'MediaBuzz' on Kamala Harris' border moment, Trump saying media miss him

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Kamala Harris' border moment

Should press dismiss it as photo op?

This is a rush transcript from "MediaBuzz," June 27, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS HOST (on camera): Fox News alert, state and local officials in surfside, Florida are about to provide an update on that horrible building collapse that has killed at least five people. We'll bring that to you as soon as it happens.

The Washington Post has put out a video that utterly denigrates white people for the sin of being white, doesn't matter who you are, what you've done or what you believe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: There's a period of deep shame for being white and for acknowledging the harm that our ancestors have caused.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Deep shame. My ancestors were immigrants who didn't exactly own slaves, but who in America doesn't recognize the awful legacy of slavery? So, what should white folks do?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: White accountability groups are really helpful in terms of having a place to process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): That sounds a bit like re-education camps, but the indictment in this series called the new normal is even broader than that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: The biggest answer is white people don't really understand racism.

(LAUGHTER)

UNKNOWN: And so if I'm relying on other white people to teach me about racism, that can only go so far.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): I'm sure some don't understand racism. But these are sweeping and ludicrous generalization. I've reported on and commented on racism, on civil rights, on police mistreatment of Blacks my whole career. There is no recognition in this insulting video that different people have different views and different track records.

Now, many of us have worked on being more sensitive, especially after the George Floyd murder, but it's blatantly offensive to argue that all white people simply because of the color of their skin should be ashamed. In fact, it smacks of reverse racism.

I'm Howard Kurtz and this is MEDIA BUZZ.

Ahead, Mike Huckabee joins us on the coverage of crime, the border, and other issues. And Bill Maher drawing praise from some conservatives for calling out the craziness of woke culture.

Vice President Kamala Harris visited the Texas border on Friday, ending three months of media questions about when if ever she would go there, and the media coverage afterward ranged from negative to non-existent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: How did you decide that right now was the right time to make your first trip to the border?

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's not my first trip. I've been to border many times.

DOOCY: -- as the first in charge of the response.

HARRIS: I said back in March I was going to come to the border, so this is not a new plan.

UNKNOWN: After months of public shaming, Biden's borders are Kamala Harris finally found the time to make a visit. Needless to say, she wasn't happy to be there.

JONAH GOLDBERG, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: She goes to the border and does a photo op that basically says she should have gone to the border all along and at the same time takes ownership of the issue of the border which she was trying to avoid.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now to analyze the coverage, Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist and a Fox News contributor. In New York, Liz Claman, host of "The Claman Countdown," weekdays at 3:00 Eastern on Fox Business Network.

Mollie, the media criticized Kamala Harris for not going to the border after Joe Biden made her the point person. I think that was fair. Now, she goes to the border and she is criticized for a photo op. Seems like a no win proposition.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, SENIOR EDITOR AT THE FEDERALIST, SENIOR JOURNALISM FELLOW AT HILLSDALE COLLEGE: It does seem a little bit like that. But the idea about going to the border, which is something that a lot of politicians do, isn't just to make a visit to the border but to show how policies are affected by understanding the situation at the border.

And so her going not to a place where they're actually dealing with the particular crisis of having open borders, but to El Paso, several hundred miles away from where the crisis is happening, wasn't quite what people were wanting.

But more than that, I think they want to know that she understands what happens when drugs flow over the border, when there are these thousands of unaccompanied minors, you know, there are thousands of unaccompanied minors held at Fort Bliss in Texas where they are at deplorable conditions, lice outbreaks, COVID-19 outbreaks, flu outbreaks, the food is inedible.

Visiting some place like that and then actually having a policy change in response to it is probably what people are focusing on and it is what the media should focus on, not just -- I mean, it is perfectly fine and good to make a visit, but the visit should be having some accomplishment associated with it.

KURTZ: And on that point, Liz, I mean, no one in the press could expect that a single visit to the border, whatever part of the Mexican border that she went to, would solve all the complicated problems there. So do we all get too wrapped up in the optics?

LIZ CLAMAN, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK ANCHOR: Well, that's what we do, minute by minute with the press and the media. But, you know, Howie, I think that you're right, she was damned if she did, damned if she didn't. The Republicans have bitterly and rightly so criticized her for not having gone down there some 92 days after the Biden administration had said, you're in charge of this now to figure out the root causes.

Then she goes down there and she is bitterly criticized. However, there is a leg to stand on with that criticism, specifically what Mollie pointed out. You know, she goes to El Paso. She goes to a border facility. She does not go down to the RGV, the Rio Grande Valley, which is the border. She was two miles at the -- the El Paso airport is two miles from Fort Bliss. Every media outlet covered the fact that she didn't go to Fort Bliss, which of course has the tent area with 1,500 migrant children.

