This is a rush transcript from “MediaBuzz” November 29, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: This is MEDIA BUZZ. I'm Howard Kurtz. We'll
get to Maria Bartiromo's exclusive interview with President Trump in just a
moment. It took three long weeks when the president broke his post-election
silence by returning to a favorite past time, mixing it up with reporters.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
UNKNOWN: If the Electoral College votes for Joe Biden on November 14th,
will you concede?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I -- it's going to be a
very hard thing to concede because we know there was massive fraud.
UNKNOWN: So if the Electoral College does elect President-Elect Joe Biden,
are you not going to leave this building?
TRUMP: Certainly, I will. Certainly, I will, and you know that.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
KURTZ (on camera): When Reuters correspondent Jeff Mason kept pressing him
about the Electoral College, the president punched back.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
TRUMP: Look, between you people -- don't talk to me that way. You're just
a lightweight. Don't talk to me that -- I'm the president of the United
States. Don't ever talk to the president that way.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
KURTZ (on camera): The media are largely celebrating Trump's decision to
cooperate with a Joe Biden transition without an actual concession. But
reaction on the right has been decidedly mixed.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
UNKNOWN: The 2020 presidential election was not fair. No honest person
would claim that it was fair. They rigged the election in front of all of
us. And nobody did anything about it.
UNKNOWN: Unless the legal situation changes in a dramatic and frankly an
unlikely manner, Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20th. To say this
constitutes living in reality. And if I offered you a false reality, if I
told you that there was an excellent phenomenal chance that the Supreme
Court was going to step in and deliver a victory to President Trump, I
would be lying to you.
UNKNOWN: I don't get what my brothers and sisters in the media keep
playing to this. Who cares if Trump concedes? It's not in the law. It's a
tradition.
UNKNOWN: Imagine the democratic legitimacy crisis we would have been in if
Trump had flipped 60,000 votes in the right states and was about to be
inaugurated, the president having lost by four points and over of six
million votes.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
KURTZ (on camera): Joining us to analyze the coverage, Ben Domenech,
founder and publisher of the Federalist, in New York, Kennedy, whose Fox
Business show is now back in business at 8:00 p.m. eastern, and Clarence
Page, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Ben, Maria gave the president
plenty of time, and the interview ended just a couple of minutes ago. Let
me play a brief bit of it, and we'll ask you a question on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
TRUMP: This election was over, and then they did dumps. They call them
dumps, big massive dump. All of a sudden, I went from winning by a lot to
losing by a little.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
KURTZ (on camera): The president's talking about massive dumps. Those are
the mail-in ballots. He's talking about problems with voting machines. He's
talking about dead people voting. The challenge for the media is that in
more than 30 of case, president's legal team has been unable to convince
various federal judges and state judges that there was evidence of
significant fraud. What's your take on how this is playing out in the
press?
BEN DOMENECH, THE FEDERALIST: Well, i think that this is the president
shifting from a largely legal strategy to a media strategy. You know, the
fact that this morning he went on with Maria and made as strong of a case
that he could for his perspective on this, one that I think is to his point
earlier, to the clip you played, not going to change --
(CROSSTALK)
DOMENECH: -- anything like that. I think that you're just going to be in a
situation where, again and again, you are going to have these conflicts
between the press and the president until he actually leaves office,
because they've set up this whole scenario of him getting, like, bunkered
in or something like that in the White House in ways that I think were
never going to happen, but in ways that they, you know, have really played
up over the past several months, as the president acknowledged.
He's going to leave if the Electoral College goes, as we all expect it to.
And I anticipate that that's going to hatch, but it's not going to stop his
criticism of the way this election played out.
KURTZ: And speaking of that, I'll play another clip for you Kennedy,
president talking specifically about the press and the way that journalists
have covered his post-election battle. Roll it.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
TRUMP: The media doesn't even want to cover it. I mean, you're doing
something -- you're actually very brave because you're doing something --
the media doesn't want to talk about it.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
KURTZ (on camera): So does Donald Trump have a point that the media don't
want to cover his allegations of massive fraud? Because it seems to me that
reporters have gone to the courthouses, they've covered these cases, and
then overall, it's gotten a lot of coverage. Your thoughts?
LISA KENNEDY MONTGOMERY, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK HOST: Yes, and they have
covered the bigger aspects of some of the legal cases and the filings on
behalf of the president and his team. But what hasn't gotten enough
coverage is the more than anecdotal cases of weirdness in certain states.
