Trump transforms COVID aid debate

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Trump transforms COVID aid debate

As media charge he botched the bill.

This is a rush transcript from "MediaBuzz" January 3, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS HOST (on camera):  This is MEDIA BUZZ. I'm Howard
Kurtz.

Happy New Year as we begin our first edition of 2021.

A bigger COVID relief bill is officially dead today. President Trump was
pounded by the press when he rejected the original bill, then signed the
legislation without a single change, meaning the stimulus checks are just
600 bucks, not the $2,000 that Trump belatedly demanded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL, HOST, MSNBC:  Donald Trump wasn't actually trying to do
the job of president when he said he wanted to have the $2,000 payments. He
was just trying to get attention.

UNKNOWN:  He should be supporting $2,000 --

(CROSSTALK)

UNKNOWN:  So, the vast scene is --

UNKNOWN:  -- because, you know, the American people deserve it. But the
fact of the matter is that, we could have got this a long time ago if
Democrats didn't play politics and wait until after the election.

DON LEMON, HOST, CNN:  This president gained nothing with all these antics.
Nothing. Just needlessly creating chaos because he could.

UNKNOWN:  Some people who haven't worked for the last five years all of
them are going to get a $2,000 check that doesn't make sense, and so, I
think you'll see this divide in the Republican Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera):  But a strange thing happened as the president kept
insisting on bigger stimulus checks, the House approved the $2,000 checks
which Democrats wanted all along and the pressure fueled by the media
shifted to Mitch McConnell. The majority leader conjured up a bill with
bigger stimulus checks and a commission to investigate Trump's allegations
of election fraud.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN:  When you put the poison pill in their $2,000 survival check that
the Democrats support, he's killing it. Any senator who votes for
McConnell's poison pill is voting to kill the $2,000 payment.

JASON CHAFFETZ, Fox News CONTRIBUTOR:  The stories and these words that say
hey, Mitch McConnell is trying to block this, I think it's inaccurate. You
can actually be able to tackle some of the things that Republicans have
been insisting upon and that is the election integrity and going back and
doing an investigation of that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ:  Joining us now to analyze the coverage in New York, Kat Timpf of
the Greg Gutfeld show and Fox Nation, Gillian Turner, a Fox News
correspondent and anchor here in Washington, and Richard Fowler, a radio
talk show host and a Fox News contributor.

Kat, the pundits are almost unanimous that President Trump waited,
shouldn't have waited until both Houses has passed the COVID bill to
criticize it for wasteful spending and too small stimulus checks. I think
what the press misses is that he changed the political debate and put
pressure on the Senate. Your thoughts.

KAT TIMPF, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR:  Yes, he certainly did, and of course, the
media will take most stories and have them sort of centered through this
lens of Donald Trump, particularly if it can be negative, right. Very
little credit for getting the vaccine out quickly, now that there's
distribution issues it's all over the place.

And I think that one issue with making all of the coverage so Trump-
centric, is you can kind of miss other of things like Congress, for
example, quite ridiculous. The one they did vote on had the $600 checks in
it. None of them read that. They got that about six hours before they voted
on it. To me, that seems a little bit insane. People aren't really talking
about that because it's all about Trump's golfing, what Trump said, --

KURTZ:  Yes.

TIMPF:  -- you've done this, you've done that, and any aim to criticize
him.

KURTZ:  Only a 5,000-page bill.

TIMPF:  Yes.

KURTZ:  Gillian, reporters and pundits say that Mitch McConnell by
combining the $2,000 stimulus checks with the president's demand for an
election fraud investigation commission, not to mention ending legal
immunity for social media giants, that effectively killed the bill which is
what McConnell wanted.

GILLIAN TURNER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  He did. That's exactly what Mitch
McConnell did. He slow-rolled it and then killed it by patching together
issues that have nothing to do with each other, making this weird like
Frankenstein type bill.

I want to push back on something that a couple anchors said in the montage
you played, which is that President Trump got nothing out of this. Pushing
for $2,000 at the eleventh hour. He got nothing except credit from millions
of Americans for wanting to get more money directly into their wallets.

At the end of the day, Mitch McConnell was the one who had to swallow the
poison pill. President Trump made him own the fact that millions of
Americans are going to get $1,400 less than he would like them to do.
President Trump may very well consider that a very big political victory at
this moment.

KURTZ:  Yes, that's a good point. Richard, conservative commentators says
it was Democrats who were playing politics by refusing to pass this bill or
have a compromise with Republicans before the election because they didn't
want to give Donald Trump credit during the campaign.

RICHARD FOWLER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR:  I don't know if I agree with that
but I do agree with Gillian, right. Let's be very clear and think about how
we got here.

In May, the Democrats passed the Heroes Act. Was the Heroes Act a perfect
bill in the eyes of Republicans? Absolutely it wasn't. But the Heroes Act
had a lot of things in it that would have benefited the American people.