This is from somebody who really has an opportunity here. She has a biography of coming from a south Asian immigrant family and that's great. I mean, you would see some real, you know, emotion there and some opportunity to come out fighting. She hasn't quite been able to catch that.

And you had CNN criticizing her for that. You have them interviewing Henry Cuellar, the Democrat whose district encompasses some 300 miles of the Rio Grande Valley, and then, you know, you had even NPR criticized her.

I think the headline was "VP Harris Visits the Southern Border After Trying to Keep the Focus Away From It." And they even showed -- this is NPR -- very, very much to the left on many cases. They showed Mark Meadows's tweet, which criticized her timing of it --

KURTZ: Yeah.

CLAMAN: -- because, of course, her announcement --

KURTZ: Let me --

CLAMAN: comes right after Donald Trump announced that he was going to go.

KURTZ: Let me ask both of you for short answers here because we are awaiting the presser on the Florida building collapse. You kind of anticipated the question, Mollie. The timing, could it possibly be that the vice president of the United States decided to do this because Donald Trump had previously announced that he's going to the border with the Texas governor next week?

HEMINGWAY: I mean, it's obviously related to that. You have the former president going down, all these Republican congressmen, all these Democratic congressmen, people just asking. But again, it's not about visiting the border. It's about the Biden administration's policies that are leading to this influx of people and drugs and other things without having a plan for how to handle it.

And so that's what people should stay focused on, is how the policies, how the executive orders are affecting the national situation and photo opportunities can provide a way to talk about it, but they need to be laser-focused on understanding how we got into this situation and also how we can get out of it.

I'll just point out that during the Trump administration, the media were unbelievably hostile on similar issues and they're just not being consistent on that in this administration.

KURTZ: CNN and MSNBC did not cover the Harris border trip in prime time that night at all, which is why we didn't show you any clips earlier. So, is this really -- you know, there was so much, this is such as important issue and we've got to cover it, we've got to cover it. Is the press really more interested in the will she, won't she, will this hurt her politically part of the story?

CLAMAN: Yeah. I cannot explain that. I mean, this was a huge story. And yes, photo op? OK. But let us remember -- I mean, July of 2015, I specifically remember this because it was something that we took live in my show on Fox Business because it was happening right then.

Then candidate Donald Trump went to Laredo, Texas and he had two busloads of reporters, some 75 of them covering it. I mean, yeah, that's a photo op. He goes down there. He was wearing his white golf shoes, if you remember, and his khaki pants.

So I think both sides are looking for that opportunity. But we have to look deeper at this and there is a legislative urgency for Congress to do something. She can only do so much. But when she's put in charge of it, the optics should be I'm in charge of this and I'm going to --

KURTZ: All right.

CLAMAN: -- the epicenter, which is Fort Bliss and the migrant children.

KURTZ: Speaking of Congress, the press was absolutely hailing President Biden for coming out of the White House with senators of both parties announcing a bipartisan compromise on an infrastructure deal. And then, Mollie, in response to a reporter's question, the president kind of blew it up by saying, I'll only sign this bill if there's another bill, more expensive bill, that would be passed with democratic votes only.

And so you get to the point where yesterday, the president had put out a statement saying, it was not my intent, kind of backing off. The Washington Post says today the episode could be an embarrassment for Biden. I'm surprised there hasn't been more criticism of Biden's misstep here.

HEMINGWAY: Yes. It is not uncommon for presidents to say something and then need to clean it up. This was really weird, really disastrous. The entire narrative of the Biden presidency has supposedly been that he's a great unifier and moderate and that he's going to bring the country together. He has failed horribly on that.

And then he finally gets a win in this in the sense that on an infrastructure bill, which should be easy to find moderation and people from both parties to work together, he finally is able to get that, announces it. And then within minutes, he blows it up by saying that he won't accept that unless that his far-left spending package also is accepted at the same time. Then he has to go back and say that that didn't happen.

This is a mess. But more than anything, I think the media need to not be -- not be doing the PR for the Biden administration and claiming that he's a unifier and moderate. Just reporting what happens. On these issues, they've actually been advocates and lobbyists. They've been pushing Republicans and pushing Democrats to get -- they've been pushing Democrats to get rid of the filibuster. They've been pushing for far-left spending packages.

That's not the proper role of the journalist. Just reporting what happens and not being unregistered lobbyist for their far-left agenda is what the country needs.

KURTZ (on camera): Liz, let me play for you an exchange with a reporter at the news conference when Biden was sort of taking a victory lap on the deal that now I would say at least is in serious jeopardy. He objected to the question. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: Mr. President, what assurances do you have at this point that you have sufficient democratic support both in the Senate and the House to move both on this bipartisan deal and on the reconciliation package?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: You always ask me those things. Nobody knows for certain. It's your job, but you know it's not a reasonable question.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Why is it not a reasonable question to ask whether you have the votes for the deal?

