mentioned on Fox. He seems more than
anybody else on the left to be leading a little bit of a movement. Could
the pundits be underestimating at least his impact?
FERRECHIO: I think so. Look what Hillary Clinton she is already pivoting
to the left, in part because Elizabeth Warren is not running but still
politics are popular. Bernie Sanders is the running version of Elizabeth
Warren. He is having tremendous impact. Look how far left she's gone
already. This is a candidate I thought was going to be a middle of the
road candidate.
KURTZ: Rachel Maddow on MSNBC says there's a double standard in the media.
That Bernie Sanders in some polls is at 15 percent, and yet he is still
being treated rather dismissively, whereas Republican candidates, who are
at 5 or 6 percent, get lots of coverage.
TRIPPI: Well, when, everybody is 10 percent, somebody at 5 has actually
got a -- I think, look, Hillary's numbers have come down a little bit, but
not in a way yet that says either Bernie Sanders or O'Malley or one of the
other potential candidates can mount a challenge. I think if that ever
starts to happen, the race will close. But one of them has to create that
interest...
(CROSSTALK)
SCHLAPP: And I think that the mainstream media, they want a race on the
Democratic side. It's kind of boring to just have Hillary and her scandals
be dominating everything. They want a Bernie Sanders to come and talk
about her...
(CROSSTALK)
TRIPPI: If we vote, we vote against the coronation.
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: At the same time, we're covering Hillary, you know, 98 percent of
the time and everybody else gets the rest at 2 percent. But Sanders made
some news unintentionally this week that mother Jones unearthed a 1972
column that he had published, in which he wrote, a man's typical sexual
fantasy is having a woman tied up and abused and wrote Sanders, a woman's
fantasy is being raped by three men simultaneously. What do you think
about Sanders'...
(CROSSTALK)
SCHLAPP: When you have five kids, you don't really think about fantasies
at all but what I can tell you is that the conservatives actually jumped on
this. Some of these conservative journalists basically came out. Erick
Erickson had a tweet that said a lot of people are outraged, it was like a
"Game of Thrones" rape love of Bernie Sanders. And that started making
links to Bill Clinton -- the fact that he raped women, so again...
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Well, it's not a fact.
SCHLAPP: Exactly but this was reported by some of these conservative
journalists so they tried to take a punch at it. But we know the lessons
for these politicians is that whatever you write, even whatever you write
in elementary school, it's all open to the press to look at and
investigate.
KURTZ: Attention all you grade school kids. Be very careful.
SCHLAPP: Be careful what you write.
KURTZ: And what you put on your Facebook page. Before I get to you guys
on this, it has come up with Senator Sanders on "Meet the Press" this
morning, here's how the exchange went with Chuck Todd about this article.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you explain this essay?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure. Look, this is a piece of fiction that I wrote in
1972, I think. That was 43 years ago. It was very poorly written.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: So, Sanders wasn't in college then, he was running for Governor,
actually, but 43 years ago. So should this be a story? Is it a legitimate
story? Is it an important story? Why?
FERRECHIO: Absolutely. Particularly because the left loves to accuse the
Republican party of not being the party for women, of being the party that
takes away women's rights, totally fair game.
KURTZ: Any Republican who says anything remotely controversial about rape,
Todd Akin, makes huge headlines?
FERRECHIO: Are you kidding, that changed the whole race, Todd Akin's
comments, it's the reason he lost. I think it's absolutely fair game. Why
did he write that? How do those thoughts inform him today as a politician,
as a human being?
TRIPPI: Right now everybody that works for him is just glad he's not
within five points of Hillary Clinton, because if he was, this would be --
I mean, just a gigantic story and he would be getting hammered on all
sides.
KURTZ: Right. It's gotten very modest coverage...
(CROSSTALK)
TRIPPI: But because of where he is, again because he's low right now on
the polls, this is just going to get washed over.
SCHLAPP: And Mother Jones is a liberal publication and they're the ones
that broke the story.