Mitch McConnell, Republicans draw their -- dragged their feet on it and
here we sit today when Donald Trump has asked the American people - -has
asked Congress to give an additional $2,000 to the American people, Mitch
McConnell is standing in the way.

When you look at the coverage of it, what you see is a clear divide. Local
media has actually covered this story perfectly. Because what they have
done, is they dig into it and said why can't the American people, who many
of them are suffering, many of them who are unemployed, many of them who
are trying to figure out how to make ends meet at the kitchen table, why
can't they get this $2,000.

And the mainstream media has made the story about this age-old battle in
Washington between Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. When it
really should be a battle for what's best for the American people and on
this one Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans are in the wrong here.

KURTZ:  Kat, you made the point about much of the coverage like on every
story Trump-centric. But by delaying the signing of the bill after
Christmas Eve, the president did unfortunately delay an unemployment
benefits for millions of Americans, and again we have to come back to this
question the media asked which is why didn't he weigh in sooner when he
might have had a chance of at least getting somewhat larger checks by
putting pressure on Republicans while the thing was being negotiated.

TIMPF:  Right. Look, I certainly don't think that there was ever really too
much hope of this actually happening this way especially since, you know,
our lawmakers don't work in the holidays. You know, we sometimes do. But
they certainly don't.

But, look, and I'm not saying that Trump doesn't deserve any criticism
here. I think he does. I think we should criticize everyone in government
whenever there's something that deserves it. I do think, though, that when
so much of the coverage is slanted so negative and they avoid anything that
could be positive, a lot of the people that do strongly support the
president, that makes them a lot less likely to listen to any criticism at
all.

KURTZ:  Part of the media focus here, Gillian, has been that the
Republicans were put into a box where they had to make a choice between
supporting President Trump, many of them don't want to obviously alienate
the president, and standing up for their principles.

Because a lot of them were on record as saying, you know, they didn't --
some of them didn't want $600, they didn't like the idea of large stimulus
payments which cost another half trillion dollar if you went to the $2,000
checks.

TURNER:  What I don't understand, Howie, is how Republicans botched the
messaging on opposition to the $2,000 check so badly. By my count, I think
I've seen or heard two senators on TV talk to the media about why they on
oppose an increase of $1,400. I saw Pat Toomey and I saw Lindsey Graham.

And what they elucidated is, we don't oppose more money in the pockets of
Americans -- more money in the pockets of Americans who really need it, we
oppose more pockets in the money of Americans who don't need it. For
example, everybody who makes under $75,000, including people who haven't
lost a dime of a days' wage during COVID, like hundreds of thousands of
government workers.

What Pat Toomey said and made a great case of on our air last weekend was I
want this aid to go out. I want it to be more targeted. I don't want it to
go to everybody. I don't want it to be a blanket salary cap.

KURTZ:  Yes.

TURNER:  I want it to go to Americans who have lost jobs, businesses and
homes during the pandemic. That makes an awful lot of sense.

KURTZ:  And on that point, Richard, while the $2,000 stimulus checks was
the quote, "liberal position," the Washington Post broke with the pack (Ph)
at its editorial page said that rather than targeting the neediest folks,
you -- that bill, the bigger checks we'd be giving be money to families
making as much as $350,000 a year, some of whom weren't hurt at all by this
awful pandemic.

FOWLER:  Well, I think that's a larger problem that we have with the
stimulus relief to begin with. Right? You see so many stories and local
coverage about the fact that Joel Osteen's church gets $4.4 million than
Ben's Chili Bowl, an establishment here in Washington, D.C., black owned
and operated was begging to barely get enough money to keep their doors
open.

And that story is a story that happens in every city, where small
restaurants and small local businesses couldn't get paycheck protection but
large businesses, and people who had an ability to have -- to have a
foothold in Washington was able to do that which I think is a larger
problem with how this sort of stimulus was done and how coronavirus relief
was done overall and it should be --

KURTZ:  Right.

FOWLER:  -- an indictment on the entire Congress and an indictment on the
entire federal government on how they work --

KURTZ:  Right.

FOWLER:  -- to make sure that the small businesses, and those in need
actually got the money instead of big businesses.

KURTZ:  Right. Meanwhile, Trump's fading clout in Washington was
underscored on Friday when all but seven Senate Republicans joined
Democrats in overriding his veto of the big defense spending bill.

Let me turn now to the problems and the rollout of the vaccine. I've said
over and over again, Kat, the president deserves a lot of credit that he's
not getting from the media on Operation Warp Speed. But now that we have a
situation where the program has fallen short of its own goals which was by
the end of 2020, 20 million Americans to be vaccinated. And instead it was
two and a half million. The press is now very quick to pile on, it's only
about Trump, it's all Trump's fault.