And there are people who of feel, you know, perhaps disenfranchised because
they hear stories.
And I'm not talking about the Big Dominion, Hugo Chavez conspiracy
theories. I'm talking about the lesser stories, perhaps in the affidavits.
And maybe that doesn't add up to massive voter fraud, but it does require
some investigation in particular states, and I hope investigative
journalists in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan really figure this
out.
So there is confidence in their election system going forward for the
midterms and four years from now.
KURTZ: It would be good to have such confidence. Clarence, Maria Bartiromo
said the allegations of fraud as laid out by the president are disgraceful.
But as you know, and just to update our audience, last night, a
Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the president's legal
team, saying no evidence of fraud.
And before that, three judge appeals court panel in Philadelphia ruled no
evidence of fraud. Three Republican judges, and the opinion was written by
a Trump appointee. So what is the gist of the president's complaint about
the press right now?
CLARENCE PAGE, CHICAGO TRIBUNE SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, Howard, you're
right. As President Trump would say and everybody knows it, that there have
been some 30 cases thrown out already. The only case that had any sticking
power was one in regard to how far back the judges were from the ballots,
in terms of how many feet. That's not massive voting fraud.
And that's what the president is alleging constantly, that there's this
massive fraud. What he is showing is that he definitely has a sense of
entitlement to an election victory, even if the votes don't back him up.
And his supporters appreciate hearing that. It bolsters the idea that their
guy couldn't lose unless it was stolen from him. How that translates into
his political future, we will see.
KURTZ: OK. Ben, we showed some of the Thanksgiving news conference with
reporters. It seemed like the press corps couldn't wait to get at President
Trump and vice versa, given the three weeks of no engagement. What's your
take on how each side did at that press conference?
DOMENECH: Well, I think the journalists in that situation, you know, are
very cognizant of how much President Trump has boosted their personal
careers. Their interactions with him have become, you know, the stuff of,
you know, viral memes and the like, and also have led to, you know,
significant book and speaking contracts.
They have a limited amount of time to really scrap it up with the president
in this kind of context, and I think that they were trying to take
advantage of that.
KURTZ: You're saying they're going to miss the guy --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Kennedy, we saw the president snapping -- it was Jeff -- excuse me,
Jeff Mason, Reuters correspondent for pressing him about the Electoral
College. He is a pretty mild-mannered guy. He doesn't ask prosecutorial
questions. Did you think that he deserved that tongue lashing?
MONTGOMERY: They both know what they're doing. And Ben is absolutely
right. This has become a cottage industry for reporters who covered this
president. And, you know, it's the Jim Acosta model. You don't have to be
long on talent to really turn this into a lucrative career. But the window
for both of them is closing.
The president isn't going to be president for very long, and so he has to
engage as much as he can and say, wait, I'm the president. And the press,
they're not going to have access to Joe Biden the way they have with this
president, so there's never going to be exchanges like that. It's going to
be very, very different and probably quite boring covering Joe Biden for
this press pool.
So you've got to milk it while you can. It's like being an Instagram model
or a TikTok star. You may have a hundred million followers now, but next
week you're going to be a hobo.
KURTZ: We'll come back to that in a second. But Clarence, one of the
dilemmas for the media right now is it's a mixed message. On the one hand,
it was just a few days ago the president unauthorized the GSA to go forward
with the Biden transition. And at the same time on Twitter, in an interview
like we just saw and at the news conference.
He's insisting massive fraud, stolen election and all of that. We know
which one the press is giving greater weight to.
PAGE: It's not a dilemma for the media, Howard. The reporters cover the
story. They cover news. That's their job. It's what they've been doing.
It's President Trump who has given so much color to the news conference
setting that people tune in more, if you will. I think there's a ratings
race. I mean, what were the questions they asked?
If the Electoral College so rules, will you concede? If that happens, will
you announce your candidacy for 2024? What confidence will the voters have?
These are ordinary questions. It's President Trump who gives the colorful
answers, and that's what really counts here. That's the way journalism
works, and whether the media will remember President Trump or miss him.
As I said on your show before, President Trumps is a medium. And he will
create growth in the media on his own.
KURTZ: Ben, I take your point about there's something in it for both sides
during this four -- actually six year battle between Donald Trump and the
press. From what we've seen in the post election period, do you have any
indication that the press is going to be even reasonably tough on Joe
Biden, who does have a less confrontational style, shall we say.