FERRECHIO: Kudos to them, because I think it's important.
TRIPPI: I didn't particularly enjoy reading that -- Sanders seems I'm
constantly being asked about it. I want to turn our remaining moments to
this indictment at the end of the week, where it's just stunned everybody
in Washington, who always viewed Denny Hastert during the years when he was
the Speaker of the House, straight arrow, very decent guy, so now you have
him facing charges for lying to the FBI, for making payoffs to cover up
past misconduct. The indictment didn't say what the past misconduct was.
But it took half a day at most for the "Los Angeles Times" to report, and
other news organizations, including Fox to confirm that this money,
supposedly, allegedly to cover up alleged sexual abuse with a male student
back when Hastert was a high school wrestling coach and teacher in
Illinois. Should the media report that based on anonymous sources?
SCHLAPP: I don't think it's helpful. I think it gets to point where Denny
Hastert is being tried by the media first. When you're accused, you have
rights, the presumption of innocence, and he's not really speaking, his
lawyers aren't going to let him speak. Look, the media will run with the
sources, but at the end, like what we seen with Senator Ted Stevens, and
Congressman Tom DeLay where they were innocent at the end of the day, we
don't really know the full story. I think it's just a salacious story that
the media wants to cover obviously, it's shocking for all of us. But we
have to see what happens when the truth comes out.
KURTZ: Well it is a salacious story and it's also a strange indictment.
Obviously, it has to be covered. This is a former Speaker of the House,
who, you know, I guess is alleged to have -- he was going to pay this
person who has not been identified $3.5 million. He was withdrawing it
carefully from banks as to not to trip the currency reporting limits. And
yet the thing at the heart of it, which is, what was he allegedly paying to
cover up, what was he trying to hide was in the not indictment. And then
you have, obviously, law enforcement officials leaking this to the press.
TRIPPI: But, look, you didn't need to be a lawyer to read the indictment
and understand what this was likely to be. And when I saw that, I looked
at how many minutes is it before the press actually goes there. It was --
they're going to. And actually, I thought they showed restraint. I
thought it took longer and the story was sort of muted initially, before it
went into high speed gear. It went there...
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Your comment, Susan?
FERRECHIO: Very murky, murky details. Even when I read the stories now, I
still have so many questions. All you see is this massive, dark cloud over
Denny Hastert. What really happened here? What's the crime? Are they
trying to talk about a different crime or about the structuring of
payments? It's so murky and accuses him of terrible things without being
very specific. That's the problem I have with it.
KURTZ: He hasn't been charged with anything relating to this conduct of
long ago. I presume we'll find out more about this as this case unfolds.
All right, don't forget @howardkurtz, send me a tweet about the media.
What do you think about the coverage of the topics we're talking about
right now or about the show? We'll read some of your messages later on.
Ahead, Iran conducting a secret trial of a "Washington Post" reporter on
trumped up charges. The paper's editor will be right here.
But when we come back, which women's magazine editor donated money to
Hillary's campaign and are these publications basically biased in her
favor?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Hillary Clinton may be at odds with the mainstream media, but
listen to how she's fairing with a women's magazine. Vogue editor Anna
Wintour, introducing Hillary at an Arkansas event, all of us a Vogue look
forward to putting on the cover the first female President of the United
States. Marie Claire editor-in-chief Anne Fulenwider, according to
Politico, we're thrilled that Hillary is in the race. We'd love to see a
woman President of the United States. And Leslie Jane Seymour, Editor-in-
Chief of "More" magazine is a Hillary admirer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LESLIE JANE SEYMOUR, MORE MAGAZINE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: We're going to talk
about that great woman, who I believe we just saw a poll that said she's
the most admired woman in the country, if not in the world, Hillary Rodham
Clinton. That's what we love about her, is she has stood up for women when
other people have not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Leslie Seymour recently donated to Hillary's Presidential campaign.
