Media drumbeat for impeachment?

This is a rush transcript from "Media Buzz," June 2, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: On Buzz Meter this Sunday, as Robert Mueller finally breaks his silence, a media maelstrom over his insistence that he couldn't bring criminal charges against President Trump but was urging an impeachment inquiry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW NAPOLITANO, FOX NEWS ANALYST: I think basically he's saying the president can't be indicted. Otherwise, we would have indicted him. We could not say that he didn't commit a crime. Fill in the blank because we believe he did.

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: It sounds the special counsel is calling for Congress to pick up where he left off. That process has a name. It begins with the letter "I," impeachment.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Now, Mueller comes along in his final vow and is attempting to resuscitate the corpse that was his report.

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: So Mueller says he couldn't prove the president didn't commit a crime. It was an odd and striking and honestly kind of a bizarre thing to say.

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: But it does raise the question for everyone, what to do with a clearly lawless president, with a president who as illustrated in the report in great depth and detail obstructed justice.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Mueller is now just cheering for the president's impeachment over phantom obstruction of justice with no intent, no underlying crime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: But are many pundits analyzing the special counsel's careful words or weaponizing them to crusade for impeachment? Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz joins our coverage live.

The president is taking flak while in Japan for invoking Kim Jong Un and criticizing Joe Biden's intellect.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's choosing the North Korean dictator over the former vice president of the United States.

STEVE CORTES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: When the president wants to attack Joe Biden, he should do so as an American political opponent of Joe Biden. He shouldn't do it by citing a foreign dictator. I think that's a bad idea.

MARK LEVIN, FOX NEWS HOST: But it amazes me now how tender the media are. But don't say that about Joe Biden. They call Trump Hitler. So Trump says that Joe Biden has low I.Q. He has low I.Q. It is not Trump's fault.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KURTZ: Why are some commentators on the right as well as the left convinced that Trump went too far? Plus, do the math. More Democratic candidates are jumping on the impeachment bandwagon but is the press unfairly painting this as a groundswell? I'm Howard Kurtz and this is "Media Buzz."

Bob Mueller said nothing about his Russia investigation for two long years until the day he resigned. He was live on all the networks as he tried to explain his findings about President Trump and alleged obstruction of justice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT MUELLER, SPECIAL COUNSEL FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE: If we have had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said something. Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: The president tweeted nothing changes, the case is closed, and took plenty of questions from reporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I think it was the same as the report. There wasn't much change. There's no obstruction, there's no collusion, there's no nothing. It is nothing but a witch hunt. This is a witch hunt by the media and the Democrats. They're partners.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: 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 and former White House national security official; and Richard Fowler, radio talk show host and also a Fox News contributor.

Mollie, since Bob Mueller basically said on the T.V. what he already had said in the report with perhaps a few edited nuances, why are the media acting like they've got their hair on fire as if Mueller had issued some full-throated call for impeachment?

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, SENIOR EDITOR AT THE FEDERALIST: There was a time when people would say that the media behaved as if they were sort of the public relations arm of the Democratic Party, and I think incidences like this show that they have sort of moved from doing the Democratic Party's bidding to kind of telling the Democratic Party what it needs to do.

The media need impeachment so that they can avoid accountability for perpetrating this Russia collusion hoax that they did daily, claiming bombshell reports, you know, happening all the time of Russia collusion.

Mueller's report ended with no indictments of any Americans for anything related to collusion with Russia to steal the 2016 election and that makes the media look very bad. They are hoping they can just avoid dealing with that by moving on to this -- to this next shining object.

KURTZ: Need impeachment. Gillian, is this a classic case of pundits seeing what they want to see? So, on the left, you got reading the tea leaves of Mueller's words, you know, parsing every syllable to argue there while he implied, he insinuated that Congress should take impeachment.

On the right, some people are saying, you know, he shouldn't have gone before the cameras. He shouldn't have filed report and close up shot.

GILLIAN TURNER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT, FORMER WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIAL: Look, in defense of the media, some of my colleagues, I don't think the impetus and the groundswell was coming from journalists. I think it is coming from the Democratic Caucus in the House.

Twenty percent of them, 50-50, are now calling for impeachment proceedings to begin. And as evidence, I would submit the fact to you that just a few minutes ago on CNN Jim Clyburn said that he believes impeachment proceedings against the president have already begun. Now, this is a new chapter. This is a new wave.

I've not heard any Democrat say that to their mind, impeachment proceedings have already begun. He cited the ongoing court cases and investigation. I mean, for a second, I thought that is kind of crazy. Then I thought, actually it makes sense that he believes it already gone that far.

KURTZ: I said last week that this is impeachment in everything but name. It strikes me as some manic game that Democrats are playing so they don't have to embrace the I-word.