DOMENECH: The biggest thing I learned about the incoming Biden
administration this week is that they plan to have a pet in the White
House. I think that says a lot about the expectation that are built in here
for how the media will treat the --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: -- let's stop right there. That's actually a good point. The New
York Times and other outlets have stories today about a CBS Sunday morning
exclusive that the Biden's will be getting a cat to join their dogs in the
White House. What does that suggest to you?
DOMENECH: Well, it just suggests to me that this is going to be the tone.
We're going to learn about Tony Blinken's ability with the guitar (ph).
We're going to learn about how nice these folks are. We're not actually
going to learn about the policy questions that we never really got answers
to during the course of this past elections because of all of the
restrictions and because of the distance Joe Biden was allowed to have as a
candidate.
I think that unfortunately that's going to lead to even higher levels of
distrust in the press as we move forward, if you can even imagine it,
Howie. Because people really do want answers to basic things like what is
the Biden policy going to be when it comes to reopening schools, how is he
going to go about in achieving that, is that even going to be a priority
for them? Still, you know, major things that we don't know the answers to.
KURTZ: And on that point, Kennedy, we're a little short on time. I mean,
Biden right now is not president, so the questions are necessarily about
what will you do or what will you say. But after January 20th, don't you
think there going to be some toughening up on the part of the press corps
just for their own self-preservation.
MONTGOMERY: I think there will be frustration. And you know, again, the
New York Times digital subscriptions are up 300 percent since 2016, so they
are going to miss miss him. But you have potentially a ton of warmongers
who are going to be a part of this administration, and the press really
should be asking questions about what this administration intends to do
with regimes like Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, and Libya, and Syria.
And other parts of the world that Anthony Blinken has screwed up so far.
And I don't care about how well he fingers the frets.
KURTZ: Fair enough. You know, just to give you an idea of the tone, CNN's
Dana Bash this morning conducting an interview with a Republicans senator,
said the president is undermining the democratic process, and one time that
might have been a question, but now it's a statement. All right, let me get
a break here. When we come back, the media uproar over the president's
pardon of Michael Flynn, and later, we'll check in with Frank Luntz. Stay
with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Many pundits are apoplectic over President Trump's pardon of
Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who had pleaded guilty
to lying to the FBI, and whose case Bill Barr's Justice Department tried to
dismiss. But others say Flynn has been railroaded.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
UNKNOWN: Roger Stone got his sentence commuted. Michael Flynn today got a
complete pardon, why? He fought it. He shut his mouth. He never said
anything about Trump.
UNKNOWN: At every step along the way, Donald Trump and his cronies misused
their power to help Michael Flynn escape justice time and time and time
again.
UNKNOWN: This is great news. I know you feel the same way, because we know
he was entrapped by a group of people out for a Trump scalp.
UNKNOWN: Flynn was treated differently. They wanted to catch him. They
wanted him to make a mistake. We are not a country with two justice
systems.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
KURTZ (on camera): Ben Domenech, whether or not you think the FBI had a
strong case against Mike Flynn, and he did plead guilty twice, the press is
clearly characterizing this as a miscarriage of justice.
DOMENECH: Well, I do think that in this instance there's so much of a
strong defense to make for Michael Flynn and the way that he was treated. I
mean, if you actually just look at the facts of the case and the
experience, it was very clear that the FBI really didn't have any kind of
surety that they had even caught him in a lie or that he even believed that
he was lying to them.
This was a technicality that was used as the basis for an investigation
that obviously changed the course of Donald Trump's presidency. And I think
this is kind of a book end to that. But I want to give you just a
perspective on the double standard that's involved. John Brennan, who is a
paid media figure now, the former head of the CIA, is someone who we know
for a fact spied on Congress, spied on elected representatives of the
American people over the torture report.
And yet, he is allowed to just come and go, free of any kind of
ramifications for that. Mike Flynn gets put in the position that he's in,
and there's just a completely different standard in terms of his treatment.
I think that this is going to be a case people will look back to in the
future and analyze in a lot of different ways as one that altered the case
of this presidency.
And I think that's going to be something historic in terms of our
perspective on the double standard in which people are treated when caught
in technicalities.