She put it on her Facebook, she urged other people to contribute. And
Susan Ferrechio, she told me that these donations were a personal
preference and there's no ethical concern because she says she works for a
women's lifestyle magazine and not a news organization.
FERRECHIO: I find that a really incredible statement. Because a lot of
these women's magazines have journalism in them. They have reporters who
write stories that are considered to be fair stories, impartial stories.
These are the editors of those stories. They pick the content of those
things. I think this is such an important story, because this entire
endorsement situation with these magazines is a free media for Hillary
Clinton that none of the other candidates will get. And when September
2016 rolls around and you're at the checkout with your grocery cart and
she's the nominee, I can picture every magazine with her picture --
Redbook, Oprah, she would be on all those covers. You know how
important that is, because the women's vote is more than a third of the
electorate in the last election. It's going to be a potentially huge
advantage for her.
KURTZ: Well More Magazine, like these other magazines, does cover some
politics including Hillary Clinton, has a Q&A with the White House Aide
Valerie Jarrett this month so to say, not a news organization, just struck
me as an odd defense. I know what the others keep saying they want elect
the first female President, but apparently that doesn't apply to Carly
Fiorina.
SCHLAPP: No absolutely not. In fact Cosmo did in the mid-term elections,
they had this shirtless male model to get out the vote campaign in North
Carolina.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHLAPP: But you know again -- and what Cosmo did they endorsed all
Democrats, and not one Republican woman in the midterm elections. It is
clear they have a political agenda with these magazines. It is clear that
they have a huge target audience, which is that of 15 million women that
read these types of magazines. And yes, they are the cheerleaders for not
only Hillary Clinton, but the Democratic Party.
KURTZ: African-American publications, I think, were a big help to Barack
Obama in 2008, and Ebony made him the man of the year, person of the
first time Ebony had done that. So is this unfair in your view? That
women's magazines are going to be a cheerleading squad for Hillary?
TRIPPI: Of course they are.
KURTZ: You don't sound very concerned about that Joe.
TRIPPI: No but they're also trying to sell magazines. They put on the
cover. They put on the cover what they want...
(CROSSTALK)
SCHLAPP: Right but why not Carly?
TRIPPI: Because if Carly gets anywhere near the lead or gets the
nomination, there are -- they'll put them both on the cover and say, you
go, girls. No, they will.
KURTZ: So you're saying that Hillary Clinton is the Princess Di of the
political world for these magazines, you put her on the cover, women are
interested in her, and that is going to, you know...
(CROSSTALK)
FERRECHIO: She was the worst-selling magazine cover in 2014 for People
magazine, so I would argue that Hillary Clinton does not sell magazines.
They're doing this because they support her.
TRIPPI: I think the idea of a woman President -- they may think sells
their magazine. I'm not getting into why -- I'm just saying, I don't think
they're looking at this as journalists. I agree with what she said. This
is about celebrating the potential of the first woman President in history.
Women's magazines are going to do that.
SCHLAPP: Not just the first woman President, the first Democratic -- they
want a Democrat in office. It's who they support.
TRIPPI: I don't think that's wrong. But I also believe if Carly were the
front-runner right now on the Republican side and leading all the
Democrats, they would be talking about the first woman...
(CROSSTALK)
SCHLAPP: She'd get on Good Housekeeping.
KURTZ: I'm going to excuse myself while you two beat up on him. The point
you made about just one magazine, Cosmo endorsing all female Democrats in
the 2014 midterms. Look, it's a magazine, the editor is entitled to their
opinion but then you get into we're a not a news organization but...
FERRECHIO: But they have political reporters.
KURTZ: Political reporters whose work they publish, who make themselves
out to be journalists. But also they are going to influence politics.
These magazines, to be fair to them, they don't just cover beauty and
fashion and relationships.
SCHLAPP: They don't. More and more of these magazines in fact talk about
very serious issues. Marie Claire, Elle, all of them, go read the
headlines when you're standing out the checkout counter, if you can stand
it, Howard. They do serious journalism. It's not just fashion and makeup.