Let me play for you, Richard, something that Rachel Maddow said on MSNBC show, having to do with why it is important for Mueller to say in front of the cameras what he has already said in his report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: As a person who read the report, I still find it helpful to have the dude that wrote it up there saying, hey, you know, here is what it says.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: So, what difference does it make? He already said in the report this is not an exoneration of President Trump. Is it because television needs visuals?

RICHARD FOWLER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: I think part of it is because television needs visuals. If you notice right after Mueller gave that speech, the search terms for Mueller went through the roof both on Google and Yahoo, on all the search, because the Americans are trying to figure out and to ascertain Robert Mueller after two years -- mind you, he is a very trusted prosecutor, most Americans and most polls suggest that -- what this report say? What this report concluded?

What is it at the end, I think, is very telling. It is like if we thought he committed no crimes, in the 448 pages, we thought this president committed no crime. The fact that he didn't say that now leaves it up to the building behind us to figure out what they are going to do.

KURTZ: Right. Well, I don't know. It is all manner of television visuals. You know, Mueller is kind of a dry guy. Why don't we have Robert de Niro read the report? It would be much better now.

Look, Mollie, if the press had known from the start, which we did not know, that Mueller had accepted the old DOJ memos that say a sitting president of the United States cannot be indicted, would that have drained much of the drama from the last year --

HEMINGWAY: It would have actually made the entire special counsel questionable if he believed that he could do no function in terms of indicting the president or coming up to a decision of whether he committed any crimes. There would have been much less support for the special counsel. I do think --

KURTZ: But will have to investigate obviously Russian interference and all that.

HEMINGWAY: Right. There are so many things that were interesting coming out of this, including that he said he doesn't want to answer any questions at all about his special counsel probe. Reasonable people, Americans have every right to ask a ton of questions about the probe, like why he only hired Democrats to write the impeachment report.

I do think there is a question about whether he wrote the special counsel report which reads like an impeachment report. He didn't seem to have total command of the facts. It seems like he was being put out there to do something.

I think there is recognition in a special counsel's office that that report that they intended to come out and be able to like leak different things and make it seem really exciting kind of came out as a dud when people realized -- what was really interesting there was when William Barr did his hour-long interview later in the week and he revealed he had asked the special counsel to give the whole report redacted so he could release it right away.

They agreed to do it and then they didn't do that. That showed a lot of political gamesmanship. And I think we saw some political gamesmanship also in Mueller's press conference.

KURTZ: Mueller says the report is my testimony. You know, the notion that Mueller is now sort of quietly or not so quietly cheerleading for impeachment, he doesn't want to give the Democrats what they want which is a daylong televised spectacle on the Hill in which he is the star witness and gets this thing going --

TURNER: Which would only be a Rorschach test in the end anyway, meaning Democrats will see in his testimony what they want to see, Republicans will see what they want to see. I think I personally would like to see Mueller testify but from his perspective. It is like you can only pull so much blood from the stone.

From his perspective, it is like I did this investigation for two years, I wrote it up for you, now I am speaking to you. How many more ways do you want me to tell you what I have already told you?

FOWLER: I think Gillian is right to some extent. I think that Mueller coming out in this 10 minutes sort of (INAUDIBLE). There is something he said that I think is not getting enough media coverage it should at the beginning of the press conference. He talks about the importance of the Russia -- he talks about the Russians engaging in our election --

KURTZ: Yeah.

FOWLER: -- and their willingness to do it again. And the fact that that was met by deaf ears in the United States Senate under Mitch McConnell's leadership and was also met by deaf ears by the Republican Caucus speaks to the fact that they care less about this democracy than Democrats do because we are concerned about --

HEMINGWAY: This is a great example of why questions need to be asked of Mueller though. He didn't even look into the dossier which was sourced to Russians. If your job is to investigate Russia collusion and Russian meddling in our election --

FOWLER: We can all agree that Russia engages in our election.

HEMINGWAY: Such as by being the sources --

FOWLER: OK. And we can agree --

TURNER: The more important factor there is how they interfered and this is what he laid out in the report, how they interfered in social media and tried to sway American votes.

HEMINGWAY: I don't think any reasonable-minded person would say that the - - you know, making up a troll account on Facebook had more impact than a fake dossier --

(CROSSTALK)

FOWLER: -- the fact that Republicans don't care about it is problematic.

KURTZ: I want to come back to the media coverage. It was interesting by the way that in his interview on CBS Bill Barr says he felt that Mueller should have made the call. You indict or don't indict. That is why you have an independent counsel.

So, you said earlier the media need impeachment. Do you see a real media drumbeat for impeachment? Gillian seemed to disagree with that. Trying to use the Mueller comments sort of the turning point, because obviously the report itself, now it is like well, people don't know what is in the report because they don't have time to read the 448 pages.

HEMINGWAY: Right. It was -- I mean, you saw it in the clips that you were showing at the beginning of the show. There is obviously desire for impeachment. You are seeing many people in the media push for it. And I think what is interesting too -- again, to bring it back to that Barr interview where he did a lot of media criticism pointing out here he is just looking into how this fake collusion conspiracy theory began, and the media are criticizing him instead of having concern about civil liberties and how people were spied on when they didn't commit any crime.

