This is a rush transcript from "MediaBuzz," June 20, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS HOST (on camera): It never would have happened in Russia. Vladimir Putin forced to take aggressive questions from a free press but -- and I know this comes as a shock -- he used that forum at the Geneva summit to trash America in deeply dishonest way. Putin couldn't credibly answer why his political opponents keep winding up dead or, as with Alexei Navalny, poisoned and imprisoned, his movement outlawed.
So he did the whataboutism thing. He portrayed the Capitol riot as just a bunch of ordinary demonstrators, some arrested for -- quote -- "unclear reasons," not the law breakers they are, some of whom used brutal violence against police.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): People went into U.S. Congress with political demands. Four hundred people are now facing criminal charges.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): And then the Russian autocrat involved the urban riots to follow George Floyd's murder, mentioned Black Lives Matter, spoke of disorder and destruction, all as a way of deflecting from his murderous tactics, saying, we have no desire to allow the same thing to happen in our country.
Nobody, of course, is buying the ex-KGB man's propaganda and, of course, America's enemies are going to use our problems against us, but if any Russian journalist had asked about the crackdown and the killing of political rivals as ABC's Rachel Scott did, saying, Mr. President, what are you so afraid of, that person would probably end up behind bars or worse.
I'm Howard Kurtz and this is MEDIABUZZ.
Ahead, former Trump economic advisor Larry Kudlow joins us on a wide range of issues. Jon Stewart talks up the Wuhan lab leak theory as Powell (ph) Stephen Colbert wasn't having it. Why that turns out to be serious shtick. And we'll unveil a fast new feature called "Buzz Beaters." Stick around for that.
The media built-up for the showdown summit between President Biden and Vladimir Putin was relentless. The reality that the Geneva meetings didn't accomplish much was far less dramatic beginning with new star pundits trying to analyze the Russian leader's body language.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN (voice-over): He looked stern.
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Stern? I thought he almost looked sullen. It was extraordinary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): As Biden fielded questions, the media quickly split into warring camps over whether the low key sessions were even worth it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I know there are a lot of hype around this meeting.
JONATHAN LEMIRE, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS: So what is something concrete, sir, that you achieved today to prevent that from happening again and what are the consequences you threaten?
BIDEN: Whether I stop it from happening again, he knows I will take action, like we did when this last time out. And so there are no threats, just simple assertions made.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: The so-called summit with Vladimir Putin did absolutely nothing to advance any American interest in any way. That's a fact.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Even if you're a rank partisan, you see that these meetings require real expertise because there are real consequences to being outmaneuvered, which Biden was.
JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: He's not America first because he doesn't want to be the bad guy even if being the bad guy is good for America. He wants to be loved more than respected.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST: I can't think of a more successful diplomatic trip in the 21st century than this one simply because we finally did the basics. We weren't going around talking about wars we were starting or wars that we were in.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: The summit is not only a potential reset for the U.S.-Russia relations. It's a capstone for the career of President Biden who spent decades on international stage.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: So now, you're going to have the same puppets, pigeons and pawns say Biden needed to talk tougher when they said nothing when Trump took Putin's side over American intelligence? Give me a break.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now to analyze the coverage, Guy Benson, host of the Guy Benson radio show and podcast, and Clarence Page, columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
Guy, the divide here isn't between conservatives to say, well, Biden got nothing from Putin and liberals are saying it was an awesome victory. It's whether or not journalists buy Biden's yardstick that this was a normal business-like meeting that could yield results down the road. What is your take on the coverage?
GUY BENSON, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, RADIO SHOW HOST: I mean, they're rooting for Biden. I think most Americans are rooting for our president. But I also think it's reasonable to ask the question to your initial part of the point, Howie, OK, what exactly was achieved here aside from these two men getting together, going back and forth? You mentioned in your monologue the whataboutism and the sort of shamelessness of Vladimir Putin.
I mean, if you look at the rhetoric, it may have gotten a little bit tougher. There was a reference in the montage to the Helsinki summit, which I thought was a low moment in the Trump presidency. But while talks in the words of a president absolutely is important, it is something that matters, results matter more.
And the fact is, in the last week or two, we've seen a pipeline green lit by the Biden administration or at least they've held off on sanctions which is a big, big geopolitical strategic win --
KURTZ: Yeah.
BENSON: -- for Vladimir Putin. And then they've also announced -- the Biden administration -- they are freezing at least for now some military aid to Ukraine, which seems like a pretty big deal. I know Russia said they were drawing down some troops and, you know, let's keep an eye on it --
KURTZ: Right.