FERRECHIO: But my favorite thing about Cosmo is that they put on one of
the articles, 20 moments to prove how sexy voting can be. I mean come on,
really.
KURTZ: I can say where your fetishes lay, the shirtless guy, all right.
Mercedes Schlapp, Susan Ferrechio, and Joe Trippi thanks very much for
joining us.
Ahead, as Bob Schieffer hangs it up today, we talked to him about the
challenge of pinning down politicians and whether President Obama has
gotten a pretty easy ride.
But up next, the Washington Post editor on the outrageous secret trial of
his reporter in Iran.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Iran has been holding Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian
since last July on trumped up spying charges and this week the regime began
a trial that's being conducted entirely in secret. Joining us now is Marty
Baron, executive editor of the Washington Post. Marty, what happened
when you tried to have reporters in a position to cover Jason Rezaian's
trial and what does that tell you about the process?
MARTIN BARON, WASHINGTON POST EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Jason was our
correspondent in Tehran, he was our only correspondent in Tehran and now
he's been imprisoned for ten months. Most recently with the trial
starting, we asked for a visa to have a senior editor to attend, mainly to
serve as a witness to see whether he was being treated fairly. We never
got a response from the Iranian government to that request, and we're not
allowed to observe the trial.
KURTZ: This all must be so frustrating for you and your colleagues at The
Post, to say the least. Have you worried at all by being openly critical
of the way this is being conducted by the Iranian government, you might be
plotting the regime to be harsher towards Jason?
BARON: I don't think so. This is a harsh regime. However you judge it.
And we have to say the truth. I think we have to speak with more clarity
about his situation, and it's been an outrage from the beginning. Here's a
guy who was picked up and put in the worst prison in Iran and held in
isolation, without charges. He's now facing trial, it's a close trial.
His lawyer is only being given an hour and a half with him, and his lawyer
only found out that the trial was being held a week in advance of the trial
itself.
KURTZ: His lawyer got an hour and a half total with his client?
BARON: An hour and a half, per client.
KURTZ: Excuse me. I want to give you a chance to address this. There was
a report in Iran, the Iranian media, that the government believes he might
be a spy because of some correspondence with the Obama administration.
BARON: Right. Well, this shows how ridiculous it is. In 2008, Jason was
a freelance correspondent in Iran. He wasn't working for us at the time.
It was years before he worked for us, and he apparently was looking for a
full-time job and when the Obama administration -- during the transition
period, they were taking applications from people and he submitted an
online application, through the normal channels, got a form response, and
was never hired. So the notion that some sort of application like that and
a form response and never being hired is evidence of being a spy is just
preposterous. It shows how silly it is.
KURTZ: Is his detention which you've been fighting since last summer and
the U.S. government is talking about as well, more complicated because he
had dual Iranian citizenship.
BARON: It is more complicated, because he has dual citizenship, the
Iranians don't believe that the U.S. government has anything to say and
shouldn't even be involved in this case. They view him as an Iranian
citizen and he will be treated under Iranian law and that the U.S.
government has no role in that case.
KURTZ: Do you think that his fate, really this case itself, could be tied
up with the nuclear negotiations that are going on between the U.S. and
Tehran?
BARON: We don't know, exactly, but there's been a lot of speculation about
divisions within the Iranian government. He was picked up by the
revolutionary guard, he's being tried in a revolutionary court, which deals
with national security matters, and there have been divisions between the
revolutionary guard and the government of the President Rouhani and his
Foreign Minister Zarif over these nuclear talks. Whether Jason's case has
anything to do with that, as a matter of speculation, I can't really
speculate, but there has been --- a lot of people have focused on that.
KURTZ: And by the way, it's not just that reporters aren't being allowed
to cover this trial, his family was turned away as well. Is that correct?
BARON: That's right. His mother was in Iran, had been allowed to come
into Iran, and she was waiting there for a couple of weeks so that she
could attend the trial. She was denied entry into the trial. His wife,
who's also facing charges of her own, and she will face her own separate
trial, she has not been able to attend the trial either.