All these things that the media used to care about, they used to be defenders of our freedom and making sure we are not spied on by the government, all of a sudden there's no interest in that, there is only interest in impeachment for lack of a crime which just shows everyone behaving --

FOWLER: I think we are mixing apples and oranges here. Let's have a conversation about wrongdoing at the FBI. Let's have a conversation about OIGs working on that as we speak. We can have hearings on this all we want but that does not take away from the fact that in volume two of the Mueller report, he outlined seven different instances when this president possibly obstructed justice. Republicans seemed not to care about it or seemed not to pay attention to.

KURTZ: I understand and that is of course the debate (ph). He outlines this and all the media experts say well, look, if you look at this, this is obstruction of justice, but the special counsel himself is not exonerating, does not say that there should be any criminal charges.

TURNER: He said in his press conference the criminal justice system is not the place for this to get hammered out. The problem is that it leaves it then to the American public.

HEMINGWAY: But the Department of Justice is the place to determine these things.

FOWLER: Not for the president of the United States. That is against Justice Department policy.

HEMINGWAY: Again, when he said - he made a comment that seemed very weird to me as an American. He says, I couldn't clear him of wrongdoing, I couldn't say he didn't commit a crime. That is not how crime works in this country.

We don't say everyone is guilty and then you have to prove your innocence. He went out of his way at the beginning to say that Russians were innocent until proven guilty but then that the president was guilty until proven innocent. It was bizarre.

KURTZ: Even when Mueller said the constitution requires a different process which of course is impeachment, he was quoting a Justice Department memo. I want to ask you this. There is a theme in the press, Gillian, The Washington Post column, Trump is counting on impeachment. A columnist, Donald Trump is really crying out for impeachment, he can play the victim, got a very different impression from the president when he was asked this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: To me it is a dirty word, the word "impeach." It is a dirty, filthy, disgusting word. It had nothing to do with me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: It sounds like he actually doesn't want to go down that road.

TURNER: Yeah. I agree with him that it is a dirty word. Up until now, it was associated with the Nixon administration, a very dark period in American politics, a very dark time for the American media. I think that he probably would like to drop it like a hot potato. But in absence of the ability to do that, he started pointing out the obvious which is that if the Democrats, if Nancy Pelosi continues to go down that road, it will ultimately probably backfire because --

KURTZ: Well, that's the thing.

HEMINGWAY: Usually you are impeached for committing a crime. The idea that you would be impeached because you complained about an investigation where you were falsely accused of treason, that is going to be such a heavy lift for the American people.

FOWLER: There is delineation between complaining about a crime and telling the White House counsel to stop firing the special counsel. But beyond that point, what this president did was over and over telling the media that he was completely exonerated, no collusion, no obstruction, when the report doesn't say that. I think that is what the Mueller -- what the Mueller press conference did this week was say the report doesn't say that.

KURTZ: All right. I got to get a break here. When we come back, the president invokes Kim Jong Un and taking a whack at Joe Biden. We will analyze the media outrage. And later, Alan Dershowitz on the coverage of why Mueller and whether the special counsel went too far.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: President Trump was on a ceremonial visit to Japan where he set off a media uproar with a tweet attacking the Democratic front runner and quoting Kim Jong Un. He had called the former VP a full of low I.Q.

Trump said he smiled when he called swampman Joe Biden a low I.Q. individual and worse, perhaps that's sending me a signal, and the president stood his ground when pressed by a reporter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does it give you pause at all to be appearing to side with a brutal dictator instead of with a fellow American, the former vice president, Joe Biden?

TRUMP: Kim Jong Un made a statement that Joe Biden is a low I.Q. individual. He probably is based on his record. I think I agree with him on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Biden called the remarks beneath the dignity of the office. Mollie, even many conservative commentators on your side are saying no problem with Trump criticizing Biden but then it was wrong to invoke a brutal dictator.

HEMINGWAY: Right. Also, I think there are time and a place to do such criticism. When you're overseas, it is best to not get bogged down in domestic politics. One thing I would like to see is more consistency in the media on their enforcement of this rule.

I remember being very frustrated when President Obama at the same time last election cycle went after Ted Cruz, went after Jeb Bush, went after Ben Carson. You know, brutally went after them and went after Donald Trump a little bit later I think in Japan during that same election cycle.

I didn't like it then, I don't like it now, but I would like to see more consistency in the media when they enforce this very good rule.

KURTZ: Right. We can just remind people though that Kim Jong Un is a guy who has now accused the media reports, confirmed by the U.S., of executing part of his nuclear negotiating team for not getting the job done.

As someone who worked for the last two presidents, are the media on target here and saying just this part, that this is Donald Trump shattering another norm?