BENSON: -- but results matter a lot and the media needs to focus on that.
KURTZ: Let me get Clarence in here. Even liberal commentators acknowledged there were no concrete results but they liked the tone, Biden not making threats. Would people on your side be so patient under a Republican president?
CLARENCE PAGE, COLUMNIST, CHICAGO TRIBUNE: Well, I think the whole (ph) story, the big story here was comparing a Helsinki with Geneva, comparing Biden with President Trump, who stood up there next to Vladimir Putin and said that he believed the word of Putin over that of his own intelligence service. Guy is right, that was indeed a low point in diplomacy.
This time, it's all a question of expectations, Howard. If you expect Biden to behave like an experienced politician, an experienced diplomat, someone who know these issues and would not move us closer to a world war three, move us towards more talks to try to end the cyberattacks, etc., that are going on in this new cold war --
KURTZ: Well --
PAGE: -- I'd say in those terms he succeeded.
KURTZ: You set me up for my next question. This is for Guy. My take on this is this. The media built this up to an unbelievable degree. It was like who is going to emerge bloody and battered, there were graphics, there were anchors who went to Geneva, it's politics over personality. And by that standard and I said this the week before, it was always going to be a bust.
BENSON: Yeah. I mean, look, I think people, a lot of folks in the news media, they hated him, they all voted against him for the most part, they were rooting hard for him to lose, but they miss President Trump because there was drama with him, for good and for bad, right?
And the world war three comment from Clarence, with all respect, I mean, I don't think President Trump moved us anywhere at all close to another world war. There were peace deals achieved under the Trump administration that were pretty historic.
So, he gave them a symbiotic, sometimes dysfunctional relationship where you didn't really know what he was going to do. It was exciting. There was going to be controversy. They were ready to sort of, you know, blow up any story into this international incident.
And with Joe Biden, it is a little quieter, a little sleepier. You could say more normal, more traditional. That's fine. But the hype machine is not going to really work with a politician like Joe Biden. And rather than doing these comparisons, Trump versus Biden on style, it should be, as I mentioned in my previous answer --
KURTZ: Yeah.
BENSON: -- on substance and results.
KURTZ: Well, the next day, The New York Times had a headline praising Biden for his stubborn optimism and The Washington Post praised had a headline praising Biden for his strategy of pessimism. So that clears that up, Clarence.
(LAUGHTER)
KURTZ: It didn't seem to matter -- I don't know. It didn't seem to matter that the president and his own people were tamping down expectations. Nothing has been negotiated in advance. Don't expect any breakthroughs. TV wanted drama. It was almost a sense of deflation, Clarence, when the meetings were relatively short.
PAGE: Howard, maybe I'm an old -- yeah, I am an old man.
(LAUGHTER)
PAGE: I still remember when this was normal. You didn't expect the president to give you a lot of international drama each time he stepped up at the podium. Instead, you got what Joe Biden gave us, with low expectations, but a sense that we are making progress, we are moving on the right direction. That was what Americans were looking forward when they voted for him, I believe.
And this is -- frankly, Americans always have had a hard time getting -- really cared about foreign affairs anyway unless we have American troops involved and a deeper American commitments. Hopefully, we move away from that.
KURTZ: Yeah, that's a fair point, but we do have new forms of warfare like cyber hacking. So, Guy, reporters, you know, asked President Biden, did you threat him, did you draw a red line, what about this list (ph) you gave him, would U.S. retaliate. And Biden says, look, I just made these assertions. So, that could be framed as regular diplomacy or timidity depending on the point of view of the journalists and pundits.
BENSON: With all chest thumping that the Democratic Party has done in recent years about Russia and the threat of Russia, I mean, the rhetoric wasn't even as sharp as I was expecting, right?
My critique going in was they're going to say all the right things and they're going to leak with the readout. You know, the president was harsh and he laid down the law. I was going to say, OK, that's fine, Russia deserves it.
But to sound like a broken record now, language matters less than action and results. And the Trump administration, I think, was pretty tough on Russia in terms of their results and their policies. But I was a little bit surprised that they actually didn't do that.
KURTZ: Yeah.
BENSON: They didn't really try to at least signal to the world that the rhetoric was tough. And I would like to know, for example, some follow-up questions from the media down the line, what was the thought process behind that list of 16 institutions not to attack?
KURTZ: Right.
BENSON: It seemed like sort of a strange move.
KURTZ: OK. But, you know, it is hard, Clarence, I think, for the press to get overly excited when the president himself says oh, you know, we won't really know for six to 12 months whether anything I'm doing is working here.