KURTZ: All right. Well, Brennan is a cable news contributor. He would --
and his allies would argue that he was conducting legitimate investigations
and not spying. But Clarence, there's no question that President Trump has
the constitutional right to use his pardon power. But some of the pundits
were saying, well, he's trying to protect himself against what Mike Flynn
might say.
Sorry, the guys was national security adviser for 22 days. I mean, he went
through a long Russia investigation, because this all has to do with his
conversations with the former Russian ambassador. So does that have any
validity?
PAGE: Well, I'm one of those who says that the Russia investigation was
legitimate. It made sense. And Michael Flynn's behavior was highly
questionable, and that -- as we can see, even he lied to try to cover it
up, and that's what he was convicted for. I'm not losing any sleep over
Michael Flynn. I think most people really care about what this has to say
about who else President Trump may pardon.
And these slow news days around Thanksgiving, yes, we are in a holiday
weekend, aren't we. You asked a lot of questions about what's going to
happen in the future. And I think this says a lot about who Trump pardons
and why.
KURTZ: Well, let me get to Ben on that, because there's been a whole lot
of media speculation when you include the president's commutation of Roger
Stone's sentence. Then next up, he's going to pardon Rick Gates, George
Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, maybe Steve Bannon. Is there anything to base
that on? And if he did that, would that mar his image?
DOMENECH: The president has the capability to pardon, you know, anyone
that he wants. I actually don't think that we'll see as much of a wave of
pardons as some of the media has anticipated. But I remember being on this
network four years ago right after President Obama, you know, pardoned the
unrepentant terrorist, Oscar Lopez Rivera, someone who has never apologized
for his crimes and for the murders that he helped inspire.
And so, you know, from my perspective, these pardons always -- almost
always end up looking like black marks on people's records. You recall that
Bill Clinton pardons as well. Though I do think that in this case, just
given the momentous ramifications of this Flynn investigation on the
presidency, that it's going to have a little bit of a different context.
KURTZ: Well, Clarence, Ben has -- took it right off my question here,
which is, you know, Bill Clinton on his last day in office pardoning the
fugitive financier Mark Rich. George H.W. Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger,
and former national security adviser Robert McFarland, gotten caught up in
the Iran contra affair. It's not like modern presidents haven't done this.
Donald Trump didn't exactly invent this practice.
PAGE: Well, I mean, the president's right to pardon is beyond question. We
can talk about why the framers give him that right, but that right is
beyond question. What does it say about the legacy of the president? That's
what we're really asking at a time like this when those pardons come down.
And the big question with President Trump what nobody's mentioned is that
will he pardon himself?
KURTZ: That's a legal can of worms. All right, unfortunately, we lost our
video connection to Kennedy. I want to thank her for being on the program.
Thank you, guys, as well, Clarence, Ben. Up next, how the press is covering
the COVID surge and the sharply different Trump and Biden approaches to the
pandemic.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: The Coronavirus is continuing a rather chilling surge, with 2
million new cases over a two-week period, and death rates starting to
approach the level of last spring, as high as 2,300 a day. But conservative
commentators say the country wouldn't be on the verge of approving at least
two new vaccines if not for President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
UNKNOWN: If Donald Trump had not put this in motion back in January, you
can only imagine where we would be at as we turn the corner into December.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
KURTZ (on camera): Joe Biden made a soft spoken speech about his extended
family canceling their Thanksgiving plans, not the kind of presidential
address that journalists are accustomed to.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
JOE BIDEN (D) PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Those who have lost a
loved one, I know that this time of year can be especially difficult.
Believe me, I know. The federal government can't do this alone. Each of us
has a responsibility in our own lives to do what we can do.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
KURTZ (on camera): Joining us you now is Fox News correspondent, Griff
Jenkins. And Griff, that is a different kind of speech. Joe Biden didn't
attack anybody. He didn't have any sizzling soundbites. But some in the
press are questioning whether that kind of approach, that kind of plea to
the public, can really make much progress against this pandemic.
GRIFF JENKINS, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, we'll see. And you're right,
Howie. It's not what you expect from an incoming president who might want
to project strength, but he's appealing to the emotions of fatigued
Americans. And actually, if you covered Joe Biden in town halls during the
primaries, he did try to emotionally connect with crowds.
He seems to be trying it in a national address. But if you follow the
facts, the country did see these massive spikes after the summer holidays,
Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day. And so now, he's trying to, I guess,
be honest that the worst is coming. We're in for rough days ahead. And
while people are tired of, quote, "hanging on."