CLAMAN: It's absolutely a reasonable question. Look, yes, he lunges in front of the camera. He goes out there with the bipartisan group --

KURTZ: I got to cut you off. I'm sorry.

CLAMAN: Sure. Go ahead. Of course.

KURTZ (on camera): We are going to Florida for this building collapse. We'll come back to you later.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): I want to welcome the FEMA administrator and thank Administrator Criswell for her attention to this tragedy and the support that FEMA has provided. We've already -- FEMA has already personally registered a number of families for individual assistance. And, obviously, as this unfolds, there potentially be more who will qualify. So we want to thank them for their willingness to do that.

Also, I want to thank all the folks that have been out there. If you look at that rubble now, you see folks on top, you see major machinery, and they're working around the clock like they have been from the wee hours of the morning. And so I want to thank all the search and rescue teams for their tireless efforts. They stepped up to the plate and they have not stopped during this whole time.

We'll be discussing with the county about whether, you know, we need additional personnel to backfill them. We have not yet to this point. We did get a small team from Israel to come. A lot of the families who have unaccounted for loved ones wanted that. That was something that obviously we welcomed. So they've been on site as well.

And, again, they're looking for if there are voids where they can potentially rescue somebody. That's kind of the name of the game. Obviously, you're going to start to see a lot of major debris that is going to be moved out of there.

There's a site that's located -- the debris that gets out does have forensic value and so that is going to be parts (ph) once it's taken. There's a big warehouse that's been identified. The state is assisting with some of the machinery and some of the dump trucks to be able to move that out as appropriate.

Thanks to the community for stepping up. We have huge amounts of money that have been pledged or that had been donated. There's going to be folks that are displaced. There are folks that lives have been shattered as a result of this. And so to see people coming together to support their fellow Floridians and actually some are not even Floridians but they're still part of the family down here, we really appreciate it.

We also appreciate the collaboration with the federal government and then as well working with our great first responders locally. Florida DEM stands by to meet any unmet needs. We don't have any right now, but if some arise, we'll be there for them and we'll be there for the folks down here in Miami-Dade County.

So, it's a pleasure for me to be able to welcome FEMA administrator, appreciate her responsiveness and authorizing the individual assistance for those who have been affected. So, administrator.

DEANNE CRISWELL, ADMINISTRATOR, FEMA: Thank you, governor. On behalf of the president, our hearts go out to all of the families and the loved ones who have been affected by this really tragic incident. And we join countless others across the nation and really across the world who are keeping everybody in our thoughts as we continue to wait for additional information.

I would also like to recognize the amazing work that's been going on by the first responders, the urban search and rescue teams. They've been working tirelessly 24 hours a day since this happened and it's a true testament to the amount of resources and the level of skill that's located right here in the community.

And I think it's also really important to recognize how the community has really come together. The numbers of volunteers that have shown up, the number of non-profit organizations, community members have really all come together to help this community in a time of great need.

And FEMA is here to assist with that. We are here to assist with any resources that might be needed as this response continues and we move into recovery efforts. We do have urban search and rescue teams that are available to come in and assist as the need is determined. We've also brought in the Army Corps of Engineers to he provide some additional technical assistance.

We are committed to working with the commander, with the mayor and the governor and the state team to bring in any additional resources that might be needed throughout this event.

We have also, as the governor mentioned, began registering families who need assistance and we are going to be working with them directly, face-to- face, as they learn how to apply for assistance and navigate the federal system. We are going to make sure that we give them the assistance that they need.

The governor and mayor helping serve this community is our top priority. I want you to know that we are here to support with whatever the federal government can bring to assist as long as we need to. Thank you.

UNKNOWN: Thank you so much, governor, and thank you, administrator. And now the Miami-Dade County mayor, Daniella Levine Cava.

MAYOR DANIELLA LEVINE CAVA, MIAMI-DADE, FLORIDA: Good morning, everyone. Here we are, day four. We have the governor. We have the FEMA administrator. We are so grateful for their presence and for the incredible teams that they brought to bear here in this community. And as you know, we've been working around the clock.

Since the wee hours of the morning, Thursday, we've been here, 24 hours a day. Our teams have done an amazing job. And yesterday, we suppressed the fire that had been going out of control and the smoke that was inhibiting activities in certain parts of the pile. So, around noon yesterday, that was brought under control, making it possible for the search to continue in those areas as well.

So throughout the rest of the day and through the night and until now, we are working. We have six to eight squads that are on the pile, actively searching at any given time. Hundreds of team members are on standby to rotate as we need a fresh start. So we are not lacking any personnel but we have the best. We have the right people and the right number and we are getting it done.

As we continue to sweep these piles with our K-9s, with our cameras, with our sonar, we are standing with our engineers as well, making sure that our first responders are safe. We need to be sure that the pile does not fall on them, that it does not fall on any possible survivors. We are diligently pursuing that as we do our work.