PAGE: Well, you know, thank you, Guy, great story for our assignment there. But frankly, as far as these talks were concerned, again, President Biden said that six months or so down the line, we should see some results. That's the kind of pace with which the framers set up our government here, to move slowly and deliberately, not quickly and passionately.
Frankly, we have a situation where the cyberattacks in particular, Joe Biden accusing Russia of cyberattacks, is certainly true. It's a terrible thing. But you've got to be careful dealing with that because like you used to say down home, you don't stop preaching and going to meddle it (ph), because the U.S. is known to make cyberattacks around the world as well.
KURTZ: All right. Let me jump in here. Let me jump in here. I need short answers on this last round, starting with Guy. What about President Biden mending fences with our NATO allies after the Trump years? The media were fawning (ph) over that. Washington Post had a front page story, part of the club, that Biden is a member of the Cool Kids Club.
BENSON: He is. Much of the European establishment was rooting for him in the election. I think Trump was much more of a disrupter. We all know that. That did yield some results.
My big question coming out of the G7, they signed a piece of paper about needing more answers from China on the origins of the virus or else what? You know, that's my biggest open question. And it seemed like that statement really didn't have a lot of teeth. And entrusting that to the WHO again that failed the first time in China's pocket --
KURTZ: Yeah.
BENSON: I don't view that as a sign of strength, but they definitely all linked arms and did it.
KURTZ: Clarence, you say boring meetings are what used to be normal, but did the pundits, especially in the television age, only care about the optics, which is, you know, it wasn't a very exciting outcome there?
PAGE: Howard, that's the pathology of the press that we love conflict. We're drawn to it. And when we don't have visible conflict, it's a bad story for TV. But also remember, Putin doesn't really care about the United States as much as he cares about his own constituents there in Russia.
That means he has to come across as strong on the international stage. He has to come across as someone who loves his country and, you know, Russia first, just like President Trump said for America.
KURTZ: Yeah, right. Well, he tried to play -- he tried to play to the western press more than I expected. I got to get a break here. Ahead, Larry Kudlow on coverage of the Biden/Putin summit and much more. When we come back, Jon Stewart says what most of the media would not say for so long, COVID could well have come from that Chinese lab.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): The Wuhan lab leak theory, you know, the one that the mainstream media largely ignored or marginalized for over a year, just got an unexpected booster on late night TV. Jon Stewart, the left's favorite comedian, was on CBS with his old pal, Stephen Colbert, when he embraced with a few laughs the theory that had been previously verboten.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON STEWART, COMEDIAN: There's a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China. What do we do? Oh, you know who we could ask, the Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab. The disease is the same name as the lab.
STEPHEN COLBERT, COMEDIAN: And how long have you worked for Sen. Ron Johnson?
STEWART: Let me tell you something --
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: This is not -- seriously --
COLBERT: You could be right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Guy, why has it gone viral that Jon Stewart, who is not just a funny man but a social critic, you know, pretty much endorsed the Wuhan lab theory on late night television?
BENSON: Because so many of the guardians of the consensus refuse to even entertain that possibility for months and in fact ridiculed, mocked, punished, and censored people who just articulated an intuitive completely plausible theory that has been viable all along.
So for Jon Stewart to come out and say what he said, where he said it, on Colbert's show on CBS, clearly making his friend uncomfortable, enraging a lot of online leftist, it was significant because I think he was pointing out and just sort of puncturing the absurdity of the previous conventional wisdom and consensus that oh, this is not remotely possible, it is a conspiracy theory, it is debunked, when for the reasons he pointed out, it actually makes a lot of sense on its face.
We need to get to the bottom of it. We need the actual facts. I hope it will eventually come out. But this has always been a viable theory.
KURTZ: Yeah.
BENSON: And Jon Stewart, I think, in a fun way, pointed out exactly why.
KURTZ: Sometimes, comedy can illuminate the truth. Now -- by the way, if you said on Facebook a month before what Stewart said on CBS, your post would have been deleted. Clarence, Stephen Colbert --
BENSON: Yup.
KURTZ: -- Joe Biden and, you know, turned his show into a Trump-bashing forum for four years, didn't seem happy and neither did his audience.
PAGE: Well, Howard, I'm going to disappoint you by not disagreeing with Guy.
KURTZ: Be my guest.
PAGE: I know Jon Stewart. I love him. I love when he does something like this, goes against conventional wisdom. Remember what he did on a story on the "Crossfire" show on CNN, on live TV --
KURTZ: Yeah.