He's trying to get people to make sacrifices, and he's also got to deal
with some hypocrisy in the part of his own party, like, California's
Governor Gavin Newsom, and Denver's Mayor, Michael Hancock, getting caught
in hypocritical failings to lead by example.
KURTZ: Right. They tell everybody to stay home, and then they get on
airplanes and so forth. Look, I'll give President Trump a lot of credit for
the breakthrough of these Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, Operation Warpspeed,
because he would've gotten the blame if the whole thing got bogged down.
But when the president in a Thanksgiving message said I encourage all
Americans to gather in homes and places of worship.
Offer a prayer of thanks to God, that's against the CDC advice. And when I
ask that question -- look, I understand why people want to see their family
or go to church or synagogue at this time of year.
JENKINS: Yeah. His progress on the vaccines, which we may see within a
matter of weeks, runs contrary to his failed messaging on this. He's
constantly undermined his own government's warnings and data. You saw this
morning, Howie, on the Sunday morning shows, on Fox News Sunday, Surgeon
General Jerome Adams saying it's going to get worse.
And he's worried about how he handled it, Fauci, Birx, also out on other
shows, trying to say that you've got to listen now to the medical experts
and the CDC that are recommending against traveling and gatherings in large
numbers.
KURTZ: Let me jump in. National Review editor, Rich Lowry, says there's a
coming backlash once Biden takes office against all of the restrictions and
curfews and mask mandates and all that. That may be right. But if that's
true, wouldn't some of it be directed at some of the Republican governors
in states like Utah and North Dakota and Ohio, who are also cracking down
trying to beat COVID-19?
JENKINS: That's right. And look, if Thanksgiving was any indication of how
the messaging went south, just wait until you start telling people to
cancel Christmas and that Santa's staying home this year. You're going to
have those Republican governors and Republican leaders in cities trying to
get an honest, serious health -- you know, you're trying to protect
people's health here, and they're going to have a tough job in doing that.
KURTZ: Yeah. The governors are on the frontlines, as we have learned.
Griff Jenkins, great to see you. Have a happy holiday. Coming up, Donald
Trump says there's no way Joe Biden could have gotten 80 million votes.
Frank Luntz on the post-election battle between the president and the
press.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): When President Trump was sparring with reporters and
insisting he actually won the election, he singled out one number as
totally implausible.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is not a candidate that
could get 80 million votes. This is just not the candidate. This is not a
candidate that beat Barack Hussein Obama with the black voter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now here in Washington, Frank Luntz, the
veteran Republican pollster and, Frank, a White House official the other
day sent me a note saying POTUS one should read this article. It is a piece
in The Federalist by J.B. Shurk saying journalists should be skeptical if
Biden got eight million votes, how did he perform so well in the suburbs.
But is that so bizarre when President Trump got 74 million votes compared
to 62 million last time?
FRANK LUNTZ, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: It's a responsibility of journalists to
be skeptical and to challenge the facts, to provide honest and accurate
information. I think that once again, the media got it wrong.
I want to read you a quote, because you may recognize it. They said that
democrats were a solid bet to hang on to the Senate. They said many of the
races were tight as a tick. So what did journalists have to say for
themselves now? Why are they so slavishly vetted to conventional wisdom?
You know who wrote that, Howie. This is your quote from 2002. Not meant to
show you up. It's meant to show up your profession. I want you to know I
keep your newspaper from 18 years ago. That's how much I respect you. They
got it wrong. They got the polling wrong. They got it wrong.
KURTZ: Hardly the first time. Well, on that point, the Trump centric media
don't seem to have focused very much this time around on the fact that
Republicans did far better, particularly in the House, than anybody,
pundits or just about anybody else had predicted.
LUNTZ: Well, this is my point. That they were predicting for Kevin
McCarthy that he was going to lose 10 10 or 15 seats. In the end, he's
going to win 50, 60, maybe 70. He's going to be at least 212, maybe 213
seats. That's a hair's breath away from control.
If you look at the numbers over the last 40 years or so, in the first
election of an off-year, Kevin McCarthy is actually more likely to become
speaker if these Republicans learn how to work together, learn how to
cooperate.
But the key here, Howie, is that the press doesn't see it, they don't hear
it, they did not see Trump's election in 2016, they did not see what was
happening in the Senate in 2020, and they did not see what was happening in
the House.