TURNER: It is absolutely beneath the dignity of the office to quote Kim Jong Un whether you're in the United States, whether you're on foreign soil. But in President Trump's defense here, I will say there is new ground rules. As you just said, he has broken a lot of norms. Is it surprising that he said this? No.

I also think it fits in perfectly with the Trump doctrine which is not just America first, but it is President Trump first. This is what he was doing on the world stage. He saw an opportunity to bring up politics in a way that hurt his political opponent, one of them, and so he took it.

KURTZ: I didn't know it is now full pledge doctrine. Richard, I see some Trump supporters on my Twitter feed and they say, yeah, Biden is dumb, you know. But that is not the point. President on foreign soil, the idea that politics stops at -- I think it vanished decades ago, but to quote a tyrant, it is not hard to imagine an explosion on the right if Barack Obama had done such a thing to go after Republican candidate.

FOWLER: Oh, I think you're absolutely right. I think what makes it even worse is you have the president of the United States propping up a brutal dictator over a former vice president of the United States. I think Gillian is right in that this is part of the Trump doctrine. But this Trump doctrine also reminds you of the Trump failures.

He met twice with Kim Jong Un. During this trip over in Japan, there was a missile strike. It was not denuclearized. He promised denuclearization. It is not happening. This tweet speaks to that.

KURTZ: But the lack of success and negotiation is, you know, at least he is trying. It is not the thing --

(CROSSTALK)

HEMINGWAY: -- a very good point though and it is something that I also was frustrated with seeing this coverage. When there was that last summit, you had a Democratic head of the Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler, bring in Michael Cohen, a guy who pled guilty to lying to Congress, to embarrass the president in the midst of his nuclear summit talks and you didn't see the media criticizing it at all.

If we take this brutal dictator seriously and if we care about resolving the issues there, there has to be a consistency in the media. And even if there isn't, there just needs to be much more maturity by people in this country.

TURNER: The problem is that President Trump gave credence to something that Kim Jong Un said, and highlighted again that he believes Kim Jong Un has a credible voice. That's the problem.

FOWLER: And he did it on Japanese soil.

KURTZ: I understand. There was a sorry, not sorry tweet where the president said (INAUDIBLE) because by tweeting that Biden is a low I.Q. individual, an idiot as Kim had said, not much of (INAUDIBLE) if you ask me. Good discussion, everyone. Richard Fowler, Gillian Turner, and Mollie Hemingway, thanks so much.

Up next, Chuck Todd says Fox News doesn't criticize the president on the Biden-Kim Jong Un flap, but I've got the video to show that is wrong. And later, more Democratic candidates are coming out for impeachment. Are the media rolling, portraying this as some kind of groundswell?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: Chuck Todd was talking on MSNBC's "Meet the Press Daily" about President Trump invoking North Korea's dictator and denigrating Joe Biden's intelligence, and lamenting the fact that more Republicans don't challenge the president. Todd then took pretty obvious swipe at this network that is based on his conception of how Fox covers Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK TODD, MSNBC HOST: I do think if the president thought there was a penalty to pay from even his own favorite channel, perhaps he would have curtailed his behavior, but they enable him too, they celebrate this now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: In reality though, here's what a number of Fox commentators, many of them conservatives, had to say about Trump's jab at Biden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't attack your political opponents from foreign soil. You're supposed to be out there as America's chief diplomat. And two, you don't cite the murderous dictator of North Korea as evidence why Joe Biden is a bad candidate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He should not be doing this in Japan. It looks bad. And what's purpose does it serve for this Japanese trip to have done this?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was the president taking a shot at Biden while he is overseas on another mission entirely and seemingly siding with a dictator.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was obviously an error and he has been reproached by Republicans and Democrats, you don't criticize your political opponents especially by name overseas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: I'm all for fair criticism where the pundits want to go after the president's favorite channel for "enabling him" and might want to watch what is actually being said on the news shows here.

There was a tidal wave of media outrage when the Wall Street Journal disclosed the White House e-mail to the military saying that during the president's visit to Japan, U.S. says John McCain needs to be out of sight.

Indeed, a tarp was hung over the ship's name though it was removed before the president's visit. Trump said he knew nothing about this, called the effort well-meaning, but also repeated his criticism of the late senator.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I don't know what happened. I wasn't involved. I would not have done that. I was very angry with John McCain because he killed health care. I was not a big fan of John McCain in any way, shape or form.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: McCain has been dead for 10 months. Some White House officials who devised this awful plan clearly thought the side of the McCain battleship would upset the boss. And this footnote, acting Pentagon Chief Patrick Shanahan told reporters today the directive wasn't carried out but he called McCain's widow, Cindy, about the matter and will tell the White House he says that the Defense Department should not be politicized.