KURTZ: That is just amazing. And let me just say, this is all too
reminiscent in my view of 1979. I think Jason Rezaian essentially is being
held as a hostage. To call this a trial is very difficult. The trial has
recessed, we don't know when it's going to resume. And you and everybody
who loves this guy are in the dark.
BARON: That's right. They started the trial. There were a few hours it
was held, then it was suspended, and we don't know when it will be -- it
was adjourned and we don't know when it will start up again.
KURTZ: Good luck with your efforts, Marty Baron. Thank you so much for
stopping by this Sunday morning.
BARON: Thank you.
KURTZ: Ahead on "MediaBuzz," did Al Sharpton really involve God and climate
change? I'm talking about the Texas floods.
But first, are Sunday talk shows still vital in this digital age, a
conversation with Bob Schieffer as he signs off today from "Face the
Nation."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Bob Schieffer was a Texas radio and newspaper reporter who forged a
remarkable career at CBS News as a correspondent and analyst, evening news
anchor, and for the past 24 years, the host of "Face the Nation."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
BOB SCHIEFFER, CBS NEWS: Is that the best you could do? This thing seems to be
a disaster.
SCHIEFFER: If, as you say, there is nothing there, Mr. President,
how can so many reputable, respected professionals keep pressing along with
this?
THEN-PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: Well, that's your characterization, not mine.
SCHIEFFER: It appears that the White House strategy is going to be
to picture you as a pretty boy, a lightweight. Does that bother you?
JOHN EDWARDS: No, it doesn't bother me.
SCHIEFFER: If I didn't know better -- and I do know better I would
think you might be a Democrat. Do you think you could get the Republican
nomination making those statements and taking those positions?
SEN. RAND PAUL, R-KY: You add that to the fact I'm one of the most
conservative members of the Senate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Today is Schieffer's last day, his final "Face the Nation"
broadcast before it's taken over by reporter John Dickerson I sat down with
him in his office at CBS.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Bob Schieffer, welcome.
SCHIEFFER: Thank you.
KURTZ: Over the years, you've been doing this a lot of years, has it
become harder to knock politicians off their scripted talking points?
SCHIEFFER: Well, everybody is much more sophisticated now in information
management, but you know the politician's role is to deliver a message.
Our job is to get to the truth as best we can. And we have two different
assignments. And so, I think it's just part of the game. But, yeah, it is
harder.
KURTZ: I was at a "Face the Nation" anniversary party for you and I was
really struck because Joe Biden and John McCain, opposite sides of the
spectrum, both came and sang your praises. So you have known everybody in
this town for decades. The younger generation, part of the wrap is, well,
maybe you guys were too cozy with the politicians.
SCHIEFFER: Well, you know, the thing now is, nobody in this town knows
anybody anymore. The politicians don't know each other anymore. They're
only here for a couple of days a week and then they're back home, raising
money. I think it was better in the days when people kind of knew one
another. Yeah, there were these charges about being too cozy, but, it
seemed to me the town worked a lot better in those days. I don't think
anybody would argue with that.
KURTZ: Many people in this country, as you know, think the three broadcast
networks are too biased, too liberal. Would you agree looking back in the
media gave Barack Obama an incredibly easy ride in 2008, and for much of
his presidency?
SCHIEFFER: Well, I think the whole political world was struck by this
fellow who sort of came out of nowhere with this very unusual name and when
he won out in Iowa, I think people sat up and took notice.
KURTZ: But isn't it the job of journalists to be skeptical of the young
phenom?
SCHIEFFER: Yeah, it is. It is. And I don't know, maybe we were not
skeptical enough. It was a campaign. Howie, my feeling is it is the role
of the other -- of the opponents to make the campaign. I think as
journalists, basically, what we do is we watch the campaign and we report
what the two sides are doing. I think it is the politicians who make the
campaign.