And my issue is that as a pollster, our job is to give accurate information
to the media so that they can then tell the story in a precise and pristine
way. That's not happening.
KURTZ: OK.
LUNTZ: And it didn't happen again and it hasn't happened for decades.
KURTZ: Well, pollsters have had their own problems as we discussed. And
also, the press didn't see Joe Biden winning the democratic nomination. The
president in his interview with Maria Bartiromo hit that, how Biden
couldn't have gotten 80 million votes, pretty hard.
But let me ask you, many liberals have accused the president of undermining
democracy. The Washington Post has a long piece today saying he's duping
his supporters. Is that overheated on the part of the press or is it simply
covering the president's repeated and charges of a stolen election, a case
that he hasn't been able to successfully make yet in court?
LUNTZ: And that's the point right there, that he's not been able to make
it successfully in court. He has every right to make any claim he wants to.
The media has every right to analyze that claim and report as what he is
saying. And at a certain point, you accept the results. At a certain point,
you have to move on.
And I'm looking at the bigger picture. I'm looking at the percentage of
Americans, which is right now over 50 percent. In Georgia, which is the key
state looking ahead, 54 percent of Trump voters think the election was
stolen.
You go back to 2000, the last time something like this happened, there's
only a third of Gore voters who thought the election was stolen. I'm
concerned that it is going to be impossible to promote, to unify, to find
some way to defend this democracy when you have this constant challenge of
it. It has every right to be made but if it fails --
KURTZ: So with all the president's tweets about a rigged election and all
the charges he has made and he did so with Maria, he's also going after NFL
players who kneel, he's going after AOC and he's going after Fox News, but
do you think, therefore, if you're worried about the impact on future
confidence in elections that the president ought to ease up on this or to
take a different tone, leaving aside whether he concedes at all?
LUNTZ: It is not for me. I'm just a citizen. It's not for me to say --
KURTZ: You're expressing concern. You're expressing concern about voter
confidence in the fundamentals of American democracy.
LUNTZ: In a public way. I know what station I'm on. I know what viewers
are watching. It's reasonably likely that Donald Trump is still watching
this. I'm not asking him to stop. I am telling him to consider the
ramifications. I am telling him to consider the consequences, for in the
end, far more important than the election of a single individual is the
health and trust of the democratic processes.
And I remind you, Howie, when people take an oath, they don't take an oath
to the president, they take an oath to the Constitution, they take an oath
to the system of government. It is not just about presidential elections.
It's also about our faith and trust in freedom.
And, yes, I am afraid that that is being worn away by what has happened
over the last few weeks, and quite frankly what happened in the weeks
before the election.
KURTZ: Frank, one last question. We're a little short on time. There have
been a number of media reports about the president telling his confidants
that yes, he knows he will probably have to leave on January 20th, but that
a lot of this messaging about stolen elections is really about the next
four years, whether he runs again in 2024.
In other words, trying to maintain a strong, enthusiastic support among the
people who -- which is nearly half the country who support him. What do you
think about that?
LUNTZ: I think that that would be so cynical and so horrible. And if that
is the case, then it is his responsibility. I would assume that that is not
the case. I would assume -- I take the president at his word.
But if that is the case, deliberately upsetting and angering a significant
segment of the population for your own benefit, then that needs to be
exposed and people need to be held accountable.
KURTZ: Well, we don't know exactly what's going to happen. I think it's
fair to say that whether he's in or out of office, President Trump will be
a major media figure for some time to come. He knows how to command the
media's attention.
It is always good to see you, Frank Luntz. Thanks very much for joining us.
LUNTZ: Thank you.
KURTZ: After the break, the media heaping praise on Joe Biden's early
cabinet picks and his first post-election interview you with Lester Holt.
Is he getting kid gloves treatment?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): The media verdict on Joe Biden's initial cabinet picks
is that they're somewhat boring and predictable collection of Washington
insiders, but they're drawing lots of praise for their knowledge and
experience.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: It does mean the return of competence, it
does mean the return of decency, and it does mean the return of humanity to
the White House.
FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: He's found very, very bright people who are also
very experienced and who are also very creative and flexible about the way
they think.
JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: If Trump appoints somebody that he knows
really well, the media calls him a Trump loyalist. But if Biden appoints
someone he knows really well, oh, it's a long-time advisor, a very close
confidant.