TIMPF:  Of course, right? That's not surprising to me whatsoever. We're
seeing a lot of the blame game right now. Federal says it's the states,
states says, it's the federal. And it just drives me nuts. Because, you
know, how come no one is saying all right, cool, but let's figure it out
and solve this because this is a serious thing. Right. Let's get this done.

And the truth is, something that hasn't been covered very much, is that
there has been issues with government bureaucracy sort of slowing our fight
against this virus. Certainly, in this case, and also even back at the
beginning of the pandemic with testing and there not being approval of
people other than the CDC to do testing for this.

So, a lot of the bureaucracy can get away which is why I personally I go a
little go crazy when everyone thinks every problem can best be solved by
the government. Because there's a lot of bureaucracy there that can slow it
all down.

KURTZ:  Yes.

TIPMF:  And we see a coverage of a blame game, not coverage about
solutions.

KURTZ:  Right. And Gillian, briefly, of course we now have the tragic
figure 350,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. The president, who is
understandably touting the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine as a great success,
now tweeting that it is up to the states to distribute the vaccines.

Now obviously, the states play an important role and have to share some of
the blame but is this the typical political blame shifting that goes on in
D.C.?

TURNER:  Yes, and there's plenty of blame to go around as when you
mentioned, Howie, over 350,000 people -- Americans are now dead. Plenty of
blame for the federal government, plenty of blame for the states.

What I will say is that President Trump has made clear from day one that
the way he sees this, whether it's the whole issue of preventing and
treating the vaccine, whether it's regulations about mask wearing, whether
it's the race to a vaccine, whether it's who makes the decisions about who
gets the vaccine first, he said you guys, the states, this is up to you.
You know your constituents best. You know who needs --

KURTZ:  Right. Right.

TURNER:  -- who needs access to this stuff most urgently. So, a lot of
state officials have their head in the sand and are now getting called out
for it.

KURTZ:  One more COVID note, a sad one, which is Larry King is now in a Los
Angeles hospital battling COVID-19. The talk show legend who fuse light
entertainment with serious politics changed the face of broadcasting, is 87
years old. I've known Larry for a long time I want to wish the best for him
and his family at this difficult moment.

Ahead, we'll talk to Jedediah Bila. But when we come back, the media no
longer scoffing at the growing number of Republican lawmakers who plan to
challenge the Electoral College results on Wednesday. How much controversy
will that unleash?  

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera):  The media had been portraying it as a fringe movement.
A small group of Republican lawmakers led by Senator Josh Hawley, planning
to use Wednesday's routine acceptance, usually routine, of the Electoral
College results to push President Trump's claims of widespread election
fraud.

But that changed dramatically yesterday when Ted Cruz and 10 over GOP
senators and senators-elect said they'll demand a special commission to
conduct a 10-day audit in disputed swing states won by Joe Biden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALI VELSHI, HOST, MSNBC:  It's either for democracy or of it's against
democracy. Josh Hawley has come out very clearly against democracy today.

GREGG JARRETT, FOX NEWS LEGAL ANALYST:  Senator Hawley's move is in
conflict with the establishment rhinos and the radical Dems, the left-wing
national media and corporate America. All of whom have dismissed any talk
of election irregularities.

ANA CABRERA, ANCHOR, CNN:  These lawmakers aren't even claiming they have
evidence. This is just one more vain attempt to thwart the free and fair
election of Joe Biden as 46th President of the United States. It's un-
Democratic. It's un-American. And it will fail.

JEANINE PIRRO, FOX NEWS HOST:  January 6th will tell us whether there are
any in Congress willing to battle for the America that those soldiers
fought for, the one that you and I believe in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera):  Kat Timpf, Republican senators who oppose these efforts
say it creates an unnecessary spectacle that with Democrats controlling the
House basically has no chance of success. But with even Vice President
Pence supporting these efforts now, at least lending rhetorical support,
doesn't that make impossible for the press to just write it off.

TIMPF:  Yes, it certainly does. And many have made the point, particularly
thinking of that editorial in the New York Post, before this effort was all
happening, that this kind of distracts from Georgia which is super
important and even perhaps might make people less likely to vote if they
think it's all rigged anyway. Maybe not. Maybe they'll be encouraged by
more volunteers looking to watch these things.

But I think, again, people are out of touch in much of the media thinking
of, you know, nobody really thinks this, nothing will really happen when
really there are a lot of people that really certainly do. And it comes
down to engaging that and being aware so you're not super blind-sided when
something like this happens.

KURTZ:  Yes. Gillian Turner, with Ted Cruz and Senate his supporters
wanting to create this special election audit commission, was last down in
1877, I think it's harder for the press to minimize this as has been
happening. I think many in the press misjudged the determination of these
opponents. You can't just write it off as in the lawsuit, the unsuccessful
lawsuit by Congress and Louie Gohmert against Mike Pence. Is it now being
elevated to a test of democracy?