PAGE: -- by pointing out these contradictions. He's not the first person or the first comedian to point out the Wuhan lab theory. There may be something to it. Bill Maher had a government health expert on his show, happened to mention it, and you could hear an audible gasp in the audience.
Why? Because this bit of unconventional wisdom, that Wuhan -- there may be some plausibility to it. That has become indeed reinforced and reinforced on the left and now among many of us in the middle.
KURTZ: Yeah, right.
PAGE: And sometimes we go overboard. We should always be open to any option here.
KURTZ: Well, I interviewed Jon Stewart many times. He does delight in this sort of thing and, you know, doesn't maybe feel bound by the normal restrictions that -- quote -- journalists do.
Plenty of conservative pundits, Guy, who always rip Jon Stewart for being a left-leaning comedian and spent a lot of time savaging Republicans, kind of like Barack Obama, are now treating him with strange new respect. The National Review called this a turning point for comedy and for America.
BENSON: Well, yeah, because he said something that I think was clarifying, that bucked his own side. So that's interesting. It sort of adds an element to the story that will get your attention. But, Howie, to broaden out beyond just the comedic aspect of this --
KURTZ: Sure.
BENSON: -- I just want the audience to think about what an absolute disgrace to journalism it is that journalists in this country refuse to seriously consider and give real treatment journalistically to a viable theory about where a virus started that has killed 600,000 people in this country.
It was not allowed. You could not speak of it. If you did or like Sen. Tom Cotton, you were raked over the coals. That is an unbelievable failure of journalism over the last year.
I'm glad that Jon Stewart showed up and did what he did because I think it shines the spotlight. It's a very awkward thing for the media that participated in basically this coverup to the delight of China. But that is the opposite of journalism and I think one of the biggest failures of the industry in recent memory.
KURTZ: Well put and yet, Clarence, some liberals went nuts online, calling Stewart a racist, anti-Chinese, saying he became a crazy (INAUDIBLE) Republican, all because he broke with the media's disdain for this theory, which by the way President Biden has ordered a review of this by intelligence agency. Final thoughts.
PAGE: Yeah. The racist charge comes up from a conflation of some different issues. The rage from the left justifiably is over President Trump's flagrant use of China virus and kung-flu that nationalized it, politicized, weaponized the whole Wuhan research controversy. That actually caused a reflexive reaction on the left that went overboard as well.
KURTZ: Right.
PAGE: Fortunately, Jon has helped us steer us back towards what Colin Powell called the sensible center.
KURTZ: Yes. OK. And maybe the fact that he's not on TV every day as he was in the daily show gives his words more weight as with his advocacy for first responders. OK, Clarence Page, Guy Benson, thanks very much for a great discussion.
Up next, Joe Biden goes off on a CNN reporter and then apologizes. What does that say about his view of journalism? And then Larry Kudlow is on deck.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): President Biden taking a few last shouted questions at his Geneva news conference when he got clearly irritated with CNN's Kaitlan Collins.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Why are you so confident he will change his behavior, Mr. President?
BIDEN: I'm not confident. Where the hell -- what do you do all the time? If you don't understand that, you are in the wrong business.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): President circled back to reporters before getting on Air Force One and said he was sorry.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I owe my last question an apology. I shouldn't have been such a wise guy with the last answer I gave.
COLLINS: That is completely unnecessary from the president. He did not have to apologize, though I do appreciate that he did there in front of the other reporters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now from Dallas, Steve Krakauer, who writes the "Fourth Watch" newsletter on the media. Steve, why did Joe Biden go off on Kaitlan Collins over what seemed like a pretty standard and legitimate question and what do you make of the liberal backlash against her?
STEVE KRAKAUER, FOURTH WATCH EDITOR AND HOST: Exactly. I think that latter point is the real story here and the real disappointment, because I don't really know why -- I mean, Joe Biden is not used to getting even remotely challenging questions from most of the media, so perhaps a very totally fair question from Kaitlan Collins.
Joe Biden had said that he was confident that Vladimir Putin understood that continuing these attacks would lower his standing in the world. It was a completely fair question and frankly, it was a kind of fair answer, I mean a fine answer. We should be seeing kind of arguments between press and power.
The press should be pushing power to the point that they get a little rankled. The problem though is that he goes and says, oh, you're in the wrong business. I mean, that was completely ridiculous. If we want to have this sort of intellectual consistency, okay, now these kinds of exchanges are okay, great.
But we know what would have happened a year ago. If it was Donald Trump in power, it would have been white male misogynistic rage and this wouldn't have been a big story. Instead, as you mentioned, we have people actually attacking Kaitlan Collins.