So we're cutting a deep trench to assist us. It's now 125 feet in length into the pile. It is 20 feet wide and 40 feet deep. Now, this trench is very critical to the continuation of the search and rescue process. We continued all night to build that trench. And as a result of that, we were able to recover four additional bodies in the rubble as well as additional human remains.

As of today, one victim passed away in the hospital and we recovered eight more victims on-site. So I am confirming today that the death toll is at nine. We've identified four of the victims and notified the next of kin. My deepest condolences to the families, the friends, the communities of those who have lost their lives and my prayers with the families and the whole community as they mourn this tragic loss.

We are making every effort to identify those others who have been recovered and additionally contacting their family members as soon as we are able. So we're going to continue to work closely with our partners, the state and FEMA. We have all the resources that we need to do this work and we have the assistance that these families need.

We are meeting constantly with the family members, giving them the updates first so they don't hear it on the news, so that they can talk with us, ask questions, and mourn with us as they hear bad news and continue searching for survivors with us. They're receiving multiple briefings every single day.

Volunteer Florida is coming. Thank you so much to the Florida Department of Emergency Management for deploying them. They will assist us in coordinating the many, many donations, the outpouring of support from the community. These donations are incredible and we do need help to coordinate that.

So I want to continue to share how grateful we all are right here in Surfside, in Miami-Dade County in Florida for the entire world reaching out, caring about what happens to us here. We feel your love. We hear your prayers. These mean so much to us and to the families as we continue our efforts. So god bless our families, god bless our first responders, and to all those that we've lost, thank you, thank you, you're in our prayers.

(SPEAKING IN SPANISH)

(END VIDEO TAPE)

KURTZ (on camera): You are watching a news conference in Surfside, Florida for the awful collapse of that building. We're listening to the Spanish portion of the program right now.

FEMA officials are saying they're doing everything they can. They have dug a trench. Obviously, there's a lot of talk from Governor Ron DeSantis about the great sense of community, a lot of people volunteering to try to help. A lot of people have been trapped in the building and are unaccounted for.

The real news here that they haven't addressed and maybe will come up in question is the finding, the disclosure, that back in 2018, an engineer found structural deficiencies in the building and then repairs are supposed to take place. Three years later, a lot of people unfortunately may be found to have lost their lives because of government slowness on that. They haven't brought that up. I think it is part of the big news here.

This is a story -- you know, every time there is a mine collapse, some sort of environmental disaster or structural collapse like that or a bridge that collapses, we often find out that somebody in government warned about it and yet officials all too often are slow to respond.

I think the attention of the nation is quite focused on that Miami suburb right now. You know, it's hard to imagine anything worse. You live in a building, you have an apartment there, and you feel like you're safe. You're at least safe from this kind of damage.

Let's bring back Liz Claman to talk about this. Again, we're in the Spanish language portion of the program. Liz, this is an amazing story, a heart- breaking story, and it's understandable that state and local officials are trying to look for some silver linings in terms of the relief effort here, Liz.

CLAMAN: Well, very few. Obviously, the relief effort is huge. I do just want to point out and it's not exactly, Howie, apples to apples comparison because Surfside is a privately held building. But infrastructure of any kind in this country is crumbling and we have to keep an eye on it.

We were just talking about the infrastructure bill, the deal that's bipartisan there, but for the grace of our bridges, go we and you have to be on this type of situation. As you look at the video, you can see that there is really diminishing hope.

There's always hope there. But we now have FEMA which has been sent by the government and President Biden is all-in. He spoke to Ron DeSantis, the governor, and this is how the United States of America is supposed to react, a first world nation, in a tragedy and a disaster such as this.

KURTZ: All right. Let's go pick up with the news conference again.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

MAYOR CHARLES BURKETT, SURFSIDE, FLORIDA: -- the residents out of the rubble. We are supporting the families. That's our only objective right now. And to that end, we all were up at the family meeting this morning. There was a little reassurance for the families which was wonderful. It was nice to come out of there. The mayor has engineered teams to come from out of the country -- into our country from Israel and from Mexico, and they have now been embedded with our teams, our world class teams.

I want to add that one of the questions from the residents was pretty poignant. They wanted to know if the Israeli team thought that the Miami- Dade team had been doing the right thing. The gentleman, commander from the Israeli team, did not hesitate, turned around and said they've been doing exactly the right thing, which was a beautiful validation of the state of the art sort of the techniques and the integrity and the energy and the enthusiasm and the dedication that we have with our team members here.

I want to add right now that there's been some discussion about the sister building, which is basically the identical building in almost every way to the one that collapsed, built by the same contractor, around the same time, with the same essential plans and probably with the same materials.