TURNER:  Yes, with 12 senators backing not certifying the election results
without an audit of them, absolutely it's a test of Democrat. I will say
one of the senators who signed onto this, is Senator Marsha Blackburn, I
had the opportunity to interview her on our air yesterday within the hour
that they announced this new effort.

And one of the things I asked her was what they hoped to accomplish out of
it by delaying 10 days with an audit. And she said to me, one of her first
answers was well, you know, Gillian, there has been resistance to President
Trump and never-Trumpers in Washington, driving policy against his agenda
this entire time.

And I stopped her right here and I said, so is this political retribution?
And she then said, no, of course not. And went on to explain herself. I
think what the media is underestimating here is the opportunity that
Republicans are seeing in this politically to drive home their message
which they don't believe President-elect Biden won this fair and square.

That's what they're trying to do here. I don't believe any of them believe
a 10-day audit is going to reverse the results of the election.

KURTZ:  That's probably right. Richard Fowler, Senator Josh Hawley points
out that the media had no problem when Democrats did this in 2017 after
President Trump's election, especially in 2005 after President Bush's re-
election actually Democrats pushed that to the point where Congress had to
debate the whole thing. So, a bit of a double standard here?

FOWLER:  Listen, should the media cover this, Howie? They should. But they
should cover it for exactly what it is, spectacle. Right? Because in a
court of law just like in journalism, you have to have evidence, right? You
have you to have evidence, you have to have sources that say there was
indeed election fraud, the election was indeed -- people were taken
advantage, people were cheated.

But there's no evidence of that. We've seen many, many dozens of cases
where there was no evidence of that. So once again, you're going to see
Republicans play politics and the media will cover it but I do hope the
media covers it honestly, for exactly what it is. Fraud and an attack on
our democracy.

KURTZ:  Well, there was also no evidence during those effort by Democrats
which I guess was a symbolic protest.

FOWLER:  No. Absolutely.

KURTZ:  OK. Let me -- I've got to move on here. I've got to move on here.

(CROSSTALK)

FOWLER:  And those should be covered especially as well.

KURTZ:  Gillian -- OK. Gillian, Kat mentioned a New York Post editorial --
let's put that up -- front page piece earlier this week saying president --
Mr. President, stop the insanity, you lost the election, you're cheering
for an undemocratic coup when you have the New York Post, the Wall Street
Journal, conservative editorial page saying Trump is having a fantasies
about overturning the election, both of those newspapers share common
ownership with Fox News. What does that say about the conservative media
now turning on the president?

TURNER:  Well, it does seem that the Post and the Journal in particular --
particular have veered sharply away from President Trump over the last
couple of weeks. What underrides that, my guess is as good as yours.

I will say, though, to Richard's point a moment ago, political theater has
become an objection oxymoron here in Washington. I would argue that's all
that people have left these days. The act is as important as how the votes
turn out. Not for the millions of Americans who depend on these people to
actually do things for them.

But in terms of Washington's perspective on itself, the media's perspective
on Washington, to dismiss something as political theater or spectacle is to
really miss the point.

KURTZ:  Kat, I'll give you the last 20 seconds.

TIMPF:  Yes. Look, it is something that is being taken very seriously. And
I agree with Gillian, unfortunately, that political theater is basically
just what politics is, instead of doing things like reading bills, they're
busy looking at how to look to voters on TV, on the internet, and I'm not
surprised to see this and I think we're going to see a lot more stuff like
this.

KURTZ:  Yes. The reason there's a fertile climate for this, is that every
poll shows the majority of Republicans do not believe that Joe Biden won
the election fairly.

TIMPF:  Right.

KURTZ:  Despite all the lawsuits, investigations, and so forth.

All right. Thanks so much to Gillian Turner, Kat Timpf, Richard Fowler.

Up next, covering Georgia runoffs with control of the Senate hanging in the
balance. Mike Emanuel is standing by.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera):  The media have turned Tuesday's two Senate runoffs in
Georgia into a national election for the obvious reason that if the
Republican incumbents lose both races the Democrats will take control of
the United States Senate.

Let's bring in our best hill watcher, Mike Emanuel, Fox's chief
congressional correspondent. He'll be anchoring special coverage 1 to 3
Eastern today as the 117th Congress is sworn in.

And Mike, the press has been pouncing on the fact that President Trump
tweeted that the Georgia he election, not just his own, but the Senate
races are both illegal and invalid even as he'll be campaigning for these
candidates, Kelly Loeffler, Republican senator on Fox News Sunday today,
wouldn't say whether she agrees with the election fraud charges.

MIKE EMANUEL, FOX NEWS CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT:  Right.

KURTZ:  Are the pundits right that all of this is sending a very mixed
message?