Ahead, Trump versus Obama. Which president do you think has spent more time talking to the press? But first, a look at Bob Mueller's media coverage and whether he overstepped his bounds. Alan Dershowitz is on deck.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS HOST: Let's go back to the drama surrounding Bob Mueller's televised appearance. Joining us now from Charleston, South Carolina is Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard Law professor who wrote the introduction for "The Mueller Report: A Final Report to the Special Counsel and to Donald Trump, Russia, and Collusion."

Let me start to you by asking you this. How do you think the media have covered Robert Mueller especially in a televised appearance this week, perhaps as an upstanding figure trying to get to the truth?

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, PROFESSOR, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: No. I think what's happened is the media always substitutes wishful thinking for careful analysis. If there had been a Mueller report about Hillary Clinton or a Democrat and Mueller had done the same thing he did here, that is basically say look, if the information had proved that he was totally innocent we would have said so, many in the media would have attacked that as beyond the scope, the proper scope of a prosecutor.

The media does not pass the shoe on the other foot test. That is if the political parties were reversed the media would not be consistent. It would always accept kind of its ideology overreporting and I think particularly pundits.

The reason so many pundits have been wrong in predicting things and the reason I've been right about predicting almost everything is not that I'm any smarter, is just that I don't substitute wishful thinking for careful legal analysis.

KURTZ: Now you say that until his televised appearance you were basically defending Bob Mueller as not being a partisan who favored one side over the other. First of all, did you get a lot of grief on that from your liberal friends?

DERSHOWITZ: Of course, I did. And from both sides. I get grief from both sides constantly because I don't satisfy either side by my hopefully neutral analysis. But I had never thought that he was a partisan but when he made that statement, he not only put his thumb, he put his elbow on the scale.

It was clearly intended to encourage impeachment by the House. First of all, it is not the proper object of a special counsel to do the investigation for Congress. That violates the separation of powers.

It's Congress that has to do its own investigation and has to take political responsibility for doing it. When they shunned that off over to special counsel, special counsel takes the responsibility it destroys our system of checks and balances.

KURTZ: But if Mueller was trying to encourage as you say, you know, pro- impeachment Democrats on the Hill he wasn't exactly explicit about it. In fact, when he reported the Constitution and saying well, there's another remedy for this, it's not the criminal justice system, he was quoting a DOJ memo.

A DOJ memo about going to be able to indict a sitting president. So, what makes you so sure? Because this has been the media line that he is urging Congress to impeach him. And I didn't hear those words.

DERSHOWITZ: Well, you didn't hear those words but I thought the music was quite clear. And if he learned nothing new during the report about the Justice Department regulation or about the Constitution on day one he knew he could not indict a sitting president under Justice Department regulations.

And so really the question comes up why did we have a special counsel at all? Why didn't we have a nonpartisan independent expert commission looking into Russian efforts to influence our election which are continuing in the 2020 election?

That would have been the way to go especially in light of the fact that we now know the Justice Department and Mueller concluded that the result of this special counsel could not be the indictment of the president.

KURTZ: Right. Well, part of the reason that people would say that it was good that Mueller had the investigation was that nonpartisan commission came and indict Russians, came indict people like Paul Manafort and Flynn and some of the others who got caught --

(CROSSTALK)

DERSHOWITZ: Well, what benefit came out of indicting the Russians? The Russians can't be charged. Manafort was indicted for something unrelated as the judge in the Manafort case said, the prosecutor wasn't interested in Manafort, they were just interested in squeezing him to make him sing, perhaps even composed against President Trump.

KURTZ: Right.

DERSHOWITZ: And so, what was the purpose of that? I just think it was a futile effort and it would have been much better to have a nonpartisan investigation like we had after 9/11. If the nonpartisan investigation comes up with evidence of crimes then that could be turned over to ordinary prosecutors.

KURTZ: You say, and I agree as an old Justice Department reporter that prosecutors are not supposed to trash people. If you don't indict you don't do as Jim Comey did and hold a news conference and say this is a bad person and did terrible things.

But Mueller as by -- as an independent counsel, was supposed to write a report to the attorney general, and a report, as he sees it lays out the facts. That was his job.

DERSHOWITZ: Well, his job was to file a report with the attorney general. There's nothing in the rules that say that the negative and critical material about innocent people should be released to the public.

I suspect we've seen the last special counsel. I think, I hope Congress will have hearings to try to determine whether or not the special counsel should be trashed the way the special prosecutor was. I think we have seen the death knell of special prosecutors, special counsel. I think and I hope the Mueller report is the last special counsel report we ever have.

It's inconsistent with the role of prosecutors, it's inconsistent with presumption of innocence and it's inconsistent with the constitutional system of separation of powers.

KURTZ: Well, it does raise the question of how an administration would investigate itself.

But let me move on to this. You wrote in the Hill "Shame on Mueller for abusing his position of trust." Those are really strong words obviously against the former FBI director. Would you also say that President Trump has gone too far with his constant personal attacks on Mueller, (Inaudible) Democrats witch hunt, and a hoax and all that?