And given that we were not able -- I was not able to answer questions that were coming in from residents about the safety of that particular building, given this other one had collapsed out of the blue, I had reached out to Mayor Cava and Senator Rick Scott and asked them if they thought it was a good idea if we gave people the choice to potentially relocate, and the support.

After that, meeting with Governor DeSantis and his team, we determined that there was going to be support available. So we have gone ahead and advised the condominium association that should they feel uncomfortable staying in that building, given the circumstances, that we have alternatives for them. I'm sure everybody is going to take advantage of that. But that is the state of affairs right now with respect to that. So anyway, that's the update. Thank you very much.

UNKNOWN: Thank you, mayor. And now the lieutenant governor, Jeanette Nunez.

JEANETTE NUNEZ, LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA: (SPEAKING IN SPANISH).

(END VIDEO TAPE)

KURTZ (voice-over): All right. We are back with Liz Claman as we monitor this news conference. Once again, we're in the -- obviously, South Florida is heavily Spanish-speaking area of the United States.

Liz, you know, I mean, I think that Governor DeSantis and FEMA and the state and local officials are doing everything they can and there is the question of, you know, people who live in that building who survived and where are they going to live and there's a sister building. I've not been aware of that. The official death toll is now up to nine.

Once again, I think that they ought to address the fact that government, whether it was state government, whether it was local government, county, town, fell down on the job because there had been official warnings from engineers that this building could be in trouble.

CLAMAN: Well, that's what you need to look into and that may come after the immediate drama of what's going on right there at Surfside.

KURTZ: Right.

CLAMAN: Again, Howie, indeed, somebody really dropped this ball and that will forever be on their shoulders.

KURTZ: All right. Well put. Let's -- we'll take a break now -- not taking a break from being on with you, but we're going to come back into the studio here. And -- okay. I guess we're -- I'm just getting conflicting messages here.

Thank you very much, Mollie Hemingway and Liz Claman. I'm sorry, the segment got cut short but it is breaking news and that is what we do here.

Joining us now from Arkansas to talk about the media's handling of a number of issues is Mike Huckabee, the former governor there and presidential candidate. Let us move on to some other things. We started the show, governor, by talking about Kamala Harris and her trip to the border for the first time in three months. She actually visited the border.

And the conservative media, especially seems to me, were very hard on her for not making this trip. Then she goes, and she's being criticized for the trip, it's just a photo op, she went to the wrong part of Texas and so forth. Your thoughts?

MIKE HUCKABEE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look, I'm glad she finally went. I think it was about time. Ninety-three days is a long time to be in charge of something and never see it first-hand. I think it's important that we acknowledge that she went, but it's also important to recognize that she did not go nor take reporters where the real crisis is, and that's in the Rio Grande Valley.

She went to El Paso, which is a very tightly controlled border, very unlike the Rio Grande, not at all the kind of things that are going on. And then she went and had the host congresswoman call it Ellis Island (ph) as if she's utterly ignorant of the real Ellis Island (ph) where people were turned away, where people were quarantined for health issues and where it wasn't just a pass-through and people didn't just rush into New York or New Jersey from Ellis Island (ph).

So it was a complete, I guess, mixed metaphor, if you will, to call that Ellis Island (ph).

KURTZ: All right.

HUCKABEE: But I give her credit for going and I think we should.

KURTZ: I'm glad to hear you say that because, you know, as a governor, you've been in such -- dealt with such problems. I have a series of issues I want to get through with you. So let me go to the coverage of the Democrats' voting rights bill, which went nowhere in the face of a threatened republican filibuster. You know, the whole coverage has been democracy is hanging in the balance.

But the very next day, the New York Times described this bill, the big sweeping Senate one bill, as a flawed bill that has little chance of passing, that a was a political statement or a wish list, and was never designed to appeal to moderate Democrats, and my question is now they tell us this?

MIKE HUCKABEE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I think the big surprise here is that that came from the New York Times. That they actually printed something that's true. I'm a cynic when it comes to the New York Times.

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: So, I gathered.

HUCKABEE: I'm sure you know. But that is exactly right. The biggest issue with this bill is that it is blatantly on its face unconstitutional because it gives the federal government power that the Constitution never gave the federal government. Elections are run by states. And so, as a former governor, I'm a little sensitive to the fact that you have one more attempt by Congress to overreach and to do something that constitutionally it simply cannot do.

It is a lawsuit waiting to happen if it were to be passed and a I think it would probably fail nine to zero in the Supreme Court.

KURTZ: All right. Let me play for you as I'm sure you know Donald Trump held a rally last night in Ohio. He said a lot of things, criticized the media. He also said this. Let me play it for ours -- our audience.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They used COVID in order to cheat. They used COVID in order to rig the election and in order to steal the election.