EMANUEL:  Well, I think it's making a whole lot of Republicans nervous
about turnout on Tuesday with this critical runoff races in the state of
Georgia, when you talk about the president saying, you know, that basically
the system is broken, that the system was rigged, and then also going
tomorrow to Georgia to try to turn out the vote.

And so, there are a lot of frustrated Republicans all across the country, a
lot of them in the state of Georgia. If they are convinced that somehow the
2020 election was unfair to President Trump, what's the incentive for
getting out.

So I think a lot of people, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office are
quite anxious right now and a lot of Republicans on the ground in Georgia
who are trying to drive this across the finish line worry that this mixed
messaging may in effect hurt turnout and hurt them when it comes to these
critical runoff races.

KURTZ:  As the focus on inconsistencies by Republican senators, Kelly
Loeffler and David Perdue, hurting them? I'm thinking for example that, you
know, they -- neither one of them was in favor of $2,000 stimulus checks.
In fact, Senator Perdue didn't want any direct stimulus payments at all.
Now they support it because Trump supports it. And they both abstained, I
know Perdue is quarantining from the veto override of the defense bill.

EMANUEL:  Well, the president's actions certainly put them in a very
awkward spot. Are you with the troops signing the NDAA or are you with
President Trump? And they want to be both. And so, obviously, in Georgia,
there's a tremendous military population, there's a tremendous veteran
population. So, you don't want to alienate those military and veteran
families. But they also need President Trump's coalition, President Trump's
die-hard voters to turn out for them, and so they were really in a tough
spot.

Kelly Loeffler asked questions about that again today. She was pretty
candid that she was in a tough spot and so bottom line --

KURTZ:  Yes.

EMANUEL:  -- she tried to, you know, please both bases. The Trump
supporters --

KURTZ:  Right.

EMANUEL:  -- and also the military folks.

KURTZ:  To thread that needle. Now the Atlanta Constitution -- Journal
Constitution reported that Democrat Raphael Warnock is running against
Senator Loeffler, that his ex-wife last March accused him or running over
her foot. There was later police body cam footage which was aired on Tucker
Carlson show showing Warner denying this and she saying he's a great actor
and then the police found no injury and no charges were filed. This keeps
getting brought up. Does it deserve a lot of media attention?

EMANUEL:  Well, it's interesting. You know, I've covered campaigns going
back to Bush v. Gore 2000 and you know Republicans, Democrats, they always
try to figure out like what in their candidate's background could be
potential bombs that could come out --

KURTZ:  Sure.

EMANUEL:  -- at the last minute that could jeopardize the candidacy and I
would think perhaps alleged assault of your wife with your vehicle would be
a big one. And kudos to the Atlanta Journal Constitution for at least
checking out the story, doing some reporting on it. It's not entirely clear
what the impact has been. I've sampled a lot of the coverage.

KURTZ:  Right.

EMANUEL:  I haven't seen it all. But part of the post-mortem may be, you
know, why did you vote for him or why didn't you vote for him and did some
of these issues affect that final vote.

KURTZ:  And finally, Mike, with Senator Cruz and Senator Hawley leading
this effort to create a commission to examine the Electoral College results
and perhaps overturn the election, other Republican senators like Mitt
Romney and others, Pat Toomey, strongly opposing that.

Is it as acrimonious behind the scenes as the coverage would suggest this
is a really deep divide?

EMANUEL:  Howie, my sense is we're seeing the start of 2024 potential
ambitions. You're seeing Republican senators trying to distinguish
themselves from one another, from some of the others who may be voting.

Obviously, this is a situation that majority leader Mitch McConnell tries
to avoid every chance possible, one reason perhaps why he didn't put the
$2,000 stimulus checks on the floor.

Certainly, some wanted to vote for them but he does everything possible to
avoid dividing his conference. This is dividing his conference and so
something that makes the majority leader very uncomfortable starting this
117th Congress today.

KURTZ:  That will be the story this week and we'll be watching your
coverage, Mike, 117th Congress is sworn in. Thanks very much.

EMANUEL:  Thanks, Howie.

KURTZ:  Coming up on MEDIA BUZZ, how the press has dealt with the past
year's crises and why social media has turned so toxic. Jedediah Bila is on
deck.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ:  We're in the middle of a pandemic, a struggling economy, and a
disputed election, all that is putting enormous pressure on the media.
Joining us now from New York is Jedediah Bila, the co-host of "Fox &
Friends Weekend."

Jedediah, let me first get you in on this huge unfolding story about these
efforts by Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, bunch of other Republican senators to
challenge Electoral College results. Do you think the media have misjudged
the seriousness and the widespread support in the GOP for this effort even
though everybody says it's doomed to fail?
 
JEDEDIAH BILA, FOX NEWS HOST:  You know, I don't think it is widespread
support, to be honest. I actually find it really outrageous. And the reason
is that if you look at what is going on here, I think the media has
actually been pretty fair, particularly the news division. I know our own
network has done a fantastic job. I say that objectively, just covering the
facts of what's going on.