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: If you look at the backgrounds where almost
everyone Biden says he plans to hire, these people are lobbyists. They're
consultant. They are shills for this big multinational, that big
multinational.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now to analyze the coverage, Gayle Trotter,
who hosts the Right in DC podcast, and Mara Liasson, NPR's national
political reporter and a Fox News contributor.
Gayle, in terms of this early praise and regardless of what you think of
the policies of these people, the real media message seems to be or do you
agree with this, they're experienced, they're seasoned, and they're
bringing normalcy back after years of Trump being in chaos.
GAYLE TROTTER, COMMENTATOR, HOST OF "RIGHT IN DC" PODCAST: The media
coverage, as you said, seems to be flattering and positive. They seem to
like Biden's picks. They keep emphasizing the fact that they have long
records of public service and expertise.
But I think the media like Biden's picks but they're not in love with
Biden's picks. They reflect the far-left sentiment that they would like to
see Biden picking more people from the left for his cabinet.
And I think you can see the contrast in the coverage of Biden's supposed
cabinet picks compared to Donald Trump's cabinet picks or the media
coverage then was skeptical and negative. So we've got flattering and
positive of Biden's picks, when Donald Trump did not get the same
treatment, his picks were --
KURTZ: Right.
TROTTER: -- they were skeptical of them and negative.
KURTZ: I think you make a fair point that the left isn't in love with
these initial nominees. Mara, whether it's Tony Blinken for secretary of
state or Jake Sullivan or Janet Yellen or John Kerry, you're talking to
(INAUDIBLE) these people don't have plenty of experience.
What about the clip we heard from Jesse Watters saying, you know, Trump's
people were loyalists when he knew them through his previous life --
MARA LIASSON, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER FOR NPR:
Yeah.
KURTZ: -- and Biden's are just confidants.
LIASSON: Yeah. Well, first of all, when you talk about how the media
treated them, certainly Fox treated Trump's picks more kindly than MSNBC
did and now vice versa.
However, when you think back to the people that Trump picked in 2016, 2017,
yes, some of them were people he knew for a long time, but other people,
Jim Mattis, Rex Tillerson, interesting outside pick, lots of experience, he
knew Vladimir Putin, Jeff Sessions, certainly qualified, regardless of what
you think about his politics to run the Department of Justice. And
remember, the adults in the room, John Kelly.
So I think that the reaction to the cabinet of Trump and Biden has been
mixed from the media. It hasn't been all one thing. But there's no doubt
that the transition itself is being covered differently because the
transitions are so different. One was chaotic, one threw out all the work
that Chris Christie did, and the other one is plotting and what we would
call more normal.
KURTZ (on camera): Interesting that Tony Blinken was CNN's global affairs
analyst, a number of people at MSNBC now leaving that network contributors
to join the Biden transition. Biden did his first post-election interview
with NBC nightly news anchor Lester Hold. Let's take a look at some of
that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LESTER HOLT, NBC ANCHOR: This lineup, those you selected so far, a lot of
familiar faces among them. What do you say to those who are wondering if
you're trying to create a third Obama term?
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is not a third Obama
term because we face a totally different world than we faced in the
Obama/Biden administration.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Gayle, Joe Biden gets a lot of softballs from reporters
but did Lester Holt at least press him on a couple of things?
TROTTER: This interview is a perfect example of my earlier point. Lester
Holt was asking him things like are you going to appoint far leftists like
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and Biden demurred.
Lester Holt asked Joe Biden if he was going to pursue investigations at the
federal level against Donald Trump, and Biden deflected that and he said he
swipe to try Trump and then he said that the state investigations will
continue.
And I think this interview by Lester Holt shows that the mainstream media
does not love Biden's picks and they're egging him on to the left. And
you're going to see that continue because this is just the first group of
potential cabinet members.
KURTZ: Right.
TROTTER: So we're going to see more pressure from the mainstream media for
this.
KURTZ (on camera): Yeah, egging him on could also be looking for conflict,
which is what we in the press do. You mentioned the question about what
would happen to Donald Trump after the election. Let's play this other
sound bite from the Holt interview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOLT: Some Democrats want investigations to go forward against President
Trump after he leaves office. Do you support that?
BIDEN: I will not do what this president does and use the Justice
Department as my vehicle to insist that something happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Mara, that was a terrific question because there are
some liberal commentators and democrats who, like, Donald Trump must be
brought to justice and Biden had to figure out how to handle that.
LIASSON: Yeah. I mean, the message from Biden on this question is the
Department of Justice is going to be independent and not going to
interfere. On the other hand, the rest of the answer that you just played
at the top of was how the state prosecutions or something that he has
absolutely no control over.
It doesn't sound like Joe Biden has a big appetite for having the federal
government prosecute Donald Trump.
KURTZ: Gayle, I've got 20 seconds for you to chime in on this.
TROTTER: Well, after railroading General Flynn, who was granted a full
pardon this week, thankfully, I can see that Biden would like to stay out
of railroading people and using the FBI and the Justice Department to
target enemies. So I think that's a good choice.
KURTZ: All right. Gayle Trotter and Mara Liasson, great to see you. Happy
Thanksgiving. Appreciate you being here.
TROTTER: Happy Thanksgiving.
KURTZ: Still to come, Donald Trump and Andrew Cuomo -- thank you --
actually agreed on something. Cuomo and Trump, and it involves the press.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): Fox News has settled a lawsuit by the parents of Seth
Rich, a young DNC staffer who was tragically killed in Washington four
years ago in what police believe was a failed robbery.
Joel and Mary rich say they are pleased with the undisclosed terms -- quote
-- "The settlement with Fox News closes another chapter in our efforts to
mourn the murder of our beloved Seth, whom we miss every single day."
Fox said in a statement, we are pleased with the resolution of the claims
and hope this enables Mr. and Mrs. Rich to find a small degree of peace and
solace moving forward.
Fox said in an online article, which was later retracted for not getting
proper editorial scrutiny and not meeting the network's standards, the
investigators believe Rich was killed because he was somehow involved in
the Wikileaks hacking of Democratic e-mails.
The family had also asked Sean Hannity to stop raising questions about
their son's death and he said he would stop talking about it after
receiving their heartfelt note. There was no evidence for this conspiracy
theory and hopefully this closes a very sad episode.
The New York Times ran a piece on Jared and Ivanka being unlikely to return
to Manhattan. Instead, instead expanding a home they have on the
president's Bedminster gold course.
The headline -- the end of President Trump's time in office leaves his
daughter Ivanka Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as well-to-do
refugees but they appear to have plans in New Jersey.
The Times then deleted the phrase well-to-do refugees after online critics
said that should refer only to refugees fleeing their countries and
sometimes not welcome by the administration.
But why are so many snarky stories being done and written about Jared and
Ivanka? It was a dumb headline and they are fair game for criticism as top
White House officials, but too many pundits are revelling in their D.C.
departure. Times columnist Frank Bruni said maybe they should go live in
North Korea or Saudi Arabia. Come on.
YouTube has suspended the One America News Network for a week for breaching
its policy against posting misinformation about the pandemic. The Google-
owned video service penalized OAN for describing a COVID treatment as a
cure for the disease and barred the network from making money on its
existing videos, though OAN can reapply for that program.
Now get this. Andrew Cuomo and Donald Trump would seem to have very little
in common other than growing up in Queens. But it turns out that New York's
Democratic governor also has a rather dim view of the media, saying they're
taking on a nastier and disrespectful tone with some journalists asking --
quote -- "really biased questions." This after Cuomo chastised reporters at
a recent briefing.
Here's what he told radio station WAMC.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY) (voice-over): The way they question President
Trump at some of these press conferences is just -- I've never heard that
tone. There's supposed to be decorum to the institution. If anyone used the
tone that they use with me in some of these press conferences -- if you did
with my old man, you'd be lucky if he didn't walk around and deck you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Well, I knew Mario Cuomo. I don't think he actually
punched any press people. But it sounds like Andrew Cuomo and Donald Trump
might enjoy commiserating about their media antagonists. Neither one right
is now happy with their press corp.
That's it for this edition of MEDIA BUZZ. I'm Howard Kurtz. I hope you're
having a great Thanksgiving weekend. We also hope you'll like our Facebook
page. We post my daily columns there. Let's continue the conversation on
Twitter at Howard Kurtz. Check out my podcast, "Media Buzzmeter." You can
subscribe at Apple iTunes or Google podcast or on your Amazon device.
We are back here next Sunday, 11:00 Eastern. I hope you'll come back for
more of what we do here, trying to give you a fair, down the middle take on
media coverage, fair to both sides. See you then with the latest buzz.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
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