DERSHOWITZ: When a person is the subject of an investigation, he or she has the right to fight back. What I have chosen different words? Of course. That's the president's style. But I think there's an enormous difference between those conducting an investigation and those who are subject of the investigation.

People choose, some choose to ignore. The investigation remains silent. Some choose to fight back. You know, I didn't vote for President Trump but the people who did understood what they were getting. They were getting a man who was always going to fight back --

KURTZ: Right.

DERSHOWITZ: -- and never going to sit back and simply say well, I accept this, let the process go forward.

KURTZ: Professor, I've got half a minute. Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox's senior judicial analyst takes a somewhat different view. He says what Mueller is saying is we could not say he did not commit a crime; the president did not commit a crime. Fill in the blank, because we believe he did. Do you disagree with Judge Nap's analysis?

DERSHOWITZ: I fundamentally disagree. I like Judge Napolitano but I really want to challenge him to a debate. I want Fox to show that they present both sides of the issue unlike some of the other media.

So, Judge, please agree to debate me on Fox or anywhere else and let's have our differences out. Let the American public decide who is correct, you or me. These are reasonable disagreements, reasonable arguments and important ones. Let's have a rational and civil debate.

KURTZ: I'll be happy to host that debate and we could popcorn and sell tickets. Sir Alan Dershowitz, always good to see you. Thanks so much for joining us.

DERSHOWITZ: Thank you.

KURTZ: Coming up, with more 2020 Democrats embracing impeachment, is the press playing down that it has very tepid support in the House.

And later, the New York Times says some MSNBC and CNN shows are too opinionated. for its reporters.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: Many of the Democrats 2020 candidates are telling reporters in the wake of Bob Mueller's televised appearance that now they are jumping on the impeachment bandwagon.

And joining us now, Mara Liasson, national reporter for NPR and a Fox News contributor. I've seen just a constant airing of clips s of, you know, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and others calling for impeachment after the Mueller TV appearance.

Now obviously, they are running for president, presidential candidates get a lot of attention but is this creating the impression that most Democratic lawmakers are backing impeachment?

MARA LIASSON, NPR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT & FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: It could and that would be wrong. And I think the media has a responsibility, they love the splits and the conflicts. I hate talking about the media because we're not one monolithic thing but the reality is that the only metric that matters is how many Democrats, House Democrats in swing districts --

KURTZ: Yes.

LIASSON: -- are for impeachment. Now if there was a nominee or all but certain nominee saying we should impeach him that would matter but these are candidates who are struggling for oxygen or an advantage and that's the context that their remarks should be reported.

KURTZ: Yes. And just to clarify, you go to the numbers --

LIASSON: Yes.

KURTZ: -- it's 40 plus, maybe even as high as 50 House Democrats.

LIASSON: All liberal district.

KURTZ: Right. Out of 235 House Democrats.

LIASSON: Yes.

KURTZ: It's not exactly a ground. So, you know, Elizabeth Warren goes on The View and the liberal hosts cheer her impeachment stance.

LIASSON: Yes, sure.

KURTZ: But are other news shows not so subtly encouraging this by, you know, so many candidates you can book them every day and having them on and all them all about impeachment.

LIASSON: Well, I hope not and NPR isn't doing that.

KURTZ: OK. Good answer. By the way, you can't hate talking about the media on this show. You have to love talking about the media.

By the way, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are among those who are not on the impeachment bandwagon although even Biden saying things like, well, they'd be unavoidable. Eventually --

LIASSON: Biden has been echoing the House leadership comments.

KURTZ: Yes.

LIASSON: Saying maybe it will be inevitable. But right now, let's do the -- yes, yes.

KURTZ: All right. Beto O'Rourke. Now this is a guy who has already apologized for the Vanity fair cover launch for saying I'm born to be in it. He's now trying to get back on TV because he's launched lots of traction. He's in a new HBO documentary about his losing Texas Senate campaign. Now I love the fact that he gets an HBO documentary even though he lost that race to Ted Cruz and he apologized again. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FMR. REP. BETO O'ROURKE (D-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I love you guys more than you will ever know. I know I was a giant (muted) to be around sometimes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: That's a candid division in front of the cameras. But does it --

(CROSSTALK)

LIASSON: That goes up there with his dental appointment and his haircut.

KURTZ: Yes. The haircut. Right.

LIASSON: Yes, yes.

KURTZ: But does it seem like in some ways he is on an endless apology tour?

LIASSON: I don't think he's on an endless apology tour. He is on camera endlessly. I guess we can say that.

KURTZ: Right.

LIASSON: And the thing that's so interesting is that Donald Trump has showed us that there is no such thing as too much exposure. He, you know, lives by the adage the more exposure the better no matter what kind it is.

KURTZ: Yes.

LIASSON: But for Beto it seems to have backfired a bit. The Vanity Fair cover was probably a mistake in retrospect. It made him seem kind of like Obama, you know. Too much about his image.

KURTZ: Yes.

LIASSON: So, I think there is such a thing as too much exposure.

KURTZ: Well, he may have miss this. The media fickle. I mean, many in the media love --

LIASSON: Yes.

KURTZ: -- they were talking him up even when he was losing in Ted Cruz. And now they've kind of cooled on him. They like Mayor Pete better and all of that.

The Washington Post has a piece that a lot of people note about Bernie Sanders, revolution has stalled says the paper. He has trouble expanding his support. There are limits to his left-wing appeal. Couldn't some version of the same peace be written now about every Democratic candidate whose name is not Joe Biden?

LIASSON: Absolutely. And guess what. It might be eventually written about Joe Biden because the history of Democratic front-runners at this point is, they don't end up being the front runner.

KURTZ: Right.

LIASSON: Often.

KURTZ: Right.

LIASSON: But I do think that Bernie Sanders has been a puzzle to the media and once again the media isn't one monolithic thing. But --

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: Right. Because they thought he'd be stronger.

LIASSON: Yes, they thought he's be stronger. But also, Bernie Sanders wasn't treated as a true front-runner. He's -- they've -- journalist have never known what to do about him because in 2016 it didn't seem like he really had a chance so he didn't get the same kind of scrutiny as Hillary because he's a --

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: Yes. He's going to get something --

LIASSON: And now -- and now he's absolutely was the front runner until Joe Biden until Joe Biden got in.

KURTZ: Yes.

LIASSON: But he also hasn't gotten the kind of intensive deep, you know, scrutiny that a front runner would.

KURTZ: Right.

LIASSON: So now all of a sudden, they ping to the other end of the spectrum. He's losing steam.

KURTZ: Now all of a sudden --

(CROSSTALK)

LIASSON: One reason is though, the things he is for that so many other people are too.

KURTZ: Yes.

LIASSON: You don't need a 76-year-old guy to be for them because you have other young candidates --

KURTZ: And on that note, Mara Liasson, thanks so much for coming in this Sunday.

LIASSON: Thank you.

KURTZ: And after the break the challenge of covering the president for his least favorite paper, the New York Times and how Trump gives the press far more access than Barack Obama ever did.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: Donald Trump has a dramatically different approach to the media than his predecessor who took pretty wildly.

Joining us now is Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for the New York Times who is out with an updated version of his book, "Obama: The Call of History."

And the first question, does it put an extra layer of pressure on you when you write stories for a paper that Trump often blast as the failing New York Times?

PETER BAKER, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes. It does but it's an odd relation -- it's a love-hate relationship. Right. He loves the New York Times. He talks to us.

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: He gives you interviews.

BAKER: Right.

KURTZ: He's been on some of those interviews.

BAKER: Absolutely. And he craves approval from the paper he read his entire life growing up in New York and his father read and he gets mad as he doesn't get when he thinks he ought to get it. I get it. And that's natural but he's reading. And that's a good thing for us.

KURTZ: From your book Barack Obama authorized his aides to declare war on Fox and former senior White House official Dan Pfeiffer later said that this had been a mistake of hubris. Was that sort of a precursor to Trump versus the New York Times, Trump versus CNN?

BAKER: I mean, look, on a small scale. Right? Let's not, I don't want to equate them because what Trump is doing is much different and much broader and much more intense.

KURTZ: Yes.

BAKER: And yet, what he did was, what President Obama did was something that all of the press basically objected to, they say we're going to single out Fox and not invite them to these pool events. We're not going to invite them for any other networks said no, we are not going to do it.

And I thought that was a great moment of solidarity when we said that on a news side anyway, we don't believe you should pick and choose between organizations and that's sort of, as you say, in a way a precursor for where we're at now.

KURTZ: Let's compare Presidents Obama and Trump, people think Obama had a lovefest with his press corps. He certainly did in the 2008 campaign. But you say he made a crucial change as president that ended up limiting access for reporters. How?

BAKER: Yes. I think we overstate this idea that he was in this love affair with these reporters. I didn't feel that. I got a lot of yelling phone calls from people in the Obama White House.

And one thing he did basically, was he basically killed what we called pool spread. This is when a small group of reporters goes in to the Oval Office when a president has a visitor and we often get to throw out questions and get, you know, about the news of the day.

Obama hated doing that. President Obama hated doing that and he basically stopped doing it. He had a third as many of those as President Bush. About fifth as many as President Clinton. President Trump by comparison loves doing that. He has no problem with --

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: He does it virtually every day.

BAKER: he does it virtually every day.

KURTZ: He talks a lot of questions.

BAKER: Exactly.

KURTZ: yes.

BAKER: And that's as he talks to a whole lot more than President Obama ever did.

KURTZ: Right. On the other hand, Donald Trump has all abolished the daily press briefings --

BAKER: Right.

KURTZ: -- which is too bad. But the White House argument when he gives you direct access, he wants you to talk to the press secretary, so there is a trade-off.

BAKER: Look, I would rather talk to the president than a press secretary but there's still a difference and I still think the briefing serves an important function because you can ask compound questions, you can ask the important -- put important things on the record, you're not shouting across the room or with helicopter blades going.

And we've lost that, not just the White House, also the State Department and the Pentagon. We've now gone a full year without a briefing by the Pentagon. It's counterproductive for them because they can't get their message out. So, I wish they were --

KURTZ: Right.

BAKER: -- were rethinking about that.

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: So, if you happen to ben on pool or somebody from your papers on pool and you've got, you know, sort of eight seconds to give a questions to the president and it's noisy.

BAKER: Right.

KURTZ: You are saying you can't ask a two-part question over the nuance.

BAKER: And a pool you have to shout out --

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: And it's easier for him to say that's all fake news.

BAKER: It's misrepresenting what about around, Mr. President, what about Meghan Markle, you can ask questions like that.

KURTZ: Yes.

BAKER: If you got his attention, he'll say something. But you can't say, Mr. President, on this date you said this but on this date your secretary of housing said that, and this date you did this, how do you recon -- you can't ask that kind of question in that kind of environment. And you can ask the press secretary that at a briefing on the record on camera.

KURTZ: Maybe the White House likes it that way.

BAKER: Maybe the White House likes that way. I think you're right.

KURTZ: When Donald Trump and certainly his aides complain that the overwhelming number of stories in the major media about this president are negative, it doesn't make them untrue. Does he have a point?

BAKER: You know, I have a hard time measuring where stories are positive or negative. And I know who decides stories if it's true, it's true. That's what I'm looking for. And so, a story they consider to be negative may be positive depending on how you look at it.

So, I don't like that whole positive negative thing. Is the coverage tough at times? Yes, of course, it is. He's done a lot of things that are controversial. You are going to -- if you do things that are controversial --

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: That's the defense.

BAKER: You're going to -- yes.

KURTZ: That's the defense. Do we cover this president because we've decided he is so controversial?

BAKER: Not if we cover what he does for what he does. We covered on the merits. In other words, if a president comes out and says something, you know, I'm not going to talk about Joe Biden on the usual previous --

KURTZ: Yes.

BAKER: I'd like to talk about Joe Biden on foreign soil that's not going to produce a story. If he comes out and says yes, I agree he's a low I.Q. individual and Kim Jong Un is right that's going to produce a story. And that's not the fault of the media, that's just us responding to what's put in front of us.

KURTZ: All right. Peter Baker who covered both White Houses. Thanks very much. Good to see you.

BAKER: I appreciate it.

KURTZ: Still to come, the New York Times barring its reports from Rachel Maddow and certain other cable shows and why it's tough to get on TV if you're not talking impeachment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: New York Times is urging its reporters to avoid going on highly opinionated cable shows including the ones hosted by like Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC and by Don Lemon on CNN. That according to Vanity Fair.

There are couple of primetime Fox shows on the list but many times journalist have contributor contacts with the other two news channels.

Times editor Dean Baquet told the Daily Beast that opinion and news need to be separated. "It's the most sharply opinionated shows that give me pause. I'm not sure which shows we will avoid. The line is increasingly blurred."

That's true. And sometimes Washington Post reporters have privately told me they avoid the most opinionated shows because either they get loaded questions or surrounded by liberal anti-Trump pundits or there are anti- Trump headlines.

Now the media can't stop covering the "I" word when President Trump calls that a dirty, filthy word. And here's the classic case.

Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman was on Ari Melber's MSNBC show and after a little squabble about how much he favors impeachment -- Melber was basically right -- there was this moment of truth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: You can use your time as you see fit. I appreciate you coming on the show. Do you want to talk about the case that you are making for impeachment?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually, I've been trying to get on your show to talk about the Saudi nuclear program. And if it was my time, we'd be talking about efforts to control drug prices.

There is this image in this country that Congress is focused only on impeachment. That's the only thing I can get on TV to talk about but it's not really what I'm working on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Now that seemingly how Ari Melber, that's how it works in cable. You want to talk about what the anchors and producers care about, in this case, impeachment, you get on. If you want to talk about some other issue, sorry, we're too full you don't get on. And that's how the agenda gets shaped.

Well, that's it for this edition of Media Buzz. I'm Howard Kurtz. Check out my podcast, Media Buzz Meter, we rift on the day's hottest stories, you can subscribe at Apple iTunes, at Google Play or Foxnewspodcast.com.

Also, you might want to check out our Facebook page we post my daily columns and original videos made just for the web. If you want to continue the conversation on Twitter, I suspect some of you already have at Howard Kurtz is the way you'll find me. And we're back here next Sunday morning at 11 Eastern. We'll see you then with the latest buzz.

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