Soledad O'Brien, who before she was a professional Twitter troll actually was considered a journalist, called it a stupid question, questioned whether Kaitlan Collins was acting in good faith. David Axelrod, who is Kaitlan Collin's colleague at CNN, said it was just a silly mistake and he was -- Joe Biden was just doing what all politicians feel, and this time he actually said everyone should calm down.
KURTZ: Yeah.
KRAKAUER: This was the kind of response we were getting. It was completely absurd.
KURTZ: What makes you feel confident? I mean, it is a perfectly fair question. He didn't have to take it. He was walking away. Now, did Biden redeem himself by making the later apology which CNN seemed to love although CNN didn't kind of shy away from saying, hey, you just threw our reporter under the bus. Once he apologized, CNN talked about it a lot. Presidents don't usually apologize.
KRAKAUER: Right. The framing of the apology became the story among CNN and others in the media. I guess it was good he apologized. As you mentioned, they don't normally apologize. I think what it really show is that Joe Biden is just like any other president, whether it's Trump, Obama, Bush. They don't like to have these kinds of -- to be pushed by the press.
And what we have to understand is that the press needs to be doing that. The problem is when the press then goes after the press for somehow trying to oh, you're putting words in Joe Biden's mouth, I mean, give me a break. Kaitlan Collins asked a very fair question. The press should be galvanizing around her. We should be seeing more of these kinds of exchanges. The press should be asking these tough questions.
KURTZ: Right.
KRAKAUER: I would say the most amazing moment, if you look at this video, Peter Alexander from NBC stands up, gives Kaitlan Collins a look like, are we really still doing journalism here? I thought that was over in January. It was an amazing moment.
KURTZ (on camera): Let me jump in because I want to get to the broader point because while he was delivering tht apology to the pool, the president said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Look, to be a good reporter, you've got to be negative. You've got to have a negative view of life. Seems to me the way you all, you never ask positive question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: So, maybe he has a point, but the president -- the press doesn't always ask negative questions. The press often asks and should ask skeptical questions, challenging questions designed to throw a president or any other politician off the talking points.
KRAKAUER: Yeah. I mean, first of all, the negative view of life, what kind of psychoanalysis -- I'm not going to try to put too much weight on what President Biden is saying off the cuff. We know he speaks with the teleprompter and he's got a list of questioners that he can call on. So, this was an off-the-cuff moment. But no, yes of course they should be asking challenging questions.
And Joe Biden if you're comparing the kinds of questions that, say, a Jim Acosta asking Donald Trump to Kaitlan Collins who's replaced Jim Acosta on the CNN as the new chief White House correspondent, you know, Kaitlan Collins is asking fair questions, Jim Acosta was asking completely absurd, off the wall questions that were, you know, purely there to feed the resistance on Twitter.
So, yes, reporters should ask challenging, fair questions as you say. The idea that a president should feel that kind of questioning --
KURTZ (on camera): Right.
KRAKAUER: -- is negative or inappropriate is completely over the top.
KURTZ: Right. I mean, Biden gets generally favorable coverage. But any president, as you said, can get irk. Donald Trump was much tougher on reporters, going accusing them of racist questions and unfair questions and the like, but he also got much, much worse coverage.
Steve Krakauer, great to see you this Sunday. Thank you.
KRAKAUER: Thanks, Howie.
KURTZ: Ahead, our quickie take on the media culture, the buzz beater. And coming up now, former White House official Larry Kudlow on the press, President Biden, President Putin, President Trump and more.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): Joining us from Connecticut to talk about the media, the Biden/Putin summit and other issues, Larry Kudlow, host of Kudlow on the Fox Business Network, and of course, former chief economic advisor to Donald Trump.
Larry, Donald Trump was famously and constantly combative with the press, what would have been the media reaction if he had told a CNN reporter, you're in the wrong business?
LARRY KUDLOW, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: What do you think? They would have gotten nuts. I mean, they always went nuts. I think, you know, look, my thought here is President Biden who I think had a very bad week in almost every single area, nonetheless if he had saved all that vehemence and fight for Vladimir Putin instead of this girl, Kaitlan Collins, we would have all been much better off. But no, Trump would never have gotten away with that.
KURTZ: Right.
KUDLOW: And Trump could have apologized six times and not one single mainstream media probably would have either reported it.
KURTZ: All right. Well, speaking of the former president who is your former boss, he called into Fox the other night, it was actually the night of the meeting with Putin, and he said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I guess the overall is we didn't get anything. We gave a very big stage to Russia and we got nothing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): So two-part question. Should former President be criticizing his successor on foreign policy five months after the inauguration and when he says we gave Putin something with nothing in return, wasn't that the same criticism of his meetings made of his meetings with Kim Jong-un.