KURTZ: But don't journalists have an adversarial role to play when you
have a Presidential candidate in the chair facing you...
SCHIEFFER: Sure.
KURTZ: -- You want to be tough on that person?
SCHIEFFER: Well, I think you want to get to the truth. What you're trying
to do is find out who this person is and who he's about. I don't think
that always has to be adversarial.
KURTZ: You took over as the CBS Evening News Anchor after Dan Rather was
forced out over the scandal about George W. Bush and the National Guard.
You were supposed to stay a little longer, you ended up staying a year and
a half. Was that a tough spot for you, coming in at a time when CBS'
reputation had really been battered by what happened?
SCHIEFFER: Yeah, it was. Maybe I didn't know it at the time. When they
called me, they just called me one morning and said, go up to New York, we
need you to do the evening news. And I got to New York, and they were all
in meetings and I couldn't figure out who had called me. And then I stayed
for a week. And they said, we need you another week. And it became six
weeks. And it actually wound up being nearly two years I was there. But
CBS was in a tough place at that point and...
KURTZ: It had to be awkward for you.
SCHIEFFER: Dan had always been a friend of mine.
KURTZ: You two are from Texas. You'd known him for years and years.
SCHIEFFER: So that was difficult. But, you know, they needed somebody to
do the evening news. And they needed somebody to get things back on
course, and they said you're the one we've chosen to do that. And of
course, I had a whole lot of help in doing it.
KURTZ: What about the trends as somebody who -- I mean, your first job in
journalism was a radio station.
SCHIEFFER: Yeah, when I was in college, and then a newspaper reporter.
KURTZ: So you've spent your whole career in the news business. What about
the trend towards politicians and making the transition to become
journalists or commentators or even anchors?
SCHIEFFER: Oh, you know, you can get to journalism in many different ways.
Mike Wallace was a game show host and he turned out to be one of the great
questioners of all time.
KURTZ: He did all right.
SCHIEFFER: Tim Russert was a political aid and he turned out to be a
terrific, terrific moderator of "Meet the Press." I learned a lot from him
while he was there.
KURTZ: While you two were trying to beat each other.
SCHIEFFER: We tried to beat each other's brains out. And we maintained a
really good friendship. And I tell you, it's kind of like in sports, sure
you want to hit a home run, but when you hit a home run off the best
pitcher in the league, you feel a little extra. And when I beat old Tim, I
felt like I'd really done something. And I guess Tim felt the same way.
But we -- off-camera, we were very good friends. We had seats next to one
another at the National's games for many years. I have always had great
respect for my competitors. I mean, you can't be a dodo and kind of get to
this level. They're all good.
KURTZ: As you know, some critics say, the Sunday shows are not as
important as they used to be, in an age when politicians are interviewed on
cable channels around the clock when they can put their own videos online,
is there some truth to that?
SCHIEFFER: We still get about 3.5 million people every Sunday and that's a
pretty good-sized crowd. And I think the reason people watch the Sunday
shows, I think the Sunday shows are special. I think the talking heads on
Sunday morning are different than in some other hours of the day, because
all of those shows are about trying to move the story forward. They're
news driven, information driven. They're not about anchor antics, they're
not about showing off.
KURTZ: There's no cooking.
SCHIEFFER: Yeah, we don't have a cooking segment. And I think there's
still a need for that. I think the reason that people watch any news
program is because they want information that they think they need. And I
think that's what draws people to a news program. If they don't think they
need to know something, they'll watch an entertainment show or something
else.
KURTZ: The great commodity in television is youth. And you've been pretty
successful in "Face the Nation," and you're 78. What possibly explains
this?
SCHIEFFER: Well I don't know I think I've just been here for a while and I
think there's some value in that, maybe I don't scare people.
KURTZ: Bob Schieffer thanks very much for sitting down with us here at
CBS.