This has gone through the courts. Sixty cases around have been brought to
the courts. Oftentimes, widespread voter fraud has not even been alleged in
court because there simply isn't evidence to support that. If you look at
the evidence that has been shown, it does not support that. There's nothing
that supports that this was rigged or stolen.

And I think it's a very dangerous precedent. Elections have consequences. I
think you have to accept. I understand, believe me, Howie, if you don't
like the results or if you were hoping for a Trump --

KURTZ:  Yeah.

BILA:  -- re-election or you're worried about policy that's going to come
through a Biden administration, I think those are all legitimate concerns.
But the idea that you can have a secure election and if you don't -- don't
take my word for it, take DHS, Republican secretaries of state, Trump
appointed judges, you know, it's not just me saying that. That's what the
evidence supports.

KURTZ:  Right.

BILA:  That this was a secure election. You don't want people to then feel
that they can on a whim just say, well, it wasn't secure, based on really
nothing, not adequate evidence --

KURTZ:  Got it.

BILA:  -- to support that and try to overturn the will of the people.

KURTZ:  It has been a pretty horrible year, especially because of COVID-19,
which you personally battled. In times of crisis and tragedy, the media
sometimes rises to the occasion and sometimes they do not. A lot of people
think the press made things worse in 2020.
 
BILA:  You know, I think it depends on what aspect you're looking at. In
some cases, I think initially there was a rush to try to figure out what
was going on with respect to COVID-19 and you had a lot of mixed messaging
that was coming from within the medical community, which then bled into the
media, which then bled out to everyone in terms of wear a mask, don't wear
a mask, et cetera.

I think that some of the media mistakes that were big were when we really
started to get the facts on things like school reopening, for example, and
the fact that schools were not super spreaders of this and children were
kept out of school for too long.

There seems to be a resistance by media to just report what was going on
with that. Same thing goes for some of the lockdown measures. You're
talking about outdoor dining. That was not a super spreader. That needed to
be out front and center. The same thing goes for holding some of these
governors accountable.

There was a quick rush to hold President Trump accountable and he deserved
some of that in terms of the messaging coming out of the White House on
COVID-19. There was a lot of mixed messaging. But there were also a lot of
problems coming from the likes of Andrew Cuomo.

That guy somehow walked away with an Emmy when he was responsible for some
of the worst decision making related to nursing homes. Now, he is
responsible for -- look at the rollout of the vaccine in New York. They
have all of these vaccines. They're not being distributed to people.

Gavin Newsom has just now being held accountable by media where they're
covering this, you know, recusal attempt.

But I think there were a lot of steps of this where there was more than
interest in making this about President Trump and about this administration
and politicizing it than there was about actually getting facts out to
people, not only about the virus, but about which leadership really needed
to be held accountable throughout the process.

KURTZ:  Let's talk about social media and how journalists like you deal
with what are sometimes brutally personal attacks. For instance, you had to
take a little time off because you had a home emergency from a pipe leak
and a couple of geniuses on Twitter said, oh, maybe it should be a
permanent vacation or one year vacation to Gitmo. You reposted these mean
tweets, which people call you worthless, piece of trash, (INAUDIBLE) and
worse.

(LAUGHTER)

KURTZ:  How do you deal with this kind of vitriol?
 
BILA:  You know this is the way of the world right now. I think there is
unfortunately an expectation of allegiance to talking points, if you're
viewed as, you know, a Republican. I'm not a Republican. I'm a libertarian.
But if you are viewed as that, then you're supposed to tell that line
hundred percent of the time and people expect you to hold a certain
position on all issues.

If you don't, if you stray at all as a thinking human being, that becomes a
problem. And it's gotten really ugly. It has gotten ugly from political
officials. It has gotten ugly from regular people. It's an unfortunate
reality.

My job is not to tell people what they want to hear. My job is to tell them
the truth. I took quite a bit of heat for citing election law, quite a bit
of heat for just bringing the facts while we are on those cases which was
all I was really concerned with.

You know, I didn't really have a dog in this fight in terms of -- I was a
libertarian. You know, none of the candidates would be my number one
choice. But I wanted people to get the truth. That's what I'm here to do. I
think that's an unfortunate reality --

KURTZ:  All right.

BILA:  -- where you have people now who don't stray that much from the
talking points. And when someone does, they get the heat.

(LAUGHTER)

KURTZ:  They get the heat. It's often very personal and it's interesting --

BILA:  Yes.

KURTZ:  -- the way you choose to deal with it. Jedediah Bila, thank you so
much for joining us. We enjoyed having you.

BILA:  Thank you as always, Howie.

KURTZ:  I want to go now to live pictures from -- thank you. I want to go
now to live pictures on Capitol Hill. Vice President Pence just arrived
there. At the end of our program, 116th Congress expires, 117th will be
sworn in. That is going to take several hours. Fox News will be covering
it. We don't see anybody there right now but trust me there will be a lot
of people raising their right hands.