KUDLOW: With Kim Jong-un? Well, that's a different story completely. But look --
KURTZ: OK.
KUDLOW: -- should a former president criticize? OK, maybe in the old days the answer could be no but in the modern era, Obama did it to Trump, Carter did it to Trump, George W. Bush did it to Trump, so all those old rules are out the window.
Look, the substantive point that President Trump is making is exactly right. We got nothing. I mean, in particular, in particular we handed over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline even before Biden got to Russia. Lost all sense of leverage. That pipeline was stopped. They're 100 miles short. I worked on that with others. O'Brien, Mnuchin, many other people in the government to stop the pipeline.
Only Germany wanted it. The rest of Europe, ironically, the G7 club did not want this pipeline and Biden gave it up ahead of time --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Let me jump in.
KUDLOW: -- and that's why he had no leverage.
KURTZ: Let me jump in. Because you said the other day that after a meeting with somebody like Putin, what you would when you in the White House is you would leak the consequences of any adverse action to your favorite reporters and you were kind of puzzled that that wasn't done here.
KUDLOW: Yes.
KURTZ: Was that -- was that one of your ways of carrying out policy?
KUDLOW: Well, here, yes, look, here's the thing. For these kinds of meetings, it's like a billiard table carom shot. OK? The two leaders don't always slam each other right next to each other although I think Biden made a mistake not having a joint press conference. But my point on that, Howie, just to put it into context, I was referring to this remarkable development where Biden released a highly classified document regarding the 16 most sensitive infrastructure sectors.
Now, that is a gift to the hackers in Russia. That is target practice to the hackers in China and target practice to the hackers in Iran and probably North Korea as well. That should never have been put out and incidentally here too he got nothing for it.
And it wasn't a complete list. That's the irony of it. It didn't include space. It didn't include oceans. It didn't include other things. It's like as our own John Roberts reported in Geneva, you have a nice block of homes, you can rob these houses but you can't rob these houses?
KURTZ: Right.
KUDLOW: Huh? I don't get that.
KURTZ: Well, you said --
KUDLOW: And he got nothing for it.
KURTZ: I take your point. I take your point.
KUDLOW: This was a major blunder on Biden's part.
KURTZ: Major blunder. All right. You said on your show --
(CROSSTALK)
KUDLOW: And why hasn't the media covered this, Howie? Where's the media?
KURTZ: Well, I think there has been --
KUDLOW: We're covering it on Kudlow.
KURTZ: I think there has been a lot of coverage on cyber hacking.
KUDLOW: Where's the rest of the media covering this?
KURTZ: All right. You said on your show, 70 percent of the American media probably has the wrong adversary. What does that mean?
KUDLOW: Well, yes, 70 percent of the American media, by the way, is probably not on the U.S. side. Maybe they're on Biden's side. They certainly weren't on Trump's side. Then the point I was making --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: And on the U.S. side you are saying they are on potentially on Russia's side?
KUDLOW: Well, you take a look. Did anybody really criticize Vladimir Putin?
KURTZ: I did.
KUDLOW: Tell me. Where was the criticism of Vladimir Putin? And by the way, where was the criticism of Biden? I mean, this was coverage -- this was like, you know, plain vanilla porridge coverage, everything is OK. I don't know what side they're on. But I'm very skeptical, the mainstream is a left-wing media. You know that. We're not breaking news on that point.
And I'm saying why do you let Biden get away with that stuff, releasing classified material on our key sections? Why do we let Putin get away with it? They didn't even criticize Putin who said, hackers, we don't hack. The hacking is coming from North America and the U.S. and Canada. That's utter nonsense.
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: It's utter nonsense. And I don't think anybody is buying it.
KUDLOW: So here too, the media is completely wrong.
KURTZ: All right.
KUDLOW: The media is completely wrong.
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Let me -- let me get you in on --
KUDLOW: Where's the investigative reporting on this?
KURTZ: Let me get you in on financial policy, President Biden as you know, pushing a $6 billion budget, another $6 billion -- excuse me, $6 trillion budget, $6 trillion in new spending, infrastructure, healthcare, climate change. Why isn't more of the press warning about blowing up the deficit and the debt?
KUDLOW: Well, that's a good question, Howard Kurtz. Actually, you and I would probably agree on that. There should be a lot more investigative reporting there, a lot more critical reporting. I want to say again, going back to this Biden trip and the G7, Biden surrendered to the G7. Right?