SCHIEFFER: Thanks, Howie.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Bob told me he's going to take three months off and decide what to
do next. And his last guest on Sunday was Jeb Bush. Schieffer has a very
funny story about hanging out with Walter Cronkite and other anchors of
that era at a bar. Check it out tomorrow on our newly redesigned homepage
foxnews.com/mediabuzz.
Coming up next, why haven't conservatives done comedy as well as left-
wingers, Greg Gutfeld on trying to break the mold.
And later, SNL's Kate McKeanan does a mean Hillary Clinton. Does it matter
that she's a big fan?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: The conventional wisdom is only liberals can have successful comedy
shows. Greg Gutfeld is about to challenge that notion with a new program
that debuts tonight. I checked in with him from New York.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Greg Gutfeld, welcome.
GREG GUTFELD, THE GREG GUTFELD SHOW HOST: Thanks, thanks for having me.
KURTZ: You have been stunningly vague in describing this new program. So
asking for a friend, are you going to bring on guests and make fun of them?
GUTFELD: No, I never do that. I'm a congenial host. I look at a show, so
it's kind of a cocktail party that you invite people over that you like,
and you have good-natured fun. Maybe play a little yahtzee, some parchisi,
get a little drunk, you spill something on the sofa, maybe a fight breaks
out. Somebody has to go to the hospital.
KURTZ: So you'll be drinking on your new show? You've admitted it.
GUTFELD: Non-alcoholic beverages. I'm a big chocolate milk fan.
KURTZ: The wrap has always been that conservatives don't do comedy very
well. The most successful comedians, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, David
Letterman, are liberals. Do you buy that?
GUTFELD: To an extent, I do. Most of the right-wingers aren't funny.
Most left-wingers aren't funny, because, surprise, most people in general
aren't funny. But what you have is that most liberals go -- more liberals
than conservatives go into comedy, so you end up with more funny liberal
comedians. That's the math. I stole that from Andy Leiby.
KURTZ: Good to give credit. Why do you think most right-wingers are not
funny? Is it not in their DNA?
GUTFELD: It's that they tend to go into other professions. It's kind of
like saying, why are there no left-wing military commanders.
KURTZ: Ok.
GUTFELD: Pretty easy, because you need to have, you know objective,
conservative values to fight wars. There are no -- like, there are no like
left-wing MVP, NFL quarterbacks. There aren't. I can't name a single one.
KURTZ: How about left-handed?
GUTFELD: Try and think what else. People always say why there are no
right-wing comedians. Why are there no left-wing, you know, military
commanders, or professional athletes? It's hard to find a liberal golfer.
KURTZ: So, will you be rationing the news in a sociopolitical critique or
are you just going to kind of be goofing around?
GUTFELD: Well, it might be a mixture of both. I'm looking at -- the way I
describe this show, it's like what Peewee's playhouse did to kid's shows,
and I'm going to do to basic news format shows. It's going to be an
unpredictable, surprising, hopefully not boring, train wreck.
KURTZ: And hopefully...
GUTFELD: I like...
KURTZ: Hopefully the humor will be a little evaluated from the Peewee
level, I hope.
GUTFELD: He was a genius.
KURTZ: Sure, absolutely.
GUTFELD: If I could be half as good as Peewee, I'd be happy.
KURTZ: Here's my final question. Do you think there is something of a
hunger for humor in the audience these days because the news can be so
depressing?
GUTFELD: I think it's always been that way, since we first populated this
earth 4,000 years ago -- I joke -- just in case. Everybody likes to hear
something funny, because that brightens their day, because the earth --
life on earth is hard. It's brutal, there's a lot of pain, there's a lot
of tedious stuff. It's good to have a laugh, especially when times are
tough.
KURTZ: Now that I don't have to stay up until 3:00 in the morning to watch
you, I'll be checking out the new show. Greg Gutfeld thanks very much for
stopping by.
GUTFELD: Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: And the Greg Gutfeld show will air every Sunday, 10:00 p.m.
eastern, starting tonight.