After the break, a look at 2020, how the press has covered the pandemic,
the president, and is starting to cover the next president.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera):  So why were so many people so angry and frustrated with
the media in 2020? I spoke earlier from Dallas with Steve Krakauer, former
cable news executive who publishes the Fourth Watch newsletter and produces
Megyn Kelly's podcast.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

KURTZ:  Steve Krakauer, welcome.
 
STEVE KRAKAUER, FOURTH WATCH NEWSLETTER PUBLISHER, FORMER CABLE NEWS
EXECUTIVE:  Hey, Howie, thanks for having me.

KURTZ:  You have a -- you have a movie poster theory about the last
president, the current president, and the next president. Explain.

KRAKAUER:  Yes. So I think that we -- if you look back at the media, we've
got the Obama administration and the way the media treated President Barack
Obama was, you know, you could say like a superhero. And then you've got
the next administration, Donald Trump, almost like a super villain, right?

But the bottom line is Barack Obama, Donald Trump, you could put them both
on the movie poster. You know, they're selling the movie, they're selling
the media. That is helpful.

Joe Biden, he is sort of was like the Obama sidekick, you know, maybe the
Robin to The Batman. You're not putting him on the movie poster and selling
movies. That's going to be a problem for the media across the board
because, you know, I think we've got a president now coming in who does not
invoke the sort of interest that either of the previous two presidents did.

And so that I think is going to be a problem for the media. Does it look to
think about, OK, we're in this New Year, now what do we do to continue --

KURTZ:  Yeah.

KRAKAUER:  -- to drive ratings and get interest?

KURTZ:  Considering the media are after all a business. Now, looking back
at 2020, would you say the press inflicted a lot of damage on Donald Trump
or that Donald trump did a whole lot of damage to the reputation of the
media?
 
KRAKAUER:  Yeah, it was a very sadomasochistic relationship, I think. I
think there were a lot of going around and a lot of ways, I think, that
there was -- I don't doubt the motives of a lot of the media in 2020 when
it comes to Donald Trump or even over the last four years.

At the same time, Donald Trump was good for business. I think they knew
that. I think Donald Trump knew that also. He wanted to have that foil and
while he played the antagonist to the media, they were sort of serving as
that foil to him that he could be that punching bag.

So I am not sure anyone really landed blows. I don't know if anyone changed
minds when it comes to the media situation or from Donald Trump. But I will
say, I think the problem was more of the self-inflicted wounds the media
did to themselves over the course of the entire 2020 over a variety of
stories from coronavirus to others that were related to sort of Donald
Trump and politics.

I think that more of it when they were trying to go after Donald Trump, it
ended up being self-inflicted wounds on the media, especially the legacy
media.

KURTZ:  No question about that. My theory is that every little Trump
controversy got cranked up to 11. Is he cheating at golf? Why does he eat
pizza with a fork? That sort of thing.

So when it came to the more serious stuff, impeachment over Ukraine and
trying to overturn the election results, I think a lot of Trump supporters
and conservatives just kind of tuned the media out, seeing it as a hostile
force.
 
KRAKAUER:  Absolutely. I think when you make everything into the largest
scandal in the world, I think that ends up being this crying wolf theory,
right? And so yeah, I think that actually played out a lot, I think, with
coronavirus. I think COVID was the story of 2020 and certainly will
continue to be, potentially, you know --

KURTZ:  Yeah.

KRAKAUER:  -- for months and years in the future. But I think one of the
things we saw is that we finally -- everything was a scandal in the Trump
administration.

We've reached a level of here's a pandemic, here's actually a giant story
that has major implications for the media, and now we have a president that
-- now we have a media that's attacking the president over of every little
thing instinctively when a lot of times there wasn't a lot of maybe
scientific evidence to do so.

And so I think that played out in a very negative way for the media and
again further eroded the trust that the public has for the media when it
comes to an important issue like this pandemic.

KURTZ:  What you had in the early months of the pandemic is the media
saying this is really, really serious and could be deadly and President
Trump initially playing it down, then came of course the fall and winter
surge and everybody knows how deadly it is across the globe.

But at the same time, the coverage seemed to break down along ideological
lines, the virus itself, the masks, the lockdowns, and then I think also to
your point about undermining trust, depending on what you believe.
 
KRAKAUER:  Yeah, two quick examples of this. You know, I think in the
summer, we had a series of -- we had first like anti-lockdown protests that
were happening. And then we just had people going to the beach for Memorial
Day. And the media went wall to wall coverage trying to shame people going
to the beach because they weren't wearing masks, weren't properly social
distancing, and this could be a big super spreader event.

OK, so we had that. A week later, the George Floyd protests broke out, tens
of thousands of people protesting all around the country. And the same
doctors who were on cable news were not having that same, you know, idea
about OK, this may be a dangerous super spreader event when it comes to
this ideological situation. So, I think that was a very clear case of
hypocrisy.

Another one, more recently, the Operation Warp Speed in June put out -- did
a press conference and they said that there was a very likely chance that
we might have a vaccine by the end of 2020. The media treated that as if it
was like this fantasy, this complete like that is never going to happen --

KURTZ:  Science fiction.

KRAKAUER:  -- doctors --

KURTZ:  No way.

KRAKAUER:  Right. Impossible, they said. Not even -- unlikely, impossible.
Obviously, you know, we reached the end of 2020 and millions of people have
already been vaccinated.

That is a very clear example where this is a cause and effect. We were told
one thing and it became very clear that the media was wrong in the way that
they covered this when it first happened. That further erodes trust. It
doesn't make it feel like there's an expertise that we can trust either
when it comes to science.

KURTZ:  Yeah. Eroding trust seems to be the theme here. I say that with
some sadness because I like the media business. But as you said earlier,
self-inflicted wounds, more so in 2020, I think, than any recent years.

Steve Krakauer, great to see you. Thanks very much for joining us.

KRAKAUER:  Thanks, Howie.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

KURTZ (on camera):  Still to come, as we begin the new year, is it finally
time for the media to break up with the anti-Trump resistance?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera):  Are the media headed for a breakup with the resistance?
That's the question posed by The Atlantic. Take CNN's Jim Acosta who got a
book deal and a modest level of fame by constantly trashing President
Trump, debating rather than questioning him, and pushing an agenda on
immigration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT:  What we're witnessing
right now is just this erosion of our freedoms in terms of covering the
president of the United States.

I think we saw the president's true colors today, and I'm not sure they
were red, white, and blue.

Are you worried?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:  That's enough, that's
enough.

ACOSTA:  Mr. President, I'm going to ask one of the other folks --
 
TRUMP:  That's enough.

ACOSTA:  Pardon me, ma'am. Mr. President --
 
TRUMP:  That's enough.
 
(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera):  Acosta now tells the magazine the Trump presidency was
a nonstop national emergency. And then he -- quote -- "couldn't stomach the
president's attacks on the press." This is clearly a personal vendetta for
Acosta. By the way, a president is allowed to say whatever he wants about
the media.

Now, Jim Acosta says journalists will approach Joe Biden differently. I
don't think the press should be trying whip up the Biden presidency and
turn it into must-see TV in a contrived way.

Got it. Is it any wonder that the 74 million people who voted for Donald
Trump believe there's a blatant double standard? New York magazine's Olivia
Nuzzi made a great point of saying it didn't really require any special
bravery to report honestly and critically on Donald Trump.

Why? Because journalists who are unrelentingly negative were rewarded with
cable news contracts, book offers, big Twitter followings. But reporting
critically on Joe Biden will be riskier. They could alienate their newfound
liberal fans who won't want the new president pummelled the way Trump was.

Now, covering Trump through four years of controversies, investigations,
impeachment, tweeted attacks, sometimes exaggerated or false statements has
been difficult for the press. Biden has a lower key style and so far has
rarely been challenged.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ:  Steve Krakauer, welcome.
 
KRAKAUER:  Hey, Howie, thanks for having me.
 
GEOFF BENNETT, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  What's the biggest threat to your
transition right now given President Trump's unprecedented attempt to
obstruct and delay a smooth transfer of power?

YAMICHE ALCINDOR, PBS CORRESPONDENT:  What do you say to Americans,
especially immigrant Americans who came to the United States looking for
stability and seeing all the things that the president is doing?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera):  Sorry for that little blip (ph). Now, obviously, the
coverage can't be exactly the same, but if journalists roll over for Joe
Biden rather than holding him to a high standard, praise his policies, and
minimize Democratic Party conflict, well, it will be pretty clear their
coverage is calibrated based on who occupies the oval office.

As for our program, we have always tried to provide journalistic balance.
I've criticized the media for their relentless negativity against President
Trump and also held the president accountable when he's gone too far
including his denunciations of the press, some of them at least.

And I repeatedly chided the pundits for writing off Joe Biden during the
primaries while also trying to hold Biden accountable for his mistakes.

I am still wedded to the rather old fashioned concept of fairness. I very
much appreciate your watching.

That's it for this edition of MEDIA BUZZ. I'm Howard Kurtz. Here's to a
great new year, at least better than the last one, in 2021. Hope you like
our Facebook page. We post my daily columns there. Let's continue the
conversation on Twitter. And check out my podcast, "Media Buzzmeter." You
can subscribe on Apple iTunes or on Amazon music or Fox News Podcast Dot Com.

We are out of time. Back here next Sunday. We will see you then with the
latest buzz.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)


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