(CROWD CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Governor, is it helpful to your party Donald Trump so frequently and now with this big audience talks about stealing the election and the rigged election when a lot of people in the GOP are trying to focus on the midterms next year and related part, this is a long question, new book is out from ABC's Jonathan Karl in which Bill Barr actually spoke to Karl is quoted as saying "the election fraud allegations that he looked into as A.G. were all B.S., and Trump asked him about that and he said I said that because it's true and Trump said you must hate Trump," again according to this book.

So, your thoughts on this remaining a big media issue and political issue thanks to Donald Trump.

HUCKABEE: We need to turn our attention to the future, not the past. There's nothing we can do to undo the election results of 2020. It's over and it was over frankly when the state certified it. So, this idea that it was going to be changed in January was never going to happen because it legally couldn't happen.

I think there's a reason that the rearview mirror in our car is a tiny piece of glass compared to the windshield. And that's the proportion that we ought to look at life. Glance back occasionally, see where we've been but keep your eyes in front of you on the windshield. That's the big piece of glass and that's a reason for that. That's where you're going at a high speed and you need be prepared for what's coming.

Republicans need to focus on how to fix election problems. The one thing I would say is that when people said there was no evidence of election tampering, the truth is we don't know what evidence there was because we never got to see it. The Democrats should themselves have been begging for audits and thorough transparency but they did everything to keep it from happening.

So, my honest answer when people say do you think election was rigged, I don't know. We never saw the details.

KURTZ: All right.

HUCKABEE: But let's focus on the future. That's what we do need to do as Republicans.

KURTZ: OK. You know, the media is finally starting to pay attention to this huge surge in crime and homicides, all the numbers in particularly major cities are way up. My question is, when were you a governor, did you expect -- because President Biden gave a speech mostly about guns. Did you expect Washington to help you solve the murder rate or reduce the burglary rate in Little Rock?

HUCKABEE: Absolutely not. In fact, I wanted them to keep their hands off of everything that we were doing in our state. And I remember Bill Clinton's 100,000 cops on the street program. Sounds good. Great political rhetoric. But here's how that works. The federal government funds something for three to four years and then the states are stuck with paying for it from then on and if you don't pay for it, then you don't care about crime. If you do pay for it, you busted your budget and can't meet the needs of Medicaid and sick people and education.

So no, I don't think that's a federal function. It isn't constitutionally. I'm a huge tenth amendment guy.

KURTZ: All right.

HUCKABEE: I just believe the Constitution is as it's written and they need to keep your hands off it.

KURTZ: That's why I like talking to somebody that's been on the front lines and actually governed. Mike Huckabee, always great to see you. Thank you so much.

HUCKABEE: Thank you, Howie.

KURTZ: And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): Bill Maher is a doggedly liberal comedian which helps explain why the HBO host is drawing so much attention for taking on his own side, saying that woke culture is ignoring all the progress in America and pretty much out of control.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL MAHER, COMEDIAN: If you think America is more racist now than ever, more sexist than before women could vote and more homophobic, you have 'progressophobia' and should adjust your mask because it's covering your eyes. The chant from gay protesters used to be we're here, we're queer, get used to it. Well, we did. This is pride month. It's not even a big deal anymore. In 1958, only 4 percent of Americans approved on interracial marriage. Now, Gallup didn't even bother asking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now from New York, Kat Timpf of the Gutfeld show and a host of Fox Nation. And Kat, what's your take on Bill Maher who has been a big-time Democratic donor, scolding some of his fellow liberals for excessive wokeness?

KAT TIMPF, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think he's completely and absolutely right and I have seen some pushback to what he said. I saw a piece in USA Today by Kirsten Powers saying actually no, there isn't enough apologizing and there's a difference between accountability and cancellation and in theory that could be true. But in practice, almost always what we see is the accountability that the mob demand is cancellation.

And then so more and more people pile on and pile on because if you don't pile on, then people will turn on you and say you're a racist, sexist, homophobic, et cetera.

KURTZ: How dare you not pile on.

TIMPF: Right.

KURTZ: You know, it's always more interesting to me when a comic or a columnist or a commentator at least occasionally tries to take on those who would be the ideological allies. And Maher is right, we keep hearing from some of the voices on the left that things are horrible in this country and never been worse and compared to the era of segregated schools, of no gay marriage, of people who are going to the jail for growing pot. The country is a lot more progressive but maybe you're not allowed to say that for some reason.

TIMPF: Yes, I really don't understand why. Because factually it makes to sense. We have people repeatedly say it's worse than ever. You know, Kevin Hart even saying white, you know, supremacy is at all-time high right now in the country. That is quite obviously not true. And that doesn't mean that everything is perfect. That doesn't mean that you can't still want things to change or talk about things changing.

But again, progressive used to mean progress and allowing for progress. And it's the enemy of it in many cases, not just because it won't recognize the progress we've made already but because, you know, of the -- with how many times do we seen someone have a tweet from 10 years ago and obviously they're a new person maybe they were teenager back then.

KURTZ: Yes.

TIMPF: And they have changed but they're not allowed to have that progress or cancelled anyway.

KURTZ: You know -- you know, when I was growing up, there were no black news anchors on TV and no leading black actors in entertainment shows and so forth. I've interviewed Bill Maher, he's kind of an iconic class, do you think he -- part of his motivation here is -- I mean, obviously, he's entertaining, he makes it funny and gets ratings but he feels like a lot of his wokeness is hurting his side, making the liberal movement looks bad.

TIMPF: I think that it absolutely, because I think it is certainly hurting his side because, look, all of us are human. Right. And by definition, that means we're not perfect. So everyone has at some point said something that maybe wasn't the nicest thing or maybe was offensive and if we really start to need to hold people to the standard of perfection, absolutely nobody is going to be able to meet that standard so that's a really tough standard for the party to be setting for people in general.

KURTZ: Right. Yes. Perfection is a hard standard for any of us --

TIMPF: Yes.

KURTZ: -- to meet especially those who talk a lot on TV and eventually going to say something dumb.

TIMPF: Right.

KURTZ: Now on a related subject, liberal writer Frank Bruni is giving up his New York Times column after 10 years. And he wrote this farewell column apologizing to Ted Cruz among others for cheap shots. He said he became part of the snide tide that Bruni himself had been. He questioned whether he was one of the journalists who was contributing to the toxic tone of American politics.

He still trashed Donald Trump, but he said maybe he was -- his tone was not good. And my -- those are all good points. And I credit him for that. But my question is why wait until you're no longer on the op-ed page to come to that realization?

TIMPF: Right. I thought the same thing. I read it and I thought he made so many good points about how there are so many issues that deserve to be treated with nuance but, you know, it's the hottest of the hot takes that get all the attention and the clicks and --

KURTZ: Yes.

TIMPF: -- and everybody wants a little clip and those are the hot takes that are going to get the most attention.

KURTZ: Yes.

TIMPF: So, nobody bothers with nuance anymore and I agree, we need that. We need to look outside of the, you know, two party binary and think independently --

KURTZ: Yes.

TIMPF: -- and treat complicated issues a nuance.

KURTZ: All right.

TIMPF: But then of course he said that then he quits. So.

KURTZ: Yes. You and I should form the pro- nuance party. We'll see how far it gets.

TIMPF: Yes. Kat Timpf, good to see you. Thanks so much for coming by this Sunday.

Up next, what Donald Trump said at last night's rally and a report on his planned retaliation against Saturday Night Live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): Jimmy Kimmel had a couple of things to say after the Daily Beast report that President Trump back in 2019 asked aides if the FCC or the Justice Department could take action against him and Saturday Night Live for constantly mocking him. Some aides reported to have said they viewed Trump's efforts not as a constitutional crisis but as a nuisance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMEL, COMEDIAN: To me, it feels more like a crisis than a nuisance. I don't know. Little that I know I'm up here Googling on him and he's asking the feds to do who the hell knows what. I've been like Alec Baldwin is the one you want, he dressed up as you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now is Griff Jenkins, the Fox News host and correspondent. The funny stuff. Bu Griff, Trump said the Daily Beast story is totally fake news, it was fabricated but then he says the 100 percent one-sided shows should be considered an illegal campaign contribution from the Democrat Party. So, it sounds like he does believe in government regulation of comedy shows or what he calls one-sided shows.

GRIFF JENKINS, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, Howie, I think we have to wonder if Darrell Hammond or Dana Carvey are jealous their presidential characters didn't get the rise out of their counterparts as Alec Baldwin did.

KURTZ: Right.

JENKINS: Hut, look, his denial clearly points out that he wasn't necessarily instructing anybody to do anything, but it does confirm that he wants to hit them as hard as he can and had different agencies from the FCC to the DOJ --

KURTZ: Right.

JENKINS: -- to take a look at it. It sounds like from the reports that pretty much the staff said sure, boss, we'll look, not much came of it.

KURTZ: Right. And if you are going to crack down on one-sided shows it had to shows on the right as well as the left. I mentioned earlier, Griff, this just broke in the last hour or so, the Atlantic has an excerpt from Jonathan Karl's new book, the ABC anchor, he spoke to Bill Barr, the former attorney general, who said the allegations of election fraud were all B.S. Trump confronted him about it, was not happy about it.

What do you make of Barr going on the record, so to speak, through this and is this damage control for the former A.G.?

JENKINS: Well the former A.G. and the former president had a falling out at the very end, many will remember and this comment, this excerpt is likely going to draw pushback from Trump because 2020 election fraud is of course his signature issue. We just heard all about it for an hour and-a- half last night.

But look, this is far from the last dopamine hit we are going to get from Trump revelations because we have a beat turning bonanza coming from more than a dozen journalists writing new books about Trump to include not only Jonathan Karl but also Maggie Haberman from the New York Times, Michael Bender from the Wall Street Journal and our own Mollie Hemingway has a book coming out in September.

KURTZ: Yes. I mean, it seems like there's one or two books a week coming out, they're obviously were all rush jobs at the end and obviously the most juicy scenes and hookers to out and so forth tends to get the most attention to drum up attention for the books. And we'll see as these come.

All right. We mentioned the former president having a rally in Ohio last night. It was not carried by Fox, CNN or MSNBC but was carried by some smaller networks. Here's part of what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Together, we will send Joe Biden and the fake news media -- there's a lot of people back there. Do you miss me? They miss me.

(CROWD CHEERING)

TRUMP: They miss me. I know. They look at their bad ratings and they're saying we miss this guy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): So, Griff, does the media miss this guy?

JENKINS: Classic Trump. You heard the stage you heard the same music. And he just put out a statement 20 minutes ago calling it, quote, "legendary." But what's new in what's Trump 2.0 in this, Howie, is the revenge is best served cold aspect. Because this is a campaign stop for his former aide Max Miller running to primary a sitting Republican Anthony Gonzalez who was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach President for the January 6 incident. Trump said he was going to do this. This is the first we've said of him, the first rally by the way since he left office.

KURTZ: Yes. I mean, the media do miss him and I think they keep reporting and talking about Trump, going over and over again the last four years. Some were legitimate some are just trying to get some of those ratings back.

Griff Jenkins, always good to see you.

Still to come, Britney Spears wants liberation, the case of the cursing cheerleader, coverage of a woman who supposedly had 10 babies and more, racing the clock on the Buzz Meter.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): So we'll you bring you back to Buzz Beater. Let's see if I can beat the clock. Go. Wait. Britney Spears is back in the headlines in a New York Times exclusive with the pop star challenging a conservatorship supervised by her dad. The paper obtained confidential documents showing she complained five years ago, the arrangement was repressive, restricting everything form who she dated to the color of her kitchen cabinets want.

By that was just the preview with the 39-year-old mom testifying the other say that after I've lied and told the whole world I'm OK and I'm happy, it's a lie. I deserve to have a life. I'm so angry. It's insane and I'm depressed, I cry every day. She said she is monitored when changing clothes as forced to take lithium and she wants to have another baby but isn't allowed to remove her IUD.

You know, it's fashionable for the media to make fun of Britney because of her past antics but this has been going on for 13 years while she continues to make albums and play Las Vegas. So I'm in the free Britney crowd.

Supreme Court has delivered a rather odd victory for student free speech. The eight to one ruling says a Pennsylvania high school was wrong to kick Brandi Levi, then 14, off the cheerleading team after she ranted on Snapchat over not making the varsity squad, saying f school, f everything and a class middle finger salute. Hey, free speech comes in many forms.

Over at One American News, host Pearson Sharp got pretty worked up over the unproven rigged election claims saying lots and lots of people work to steal a victory from Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PEARSON SHARP, HOST, ONE AMERICA NEWS NETWORK: Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, how many people does it take to carry out a coup against the presidency? What are the consequences for traitors who meddled with our sacred Democratic process and tried to steal power by taking away the voices of the American people? What happens to them? Well, in the past America had a very good solution for dealing with such traitors. Execution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): So, he would kill all the traitors who haven't yet been identified somehow, let alone charged? Trump now says no, he wasn't suggesting that thousands of people be executed, just pointing out the law.

Well, another celebrity apology, this time from singer Billie Eilish. She said she is sorry after the surfacing of a video in which she used an anti- Asian slur. I mouthed a word from a song that at the time I didn't know was a derogatory term used against members of the Asian community. I am appalled and embarrassed and want to barf.

That's a stomach-turning apology but also unnecessary. Billy Eilish was 13 or 14 at the time.

And from the BBC, to the Daily Mirror to the New York Post, lots of news outlets ran with an amazing tale of a South African woman who gave birth to 10 babies, so amazing that if they checked they would have learned that Gosiame Sithole hadn't been in any hospital, wasn't even pregnant local officials say. The editor of the Pretoria News which broke the bogus story said the woman and her husband had no reason to lie. And yet, you know, they did.

We made it. That's it for this edition of MEDIA BUZZ. I'm Howard Kurtz. We hope you also like our Facebook page, we post my daily columns, continue the conversation on Twitter at Howard Kurtz. And check out my podcast, Media Buzz Meter. You can subscribe at Apple iTunes, excuse me -- Google podcast or on your Amazon device. We lost some of the show today from the news conference because that was important news for us to bring to you. I want to spend some more time on the national coverage of crime, perhaps we will revisit that.

Next Sunday is July 4th. I'm sure most of you will be off. We will be here live doing the job. I hope you'll join us or watch the segment online. See you then with the latest buzz.

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