After the break, guess who's rooting for Hillary, the actress who
hilariously mocks her on "Saturday Night Live," why that's a problem, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: In the storied history of "Saturday Night Live" there's rarely been
an impersonation as devastating as the way as Kate McKinnon plays Hillary
Clinton, a woman consumed by ambition.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATE MCKINNON AS HILLARY CLINTON: And finally tonight, I want to address that pesky
media. After this little glick, I shall rise again from the ashes like a
phoenix, like a Hillary Clinton and I will ascend to the high office of
President and claim my rightful place in history, if I choose to run, I
don't know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: McKinnon portrays a former first lady who struggles to seem real.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Citizens, you will elect me. I will be your leader.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So let's try one where you don't say I or even your
own name.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That will be easy, got it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, it is I, Hillary Clinton.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Now, Kate McKinnon has told The Hollywood Reporter the obviously
she's rooting for Hillary, which makes sense for her career I guess.
Clinton is her ticket to fame right now just as Darrell Hammond spent many
years playing Hillary's husband.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe if there's one thing my presidency will be
remembered for, it will be honesty and integrity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: The same with Will Ferrell doing George W. Bush.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are almost out of time. I will instead ask each
candidate to sum up in a single word, the best argument for his candidacy.
Governor Bush?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Strategiry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: And Dana Carvey doing Bush's father.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But I wouldn't be present at this juncture.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: But here's the thing. McKinnon also made clear that she admires
Hillary, "I'd be so nervous to meet her. I find her so re-splendid. When
Tina Fey did her immortal portrayal of Sarah Palin...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can see Russia from my house.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: We never knew whether she viewed the V.P. candidate as a
(inaudible) the way she was portrayed and it's disappointing that Kate
McKinnon is revealing to conservatives as well as Liberals that she's a
Hillary fan. Now -- from me at least, her impersonations won't seem quite
as biting. Still to come, your top tweets, Reverend Al's stunning comments
about the Texas flooding and a salute of sorts to the most patient man in
television.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: I am buzzed off at Al Sharpton. Now in the past, I've been buzzed
off at right-wing televangelists who react to hurricanes and other
disasters by saying god is punishing homosexuals, where people have
abortions of whatever. The media always pile on. Now, here's MSNBC's own
Reverend Al at the wake of those deadly storms in Houston tweeting, do you
think the Texas flooding is related to climate control or god's rebuke?
I'm just so sick of people who politicize tragedies with their own agendas
left or right, these 23 people died in those storms, mainstream media
rather quiet about this time.
Time for your top tweets, are the media giving short shift to some of these
2016 candidates.
TWEET: They're all gentlemen, but have no chance of ever being podus.
TWEET: It's not the job of the media to tell us who is the serious
candidate and who is not.
And finally, C-Span's veteran journalist Steve Scully suddenly gaining a
bit of fame, here's how John Alver's HBO show is now describing Scully.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The most patient man on television endures the American
public.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know what's going on in this world right now.
Obama is a Muslim, and that's all I got to say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Obama is not a Muslim but thank you for making your
comment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jews are behind all of this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We should probably send in Special Forces similar to
Rambo. I don't know enough about the military to.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll blow your head off and it's done.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Having our government doo do absolutely nothing, it's
freezing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ok.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's what brings us to idiocracy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ok.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Scully told me he grew up in a family of 12 kids hearing opinions
ranging from Rush Limbaugh to Rachel Maddow's, and he used to it. He loves
hearing all kinds of viewpoints but if someone crosses a line with
derogatory language, you're out of there. Plus, Steve Scully says his kids
now think he's cool because he's on John Oliver.
That's it for us here at "MediaBuzz." I'm Howard Kurtz. Go to our Facebook
page and give us a like. We post a lot of original content there. You
write to us at MediaBuzz@FoxNews.com and you can be part of our buzz
feature. As you know, we'll be back here next Sunday morning at 11 a.m. and
again at 5 p.m. Eastern with the latest buzz.
Content and Programming Copyright 2015 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2015 Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox