Trump rips 'crooked media'

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Trump rips 'crooked media'

Blames press for launching witch hunt.

This is a rush transcript from "Media Buzz," November 10, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: On Buzz Meter this Sunday, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham is standing by live for her first appearance on this program. As the Democrats prepare to put the impeachment show in a public stage, the press pounces on Trump Ambassador Gordon Sondland changing his testimony and the White House dismisses many witnesses as bias.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Sondland rattling Trump world, striking at the heart of Trump's impeachment defense.

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Then after a few weeks of, oh, I don't know, reading press reports about what the witnesses are saying, Sondland said, oh, yes, I -- I do remember now, there was actually a quid pro quo that I personally delivered to the Ukrainian government.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: He was offering something called an opinion to the Ukrainians about why military was held up. Are the Democrats comfortable impeaching a president on presumed second-hand facts?

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: If President Trump has nothing to hide, why is he so afraid of public hearing?

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: I feel like the Democrats had the American people's attention for a second and then they totally lost it. And now no one cares about this Taylor, Volker, Sondland. That's not breaking through.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Are these administration witnesses as damaging as the pundits believe? What about the Republicans pushing for Hunter Biden to testify? Rand Paul demands that the media out the whistleblower, but the mainstream press is still shielding his identity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): I say tonight to the media, do your job and print his name.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: With the president also insisting that the CIA officer be identified, would it be unethical for journalists to publish his name? Plus, ABC anchor Amy Robach caught on tape saying her network caved to pressure in spiking her interview with the chief accuser of a horrible sexual predator.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMY ROBACH, ABC ANCHOR: First of all, I was told, who is Jeffrey Epstein? No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: And the ex-ABC staffer who winded up getting fired for leaking that tape says she didn't do it. I'm Howard Kurtz and this is MEDIA BUZZ.

As Democrats on the Hill gear up for public impeachment hearings this week, President Trump is again denouncing the process and the press.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Joe Biden is a crook. He's 100 percent crooked. And the fake news which is you and you, you don't want to do anything about it.

The crooked media have launched the deranged delusional, destructive, and hyperpartisan impeachment witch hunt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Joining us now from New York, Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary. Welcome.

STEPHANIE GRISHAM, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Hi. Thank you for having me.

KURTZ: The president, as we just heard, says the crooked media have launched the delusional, deranged impeachment witch hunt. Is he saying that the whole House investigation exists because of the media?

GRISHAM: I think the media has done a lot to help promote it and promote what the Dems are doing and they're ignoring key parts. I mean, they won't acknowledge that a lot of the things that are being put out there are selectively leaked.

I also find it really interesting that it just came out. The lawyer for the whistleblower on day one of the president taking office was talking about a coup and was saying that we are going to take him down. I don't understand why we are not talking about that.

The lawyer for the whistleblower, think about that, has said open and openly that this president should not be in office, and he did that in January 2017.

KURTZ: Right. Selective leaking, you're right about that. We've talked about that on this program. That will change to some extent when it's all out in front of television cameras. Why is the president calling the whistleblower fake?

Perhaps more important, why is he insisting that the whistleblower's identity be made public when that could send a chilling message to other government officials who may want to expose corruption without being exposed themselves?

GRISHAM: Well, I would say this. Whistleblower protections are important. But you can't just not question the motivation of this whistleblower. And it is shown now that Adam Schiff spoke with this whistleblower. Again, the hiring of an attorney who has actively and publicly gone after this president.

Having the title whistleblower put upon you doesn't mean that you should -- shouldn't have scrutiny as to what your motives are. So, I'm starting to wonder myself, you know, who is this person? Who is this person who purports to want to help the country but won't talk to anybody but the Dems? That's concerning.

KURTZ: Thanks to The New York Times, we do know that it is a CIA officer who was assigned for a time to the White House. The president says in talking to reporters that the Democrats have basically rounded up a bunch of people who don't like him and made them the witnesses in at least the closed-door impeachment hearings.

But some of them are his appointees. They are describing what they saw and heard on Ukraine matter, and they are obligated obviously to tell the truth before Congress. So, are they all biased?

GRISHAM: I don't think that the bias is the question. I think that this is all their own speculation. This is all their own interpretation of what the president said. But the president being the most transparent president in history released the transcripts so that the American people can make up their own minds.

And at the bottom of this whole thing is the American people who voted the president into office, who have the right to look at this transcript, who will see that he did absolutely nothing wrong. The president just said yesterday he is hoping to get the second transcript released.

Again, this president is absolutely transparent in that there was nothing that he did that was wrong. There's nothing wrong with wanting to ensure a country is not corrupt before we send our hardworking taxpayer dollars to another country.

KURTZ: Right.

GRISHAM: He makes no secret of that and he talks about it with many, many countries, not just with Ukraine.

KURTZ: Right. You're right that these witnesses mostly haven't talked directly with the president but it is not all speculation that they are describing their conversations with Rudy Giuliani and others.

Let me turn to this because the Republicans -- this just came out yesterday -- now want Hunter Biden to be put on the witness list for these impeachment hearings. Does the president believe that former Vice President Joe Biden's son should testify?

GRISHAM: The president spoke quite strongly yesterday to the press on his way out to Marine One. The American people should be concerned that when there was a politician, Biden, Vice President Biden at the time in office, his son was potentially profiting off of that. So, he -- I'm sure would enjoy seeing him up there. I would love to hear what Hunter Biden has to say, absolutely.

KURTZ: So the White House is saying that Hunter Biden should testify, White House is agreeing with congressional Republicans who want to put him up there?

GRISHAM: I'm agreeing that that should definitely happen.

KURTZ: All right. So after William Taylor testified, he is career diplomat and Vietnam veteran, you put out a statement. Let me just read it. You were decrying a coordinated smear campaign from far-left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution. Why would you say radical bureaucrats? Why would we think that Taylor and the others are radical?

GRISHAM: There are a lot of people in this government. You have to remember this government is huge and there are a lot of people in this government. And this has been proven over and over again. I would actually point you to the anonymous book that's coming out.

There are people working inside our government actively against the president of the United States. That's something that should concern this country. It's not OK, and I will continue to put statements out saying just that.

KURTZ: All right. Now, the president is known to be blunt in his language. He took some flak from the press, not usual, when he recently referred to Never Trumpers as human scum, and you took some heat for defending that. Any second thoughts?

GRISHAM: I did. I did. No, I don't have any second thoughts. It's funny to me that I would get criticized for doing my job which is to support the president. I speak for the president, and I am always going to support the things that he says. So, I'm not sure why I got criticized for it.

But my own personal belief is yes, I don't think people should be working within our government that are actively trying to work against the president who has done so much for this country. This man since he has been taken office had so many results, and he's continuing to work despite all of the sham.

I would also want to remind people that we could go into a government shutdown in the next couple of weeks and that's because the Democrats won't work. So I do stand by my language. I don't think it's OK for anybody in our government to be working against our government and our American people.

KURTZ: All right. I've known Donald Trump since 1987 when his first book came out. He is right that largely he got press as businessman and he has got an avalanche, a never ending avalanche of negative coverage since the day that he got into the race.

But when the president of the United States talks about the corrupt media, you deal with journalists all of the time in this job, do you believe that all the journalists who are talking and writing and reporting on Donald Trump are corrupt?

GRISHAM: I'm not going to use the word "all." I think that's a little bit too absolute. I think that there are some good journalists out there. But I will say that I think journalism today has turn into advocacy journalism. And I think that's detriment to the American people.

American people get their news. They want to turn on the news and they want to get an honest accounting of what is happening in this country and that's not what is happening right now.

You can even look at small things like the game yesterday. We had reporters saying the president got booed. I was in that stadium and that crowd went crazy. And then when you talk when al-Baghdadi was taken down, we had some people saying that, you know, he was this religious cleric. It is really unfortunate that they won't even give him a share fake -- fair shake, excuse me.

KURTZ: Fair shake, yes.

GRISHAM: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

GRISHAM: I have to say tough reporting is OK. That's fine with us. But it's got to be fair and it is not fair across the line for this president.

KURTZ: President Trump often says -- he said it again this week -- about a Washington Post story involving Bill Barr that press uses made up sources when the sources are not named. Do you believe the sources are made up as opposed to the sources could be wrong or could be out of context or whatever?

GRISHAM: I will tell you this. I get hundreds of e-mails a day, and I have reporters telling me I've got this anonymous source that's telling me X, Y or Z. And I always say to them, I will go on the record and tell you that it's absolutely not true. And they will just say to me, we stand by our sources.

That's concerning to me. When somebody like me will put my name to something to say that a source is wrong or absolutely wrong, that's not OK.

KURTZ: Are you at least quoted? Are you at least quoted in the story as saying it is not true?

GRISHAM: Half of the time. Half of the time.

KURTZ: OK.

GRISHAM: Not always. It is funny to me. One of the publications says democracy dies in the darkness. And what I've noticed in the last, you know, couple of months especially, that only matters when it comes to the president. They're fine with all these closed-doors hearings on the Hill. They're fine with somebody writing an anonymous book. So, you know, the rules seem to change for this president.

KURTZ: Right. That's the Washington Post logo in case people are not familiar. So the daily press briefings are a thing of the past. And when you first took this job a few months ago, you weren't on TV much at the beginning and you took some heat from the press for not being visible enough.

I happened to know you have been dealing with an illness in your family. Do you sometimes feel that the flak that you get in the job, which is inevitable, that you're almost being treated as a symbol as opposed to as a person?

GRISHAM: Yes, definitely inevitable, and I knew from my predecessors from Sean and Sarah that, you know, it would be a tough job to take and that's OK. I made it very clear when I first started the job that I wanted to get to know my team. You have to remember I have three roles in the White House.

I wanted to see if there would need to be any restructuring, so I did that. I needed to take time to get to know policies. I don't want to go out and speak about things that I don't know about. And then you're right, I had an illness in my family that has been taking up a lot of my time. I've had to fly across the country quite often.

And so when people say I'm, you know, disappearing or I pop my head every so often, it is because I, like everybody, have life issues to deal with.

KURTZ: Yeah, as we all do.

GRISHAM: I'm doing the best I can.

KURTZ: As we all do, Stephanie.

GRISHAM: Absolutely.

KURTZ: Just briefly --

GRISHAM: Yes.

KURTZ: When first were appointed, some reporters dug into your background for personal and political difficulties you might have had. Did that surprise you to get that kind of scrutiny?

GRISHAM: No, because they have done it to every person who has been in our administration. I mean, you even look at somebody like Kavanaugh and the things that they did to him. I was expecting it. We've all made mistakes in our lives. They've done it to everybody unfortunately who has worked for this president. He's got great people around him and so it is what it is.

KURTZ: I got just a few seconds. Do you think there will ever be if not a truce maybe just a ceasefire between the president and the press who are both sides pretty dug in now?

GRISHAM: I think there is always hope for a truce. I think that if we can talk to each and admit that -- if the press can admit that he does a few things right, then perhaps we can have a little bit more of a dialogue. But right now, that just doesn't seem to be the case.

KURTZ: And on that note, Stephanie Grisham, thanks so much for joining us. Hope you'll come back.

GRISHAM: Thank you so much.

KURTZ: It is good to see you. When we come back, the president joins Rand Paul in saying, as we were talking about, the whistleblower should be outed, but the press refuses to go along.

And later, ABC's Amy Robach caught on tape ripping her network for not airing her interview with Jeffrey Epstein's chief accuser.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: President Trump is telling reporters that the whistleblower, who kicked off the Ukraine investigation, is a fake. And like some of his Republican allies insist, the CIA officer should be publicly identified.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So the whistleblower is a disgrace to our country, a disgrace. And the whistleblower because of that should be revealed.

PAUL: I say tonight to the media, do your job and print his name.

KATIE PAVLICH, NEWS EDITOR, TOWNHALL.COM: If Rand Paul is going to berate the media for refusing to name the person that he should be willing to name as well.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: He is a small man. I have to tell you, what he just did there was small and cowardly.

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS CHIEF POLITICAL ANCHOR: I don't understand what prevents you from getting on the Senate floor where you're protected on all kinds of things and just giving a speech and saying what the guy's name is.

PAUL: I can and I may, but I can do it right now if I want. Nothing stops me. Other than that, I don't want to make it about the one individual.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Joining us now to analyze the coverage: Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist and a Fox News contributor; Beverly Hallberg, president of District Media Group and a former television producer; and Philippe Reines, former State Department official under Hillary Clinton.

Mollie, I understand that legally, there is no prohibition against naming the whistleblower just against retaliation. Maybe you think he is a partisan, hack or Never Trumper. But as I said with Stephanie Grisham, won't it send a chilling message to future whistleblowers if this person can be outed just because the name has leaked to press and that might be true in a democratic administration?

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, SENIOR EDITOR AT THE FEDERALIST: I think people should be concerned about protecting people who are in public news. But the most important thing is that the media should be in the business of sharing information that is in the public interest. There is no question that this is in the public interest, and we are not seeing this kind of concern that the media has for this whistleblower that they have had for other people.

You had CNN doxing a grandmother because they didn't like what she put on Facebook, you know, showing her in her front lawn. You had NBC recently outing a Russian -- an American spy who was Russian. You have had The New York Times out a CIA station chief in Iran. You don't see concern when it doesn't match their political motivation.

Of course, Adam Schiff first demanded that the whistleblower testify until that precise moment that it was revealed that they coordinated prior to him filing the complaint.

KURTZ: The whistleblower had spoken to Schiff --

HEMINGWAY: It seems like the media are just following what Adam Schiff wants. That's not a good look.

KURTZ: Philippe, if Rand Paul wants to out the whistleblower and he can do so on the floor without any legal consequences, why hasn't he done it? Why ask the press to do his dirty work?

PHILIPPE REINES, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL UNDER HILLARY CLINTON: Because he is a hypocrite and a weak man who wants someone else to do his dirty work.

KURTZ: Also perhaps anybody who knows who it is. I don't know who it is. Many of our journalists don't know who it is but would face an enormous political blowback. So it's easier if the press does it.

REINES: Well, but I won't take a step back when we say why hasn't the press done it. I could say why hasn't Fox done it. I could say why hasn't The Federalist done it?

HEMINGWAY: Actually, this one thing I don't quite get about the conversation we are having. There has been reporting on this whistleblower.

REINES: But the president is saying --

HEMINGWAY: The New York Times -- hold on.

REINES: -- that the media is not its job.

HEMINGWAY: Yes, and that is --

REINES: How are you guys exempt from it?

HEMINGWAY: The New York Times did all but reveal his name in September.

REINES: So did Sean Hannity.

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: New York Times was the first to basically half-out the whistleblower by saying he's a CIA officer who has been assigned to the White House.

HEMINGWAY: And Real Clear Investigations has identified [NAME] as the whistleblower. So it's already out there. We could be talking about this reporting and talking about whether that's accurate reporting or not. So I feel a little bit confused about why we are pretending that it hasn't --

KURTZ: I just want to clarify that I don't know that that is person.

REINES: That might be the first time that the name has been mentioned on Fox News and not by a Fox News reporter.

KURTZ: I just want to clarify that -- I am going to come to you on this -- I don't know whether this is actually the person or not, and I don't want to speculate about that. But there have been a few conservative outlets and commentators who have floated that name or maybe other names. Is this an effort to have it sort of oozed into the mainstream media?

BEVERLY HALLBERG, PRESIDENT, DISTRICT MEDIA GROUP: I think there has been a lot of speculation when you look at social media. You have YouTube and Facebook who have decided to try to block all mentions of this individual's name. Twitter has been free reined.

So I've heard that name before which Mollie has said a lot of people have. So the question is whether or not this person should come forward. Should the media out him? Should we hear about it from Rand Paul?

KURTZ: Do you think Facebook and YouTube are wrong to do that?

HALLBERG: I think it is up to them as a business to decide whether or not to do it. I do think that when we look at protections, is it a place for that? But this is an impeachment process which is a political process, not a criminal trial. There are different protections for people in this situation. And I do think that that's being reported on occasion incorrectly.

HEMINGWAY: It is clearly wrong for this quasi media corporations like YouTube and other media-related outlets to say you're not allowed to talk about what's been reported out there. It has been reported. That's what I'm mentioning, it has been reported. The idea that you can't talk about --

REINES: President Trump says the media is not doing its job. You need to do its job. He is not only talking to CNN or MSNBC or The New York Times. He is talking to Fox News. He is talking to The Federalist. He is talking to the Wall Street Journal. Because he wants the liberal media as he calls it to do the dirty work. There is a reason why he's trying to avoid it.

HEMINGWAY: Again, the idea --

REINES: So whatever extent the media has responsibility to do it, the entire media is not doing it.

HEMINGWAY: It should be everybody. But also it is just really important. We are talking about someone who set off an impeachment. The idea that the public doesn't have an interest in knowing about this individual, what his ties are with the Biden family, what his history in the government is, what his political motivations are --

REINES: He has no ties to --

HEMINGWAY: -- is utterly absurd.

KURTZ: Well, let me jump in. It would help if we know who he was.

REINES: He also supposedly works with the CIA which means he works for Gina Haspel.

KURTZ: All right.

REINES: Gina Haspel is President Trump's choice at the CIA.

KURTZ: I got to break this up.

REINES: This notion that he works at the DNC is crazy.

KURTZ: I got to break this up because I have a question for Beverly. But first, I want to note that the whistleblower's lawyers have said that any identifying -- any suspected name could place the individual at harm and serious risk and it shows a desperation to deflect from the substance of the complaint.

I understand the whistleblower may be an effective target depending on who it is. But he never claimed to have first-hand knowledge. And now that we have the transcript of the call and all these witnesses who testified who were involved in Ukraine business, why did the media, why did the House even need the whistleblower at this point?

HALLBERG: Well, I think there is a reason why they want him to come to this public hearing which I don't think Adam Schiff will allow because he gets to approve who comes forth.

KURTZ: Right.

HALLBERG: And that's because, as Mollie just said, it started with this whistleblower. This was third-hand information. I think what we are going to hear from Jim Jordan who is going to be doing the questioning in Intelligence Committee is asking whether or not anybody had first-hand information and really tried to cloud some of the testimony.

So I think the narrative that we are going to be hearing is whether or not individuals like this whistleblower actually had any first-hand knowledge.

(CROSSTALK)

REINES: -- question is, is Ambassador Sondland, is Bill Taylor, and both of those are Donald Trump picks.

HEMINGWAY: This is a very important point. Schiff demanded this whistleblower testimony until it was revealed that the whistleblower had coordinated with his staff. The other thing that he doesn't want him to be asked about is where he got the information from because that would put a lot of people --

KURTZ: I got to get to break. The whistleblower, by the way, said in his complaint he had no first-hand information. Ahead, Mike Bloomberg says he may get into the race and the pundits at least in New York can't contain their excitement. But up next, the press grappling with a new storyline today, House Republicans want Hunter Biden to testify.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: House Republicans generated big headlines yesterday by unveiling a list of witnesses they want summoned to the impeachment hearing. Most prominent name is Hunter Biden, the former vice president's son who was making plenty of money in Ukraine.

Mollie, The Washington Post says this about that. Republicans want to publicly question witnesses who would divert the conversation away from questions about Trump's behavior to allegations only tangentially related to the case, meaning Biden's and also 2016 election interference. That's the initial take by the paper.

HEMINGWAY: Well, yeah. That's very defensible. The entire original phone call that set off this entire drama was our discussion about Hunter Biden and his role at Burisma and also Vice President Joe Biden. People keep talking about how he is a current presidential candidate, but he's a previous vice president who had a lot of responsibility for Ukraine.

This is very relevant to whether what President Trump was saying was OK or not OK. Is it OK to be concerned about corruption in the past versus whether he was trying to affect the forthcoming election? So this is very relevant to the entire issue. And Hunter Biden did work for Burisma. He did get a lot of money --

KURTZ: Yes, those are facts.

HEMINGWAY: And that relationship was used to affect U.S. policy. And these are important things.

KURTZ: Beverly, the press is already saying that Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman, will say no to this, and the GOP will then accuse the Democrats of running a one-sided hearing. I think there will the usual split in the press saying, oh, this is outrageous. No, of course, he shouldn't testify to distraction.

HALLBERG: Yeah. It's all a strategy by the Republicans. I think it's a smart strategy to put Hunter Biden out there to show that in their perspective this has been very partisan. And, of course, if you think that there is an issue with what Trump did in this phone call, you have to have an issue with what Joe Biden did as well.

So they're keeping this in the news cycle. Also once again, the whistleblower, the Republicans wanting him to come forward, he was on that list as well. And Adam Schiff is likely to say no to that as well. So I think this is going to come down to a transparency argument also for Republicans saying, look, we are not even getting to all the facts here.

KURTZ: Philippe, you worked in the State Department in the last administration. New York Times says the following: rarely has the State Department been the center of revolt against a president in believing that policy was hijacked by partisan politics. That is the media consensus, hijacked by partisan politics.

But that enables President Trump to say, no, no, no, they're being partisan and they're just people who don't like my policy on Ukraine or anything else on the foreign front.

REINES: Well, first, Donald Trump doesn't need anyone's excuse to say it, he says it either way. The people at the State Department -- think about this for a second. Most of them joined at some point when President Bush might have been president or President Clinton or the first President Bush. Some of them have been there as far back as Nixon.

They didn't join up to thwart Donald Trump. And they often carry out policies they don't agree with. You think that the bulk of the State Department agreed with invading Iraq? Yet thousands of Foreign Service officers went and served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

My point being what they are seeing and what they are saying is about breaking the law. They are expressing concerns about how this aid was held up. And it's been reported today that the president's defense said eventually the aid was released. It was released because the State Department did it because they felt they had no legal basis to hold it back anymore.

KURTZ: But I love that the Times says that they're at the center of a revolt and does that rather approvingly.

HEMINGWAY: The entire debate is about who gets to set foreign policy. Is it the people by electing presidents or is it the bureaucracy? That is what every piece of testimony has shown thus far, is that some people think the bureaucracy gets to dictate foreign policy over and against the will of the people.

REINES: The bureaucracy has a responsibility to follow the law and to not break the law.

HEMINGWAY: There's no point in alleging. There's a law broken.

(CROSSTALK)

REINES: Yeah. Actually, there are many people including the president's own ambassador and the president's own envoy to Ukraine.

HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS HOST: I've got to get a break. We could continue this for another hour and a half. Ahead, CBS fires a staffer who had worked at ABC and is denying that she leaked an embarrassing tape involving the spiking of a Jeffrey Epstein story. But first, the House Impeachment is about to go public this week. With all the leaks, will the testimony just be a rehash?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: As House Democrats ramp up for the start of public impeachment hearings on Wednesday, President Trump used a session with reporters near Marine One (ph) to offer around sweeping dismissal of the witnesses.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: So what they do is they go all over Washington. Let's find 10 people that hate President Trump the most, and let's put them up there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Mollie Hemingway, there's clearly a clash between the media saying these diplomats and officials and former officials who were testifying, some appointed by Trump, are solid career people and the president saying they hate Trump, they're never Trumpers.

HEMINGWAY: I think it really just gets to the issue that we were just talking in the previous segment though about what the underlying issue is, and the underlying issue is we've already seen the transcript. We already know what President Trump said.

Having a bunch of people testify about how that made the feel might be interesting, but we already have the underlying information. We can make our own decision about whether what was done was OK or bad. The fact is that a lot of these people whether or not they were appointed because this administration has done a very bad job with picking people for - to fill slots, how they feel about him, is relevant also and that's coming out.

KURTZ: Or fully you can address whether it's just about how they feel but also are the media building these people up? I mean, who ever heard of Sondland or Taylor or Vindman before as heroes? And is it possible that some of them just don't like President Trump or his foreign policy on Ukraine?

REINES: Well, statistically, you know, 55 to 60 percent probably don't like Donald Trump, but they haven't liked Donald Trump for three years. There's no reason why you would say someone just out of nowhere concocted this.

To go back for one second to what Mollie said, this was not a transcript. It was a rough transcript. And one of the witnesses said that what he wanted in was not allowed in because he made it even worse.

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: Yeah.

REINES: But, yes, the administration has picked some pretty bad people. Ambassador Sonland raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Donald Trump in 2016. This is not, no matter what he says -- I've never met the guy --

(CROSSTALK)

HEMINGWAY: And he says he was very helpful to President Trump as well.

REINES: Not so much.

KURTZ: Well, perhaps until he --

REINES: Not so much.

KURTZ: -- revised his testimony and tell them what he told the Ukraine.

REINES: Yes.

KURTZ: But look, "the Washington Post" reported this week -- I alluded to this earlier -- that the president had asked William Barr to hold a press conference clearing him on the phone call and the attorney general declined. The president said the Amazon Washington Post -- he calls Jeff Bezos papers -- garbage and degenerate and the sources are made up. Marty Baron, the executive editor, said this was a repugnant attempt to intimidate and harass his staff. Your thoughts?

BEVERLY HALLBERG, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, DISTRICT MEDIA GROUP: Yes. Well, the president has had a longstanding feud with Jeff Bezos. Even last month, he asked for all the subscriptions to Washington Post from government agencies to be revoked. So, he has this battle with him.

What I think is most fascinating about this whole story is the media have reported for months that Attorney General Barr is pretty much the puppet of the president. That's how they've categorized him. Anybody who knows him knows he's a duty first guy, yet the story wasn't about the fact, even if true, that the attorney general marches by his own set of rules. And so, that's what I think is even a miss here in the story.

KURTZ: Well, I want to move on here because as you know the media reported Republican complaints about the hearings, closed door, they haven't had a chance, selective leaking, and they have a solid case on some of this. With public hearings now started, won't the press be forced to cover how each side handles the questioning and witnesses and their credibility?

HEMINGWAY: Probably not. Probably it will be a continuation of what we're seeing --

KURTZ: But everyone in America will be able to see for themselves.

HEMINGWAY: Sure. And I think that's the idea behind these hearings. We saw with the Mueller report. It came out. It didn't do what people were hoping it would do so they had televised hearings. Unfortunately, for Democrats, those hearings didn't go well for them. So, I think it'll be interesting to see how this goes. But we already know what was said in 8 to 10 hours of depositions through selective leaks, then we saw the transcripts and now we'll see the TV --

KURTZ: And that's my question for you, Philippe. So, we know from testimony that John Bolton said Rudy Giuliani was a hand grenade. We know that Sondland told Ukraine that he believed those are quick phone call (ph) to get a presidential meeting.

So, it's been leaked out. It's been rehashed. It's been analyzed. So, without new allegations, I mean there will be political theory to be sure. Won't the media be left without a lot of new bombshells because of the leaks?

REINES: Well, no, I don't think so because people might ask different questions. Also the 8 to 10 hours that was spent behind closed doors, 4-5 of those hours were the Republicans seeming to try to find the name out of the whistleblower so that they could out it elsewhere.

But the truth of the matter is if we didn't do this, the Republicans would say, well, why can't we say what's public? I think this is the opportunity for the Republicans to question him.

There's a reason why, as Beverly noted, Jim Jordan has been moved over to the Intelligence Committee, because apparently they believe that Jim Jordan and others on the committee can say question to Vindman -- to Colonel Vindman to Ambassador Sondland, to Bill Taylor, what do you think about this? Why do you say about this? I would think the Republicans would absolutely welcome this.

HEMINGWAY: I think this is good for the Republicans. This whole week is going to be about public perception that the House is going to be --

(CROSSTALK)

REINES: I'd be careful what you can ask for.

KURTZ: Maybe it will be good for the American people to finally see and hear from and make their own judgments about people's credibility. What about the president saying -- and I asked this to Stephanie Grisham at the top of the program -- the press is -- the crooked media have launched the impeachment, which he calls deranged, delusional and disruptive. I didn't know that we get to do that.

HALLBERG: Yeah. He's going to continue to make those types of claims. I think Republicans have taken a different narrative. They talked about even having some issues with the phone call but it's not impeachable. I say you let the public hearing go.

I think, the media, if they don't like what is said what they're going to do, if they have a certain perspective of this, it's now going to turn to whether or not there was an obstruction of justice of the whole impeachment hearing. So, I see that's where the narrative goes.

KURTZ: I have to move to Mollie.

HEMINGWAY: The media have chosen to become partisan activists instead of just reporting on the news. They have clearly been pushing impeachment for a very long time in part to make up for the fact that they were beclowned through their coverage of the Russia hoax and this is an attempt for them to save face.

This is not good because an impeachment process needs to have some kind of credibility. The two main cheerleaders are people like Schiff and the media. These are people who through their own behavior in the last few years, made their reputations really hurt.

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: We will see when the television lights go on. Mollie Hemingway, Beverly Hallberg, Philippe Reines, thanks very much for joining us this Sunday. After the break, we are propped for a possible Mike Bloomberg presidential run. What does that say about the Democratic field? Charlie Gasparino is on deck.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: The mere prospect that Michael Bloomberg may well jump into the Democratic presidential contest -- he's filed papers to beat the deadline in Alabama -- has sent the media into a tizzy about how the former New York mayor could shake up the race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The one thing you can't argue about Bloomberg in any way is confidence with a capital C. And I think that is the secret sauce, particularly you go against Donald Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What did I tell you? They're freaking out, the Democratic Party. The media is already salivating though over a Bloomberg- Trump matchup.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Joining us now from Connecticut, Charlie Gasparino, senior correspondent of Fox Business Network. And Charlie, you reported a month ago that Bloomberg hadn't closed the door on a possible candidacy, and he was a very good mayor of New York City. But the pundits, especially in New York where you work, are just sort of flipping out. They admire him as this benevolent billionaire.

Aren't they greatly overestimating the chances of this guy, particularly now he says he's going to skip the first four states? Aren't they acting like he's going to completely shake up the race when that may not be the case?

CHARLIE GASPARINO, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Well, first off, I want to say Lydia Moynihan, my producer, had a big role in that scoop. We reported that he maintained his campaign office, and he was still polling. And listen, there's two ways of looking at this. Number one, in a general election he could match up very well against Donald Trump, there's no doubt about that.

KURTZ: Billionaire versus billionaire.

GASPARINOl: Right. And he's got 20 billion liquid. He's always been the word. Donald Trump doesn't -- cannot -- Donald Trump is going to raise a lot of money, but he doesn't have that type of money.

But you know, getting the nomination is not -- there's not a direct path. It's not going to be easy. I mean, you know, listen, you've seen there are 17 people out there. There's Joe Biden for all his negatives still commands, you know, still looks like he's leading in national polls.

KURTZ: Right.

GASPARINO: He's going to do very well in the south. Mike Bloomberg is a billionaire, he can buy the race, there's no doubt about that. He has some -- he has some -- you know, you can. You can buy race --

KURTZ: Well, I don't think -- I disagree with you because I know a lot of people who have spent a lot of money. He could spend many of his billions and still --

GASPARINO: Right.

KURTZ: -- can't get enough votes. Look, he's 77. He's not a great orator. He can't run against Wall Street. He was part of Wall Street. And he was a Republican mayor of New York City and so --

GASPARINO: He was a Democrat before that, just so you know.

KURTZ: I know. Look, he obviously has concluded that maybe Joe Biden is going to collapse. He wants to fill the moderate --

GASPARINO: Right.

KURTZ: A lot of people think he helps Elizabeth Warren. But my point is he could end up with 5 percent of the race, which would influence someone, but I'm not seeing much media skepticism here about the mayor.

GASPARINO: Listen, I think the media breaks down in three ways on this. And I think you're generally right. The mainstream media, people reporters like myself and yourself, we like horse races. Clearly, we want him in there spending a lot of money so we can report about this.

The left-wingers, well, you know, they're talking about how this is a billionaire going to buy the race. So, that's their mantra, just read "the New York Times" editorial page.

Right-wingers, look at "the Wall Street Journal" editorial page. This is going to bring some transparency -- more transparency to the race where we'll really underscore how crazy Elizabeth Warren's economic policies particularly are.

So that's where this thing breaks out. So, of course, the media is going to say run, Mike, run. But again, the nomination's going to be difficult. I get that. If Joe Biden does fail though, he will spend a lot of money exposing the craziness of the economic policies of Elizabeth Warren, and that could galvanize a big portion of the Democratic electorate.

Listen. We hear from the --

KURTZ: Yeah. I still think -- I still think it's tough to skip Iowa and New Hampshire, and South Carolina, et cetera.

GASPARNO: Yes.

KURTZ: And also, it makes me think the media have been saying, look, look at all these polls, Biden, Buttigieg, Warren, they all beat Trump in a hypothetical matchup. But now, it's kind of been exposed that the least of the Democratic donor class thinks this is the weak field, thinks Biden is a weak nominee, and that's why Bloomberg thinks he's got a shot.

GASPARINO: Right. They also think that Elizabeth Warren can't win. I mean --

KURTZ: A general election, you mean, to win a general election.

GASPARINO: -- we talk to moderate -- yes, yes. You -- yes. I meant to say that, yes. They think she can win the nomination, not the general election.

KURTZ: Yes.

GASPARINO: And they're worried about that because, listen, Bill Gates, why is Bill Gates out there criticizing Elizabeth Warren? Because he fears she's going to bring this country not just to the left like a Barack Obama, but she's going to introduce this country to socialism that we haven't seen since maybe FDR --

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: All right, Charlie, I got to jump in half a minute. What about the impact on Bloomberg News, major organization, owned by Mike Bloomberg, which basically has the policy of not covering what Bloomberg does, but you can't do that if he's president -- I mean he's running for president.

GASPARINO: Yeah. I mean I did some reporting on that a few months ago when it first looked like he was running. Listen, the reporters think they're going to sell it. A lot of reporters in there think they're going to sell it. And when I ran that by the Bloomberg people, they wouldn't deny it. I mean sell the news portion --

KURTZ: Yeah.

GASPARINO: -- not the stuff that makes all the money.

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: All right. Charlie Gasparino, good conversation as always. thanks so much for joining us.

GASPARINO: Anytime, pal.

KURTZ: Still to come, the Amy Robach tape, why didn't ABC air her interview with Jeffrey Epstein's chief accuser and an ex-staffer who got fired tells Megyn Kelly she didn't do it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Howard: GMA news anchor, Amy Robach, was caught on a hot mic last summer expressing frustration that her network refused to run her interview three years ago with Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a chief accuser of the late predator, Jeffrey Epstein.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMY ROBACH, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: First of all, I was told, who is Jeffrey Epstein? No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Robach said there threats from Buckingham Palace because of Jeffrey's allegations about Prince Andrew and the story was, quote, "quashed," because Good Morning America didn't want to lose an interview, she said, with Will and Kate.

As for the accuser --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBACH: She's been hiding for 12 years. We convinced her to come out. We convinced her talk to us. It was unbelievable what we had, Clinton, we had everything. I freaking had all of it. I'm so pissed right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: And there's been plenty of fallout. Joining us now from New York, Kat Timpf, a National Review write and Fox News contributor. So given that Jeffrey Epstein was one of history's great monsters and that ABC had an on the record, on camera interview with Virginia Roberts Giuffre, was the network too timid in retrospect in not running it?

KAT TIMPF, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Absolutely, yes. And their statement that they released saying the reason they didn't release it was because they didn't have corroboration or it didn't meet their editorial standards, I can't believe that this has not been a bigger deal because that statement is b.s.

ABC went full on to the story of Michael Avenatti's client accusing Brett Kavanaugh of doing all these sexually deviant things only for her to come out later and say, whoops, I actually didn't know him at all. Where was your corroboration concern on that one, ABC? They're just so full of something that I cannot say on TV.

KURTZ: All right. Well, good for censoring yourself there. Let me put Amy Robach's statement up on the screen. I was caught in a private moment or frustration. I was upset. The important interview with Virginia Roberts didn't air because we could not obtain sufficient corroborating evidence to meet ABC's editorial standards.

Now, I spoke to a senior ABC news executive who said, Amy Robach doesn't know all the facts. This person said that we were going to report on her allegations about Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew, both of whom denied any involvement or even any knowledge of sexual abuse by Epstein, but that it was taken out of court records before they aired, and they didn't feel they had the corroboration.

And finally, the executive said, yeah, the network could have run with her other allegations about Epstein. Remember, she was 17 when this all started. But GMA lost interest when it couldn't name the big celebrities.

TIMPF: Listen. The statement doesn't make any sense when you see some of the other stories that they've run when it, you know, was about Brett Kavanaugh. There was no corroboration there or someone not even knowing the guy would have certainly come out if they had made that effort.

So I'm not making any judgment, I'm just asking ABC to please stop lying to me because it's a slap in the face to all of us and particularly to Epstein's victims.

KURTZ: Right. Now, this video was made public by Project Veritas, I've been critical in the past because it uses deception and undercover techniques, but that's not the case here.

TIMPF: I have as well.

KURTZ: Somebody at ABS sent this and then I've confirmed that ABC told CBS where this woman now works, former ABC staffer, her name is Ashley Bianco, that she had electronically accessed that clip of Amy Robach which later wound up in the hands of Project Veritas.

Ashley Bianco spoke to Megyn Kelly who just launched a new YouTube channel about her role in this whole matter. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASHLEY BIANCO, FORMER ABC NEWS STAFFER: I wasn't even given the professional courtesy to defend myself, you know? If I didn't know what I'd been accused of. It was, you know, humiliating. It was devastating.

Everyone in the office was freaked out by what she was saying. I did it just for office gossip.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: So, what you make of CBS firing her and she says, yes, I clipped it, I did it for office gossip, but I didn't leak it to anybody outside of ABC.

TIMPF: Right. Well, she's saying she didn't leak it, and Project Veritas is also saying that she was, in fact, not the leaker. So I don't know for sure, but I do know that if they -- also on top of everything else they've done wrong, fired the wrong person. I certainly hope that she sues them and that we all shame them for just completely making a disaster out of this entire thing.

KURTZ: All right. Just briefly, the leaker, according to Project Veritas, we don't know the name, put out a statement apologizing to Amy Robach but saying this has spun into a mission of seek and destroy by ABC innocent people who have actually nothing to do with this are being hunted down as if we're all a sport. In short, it's a mess, Kat.

TIMPF: Yeah, it absolutely is, and it's certainly not fair, and I would just like to see some honesty from ABC because this is a serious issue, and there's a lot at stake here.

KURTZ: Yeah. I would just add that these are difficult judgment calls. It's easy to look back when we know now all the terrible things that Jeffrey Epstein did, when you've got to make a judgment and you're facing legal threats, you know, they can be a difficult call to news organizations. But to have somebody on camera, it's not an anonymous source, I just think that was a story that was ripe to be broadcast. Thank you so much, Kat. Great to see you.

TIMPF: Right. Yes. You too.

KURTZ: And that is it for this edition of "Media Buzz." I'm Howard Kurtz. Check out my podcast, "Media Buzz Meter." You can subscribe it Apple iTunes, Google Play, fox news podcast.com or on your Amazon device. We hope you also like our Facebook page. We post my daily columns and original other stuff and continue the conversation on Twitter @howardkurtz, lots to talk about. You're talking about my interview with the White House press secretary, we're happy to have that, the only person who was out there for the White House.

Join us next Sunday, 11 Eastern, with the latest Buzz.

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