He surrendered on tax policy. We're now going to have a global minimum tax and we're going to have a windfall profits tax that will fall predominantly virtually completely on American companies. That's part of the $6 trillion plan. Remember, you're going to have a 3 or $4 trillion tax hike. You want to hear something, Howie, just in a second. A few 20 top --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: It's very, very -- I just got a few seconds.
KUDLOW: All right. Just let me tell you. Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Verizon, Home Depot, Comcast, Facebook, J&J, Intel, Sony, IBM, P&G, Pepsi, Lockheed Martin, those are the companies that will get the minimum tax and the windfall profits tax which Biden has given away --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: All right. Topics were not --
KUDLOW: -- at the G7 in a tax surrender. It's extraordinary.
KURTZ: And by the way -- yes. By the way, I've got to let you go, but the national debt rose nearly $8 trillion during the Trump administration. I'm critical of that kind spending in both parties.
Larry Kudlow, good to see you. Thanks so much for being here. After the break, how the press is covering apologies by a controversial Republican and Democratic leader. And new disclosures about Donald Trump, the Justice Department and the election. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): Now for a tale of two apologies, it took about a month but Marjorie Taylor Greene after comparing Nancy Pelosi's House mask mandate to the Holocaust visited the Holocaust museum and called a news conference.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): The horrors of the Holocaust are something that some people don't even believe happened and some people deny. But there are no comparison to the Holocaust. And there are words that I have said and remarks that I've made that I know are offensive and for that I want to apologize.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Separately, yes, this is not close to being in the same category, Chuck Schumer on a podcast used an offensive word for mentally impaired people.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: When I first was assemblyman, they wanted a bill to congregate a living place for retarded children. The whole neighborhood was against it. These were harmless kids. They just needed some help.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Schumer apologized the next day, but through a spokesman he is sincerely sorry for his use of the outdated and hurtful language.
Joining us now, Mike Emanuel, Fox News chief Washington correspondent. Plenty of liberal detractors are dismissing the Marjorie Taylor Greene apology because it took so long. Of course, she's been criticized like Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell. What do you make of the reaction and her timing?
MIKE EMANUEL, FOX NEWS CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, my sense, Howie, is we have a forgiving country and she went to the Holocaust museum, she went on camera to show you how she felt about it and don't get me wrong, Marjorie Taylor Greene has said a lot of outrageous things. And I'm certainly not here to defend that.
But in this case, she went to the Holocaust museum. She made a heartfelt apology. We'll see if it's sincere as time goes on. But bottom line, we're a forgiving country, and we are a country that believes in second chances. And so, my sense is she did a pretty good job cleaning up this mess. We'll see if she can clean up other messes along the way.
KURTZ: Right. Now Chuck Schumer, again, not the same category he was portraying himself as an advocate for the developmentally disabled but he used that offensive word, retarded. But then he didn't even issue a statement in his own name. So, is the press giving the majority leader a pass on this one but a lot of our viewers don't even know about this?
EMANUEL: Yes. My sense is that the mainstream media likes to have Marjorie Taylor Greene as a punching bag, you know, somebody that they can point to and say she is outrageous and says all these crazy things. Meanwhile, the Senate majority leader says an insensitive thing and his spokesman does a little cleanup and it goes away pretty quickly.
And so, look, I believe in forgiveness. If I mess up, I hope people will give me a second chance and forgive me. But I think it should be a two-way street, whether you have an r next to your name or a d. And I don't know. In this case, it seems like with Schumer he got a pretty easy pass.
KURTZ: Yes, I was just struck that he didn't even issue a statement in his own name. But yes, anybody has spent a lot of time in front of cameras like us are going to mess up occasionally.
EMANUEL: I know.
KURTZ: Look, I want to talk about the media being shocked by the disclosure by the New York Times obtaining a bunch of e-mails that President Trump sent through an assistant to the Justice Department in those final weeks, urging the DOJ to investigate these unproven election allegations that had failed in recent lawsuits, threatening even to replace the acting A.G. Jeffrey Rosen who succeeded Bill Barr in those final weeks when he wouldn't go along. Is this a big story even though those pressure efforts failed?
EMANUEL: Well, my sense is Jeffrey Rosen comes out looking like a rock star with all the political pressure on him in the final weeks of the Trump administration. He held his ground. I don't think a lot of folks are surprised that President Trump wanted to do everything possible to try to hold onto his job as president of the United States. He felt like he should be entitled to another term in office.
My sense is, it is a big story to a certain degree, a lot of our colleagues in the mainstream media love having President Trump's name out there. It's good for business. But I think a big aspect of whether it's going to be a huge story or not is whether he decides to run again in 2024, it may come up again at that point. If he stays in retirement then it should fade over time.
KURTZ: Yes. Rosen said in an e-mail that he wouldn't even look into a conspiracy theory into a company in Italy that was supposed to use satellite technology to tamper with the U.S. voting machines. But whether he runs again in 2024 or not I think Donald Trump is still the leader of the Republican Party and that arguably makes some of this old stuff relevant today. Quick response.
EMANUEL: Yes, absolutely. And I think Republicans are going to get asked about this kind of findings whenever they come up and asked whether they defend the president or whether they're going to condemn some of these actions that he may have taken in the final days in office. And so, it puts the GOP in an awkward spot, whether he wants to come back as speaker of the House, as president again --
KURTZ: Yes.
EMANUEL: -- or whether he decides to a stay in Mar-a-Lago.
KURTZ: Mike Emanuel, on duty for us. Thanks, Mike.
EMANUEL: You got it.
KURTZ: Still to come, Chrissy Teigen, Pink Floyd. Lin-Manuel Miranda, an embarrassing New York Times correction. That and more in our brand-new Buzz Meter.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): Trying out a new feature, let's see if I can beat the buzzer. Go.
It seems to be the season for apologies. Chrissy Teigen, a celebrity cyberbully who once told a teenage singer to kill herself is suddenly sorry. Not a day, not a single moment has passed where I haven't felt the crushing weight of regret for the things I've said in the past. As you know, a bunch of old awful, awful, awful tweets resurfaced. I'm truly ashamed of that.
Not buying it. Piers Morgan calling her duplicitous woke celebrity. It turns out she insulted Piers years ago as a piece of blank.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, the brilliant creator of Hamilton is also sorry about his film "In the Heights." Critics claiming, he used too light skin minorities. Miranda says I hear that without sufficient dark-skinned Afro- Latino representation, the work feels extractive of the community we wanted so much to represent with pride and joy, we fell short.
Well, OK. But, did the guy who reimagined the founding fathers as black really have to apologize for the casting?
Here's some breaking Pink Floyd news, Roger Waters, co-founder of the old Pink Floyd rock group just stuck it to Facebook, dropping a bunch of f bombs, he said Mark Zuckerberg personally offered him a huge amount of money to use one of their song in an Instagram ad. Water said he turned down the little back where he says he's trying to take over everything by saying the answer is f-you. No f-ing way. I will not be a part of this B.S., Zuckerberg. I guess the 77-year-old bass player has some blank your money.
Yasher Ali is a Twitter based journalist. So connected that CNN president Jeff Zucker praise him in a Los Angeles magazine profile. But the story also reveals that the say ex-operative befriended wealthy women and then had these messy breakups. He moved in with Kathy Griffin and months later was ordered to leave. He borrowed $179,000 from heiress Adriadne Getty and she says he didn't repay most of it.
Ali moved into a home owned by Democratic donor Susie Tompkins Buell, took a commission for auctioning off some of her art and that ended in a financial dispute. Ali tells the magazine he's in therapy and working on his dysfunctional behavior.
I got to clean this one up a little bit, a sex scene was cut from HBO Max's Harley Quinn's show based on Batman. The cocreators tell Variety they showed the animated caped crusader giving pleasure to cat woman. They said the boss at D.C. comics told then you absolutely cannot do that. Heroes don't do that. Bad for the image, I guess. Cat woman could not be reached for comment.
And the New York Times was denounced the Babylon Bee as far-right misinformation site has gotten stung its pure obvious forehead slapping satire. After getting a legal letter, the Times ran a correction meaning it's a right-leaning satirical web site. Here's Babylon Lee CEO, Seth Dillon.
SETH DILLON, CEO, BABYLON BEE: It's extremely ironic that they're using misinformation to smear us as being a source of it. It's comically ironic. But beyond that, it's malicious because they know better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Maybe some at the Times these are sense of humor. I mean, the Babylon Bee runs headlines like, study find links between happiness not knowing who Chrissy Teigen.
Hey, I made it. Thanks to you for this edition of MEDIABUZZ. Thanks for watching. I'm Howard Kurtz. Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there. We also hope you like our Facebook page and come at me on Twitter and check out my podcast, Media Buzz Meter. You can get that on Apple iTunes, Google podcast or on your Amazon device. My time is a little bit out of (Inaudible). It's a fast-paced segment. We'll see you back here next Sunday, 11 a.m. Eastern with the latest buzz.
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