This is a rush transcript from "MediaBuzz," March 1, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
HOWARD KURTZ, ANCHOR: On the Buzz Meter this Sunday, President Trump blames cable news and the Democrats for politicizing the threat from coronavirus, while the mainstream media, including some reporters suggest he lacks the credibility to lead in this crisis.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is sort of a reckoning for a president who has a very difficult relationship with the truth and has exaggerated facts when they help him and downplayed them when they haven't.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The coronavirus crisis is going to get much worse for Donald Trump. His mental health, which is weak on his best day, can only get much worse everyday of this crisis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Watch the Democrats. Watch the media. You start to feel like they're rooting for coronavirus to spread. And I don't say that flippantly.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president is lashing out at the media, accusing them of fanning the flames, and by doing so, he is ultimately confessing to his own weakness.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anti-Trump networks, CNN, doing whatever it can to stoke a national coronavirus panic.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The end is near. The apocalypse is imminent. And you're going to all die, all of you, in the next 48 hours. And it's all President Trump's fault, or at least that's what the media mob and the Democratic extreme radical socialist party would like you to think.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: With the stock market plunging, is the press writing disparaging the White House virus response or just adding to a sense of fear and polarization? The Trump camp sues The New York Times over an opinion piece on Russia. Does the campaign have a case, or is this mainly a political statement? The media suddenly hailing Joe Biden, who they had said was on life support, for a huge South Carolina victory last night.
This after a CBS debate that journalists called a train wreck, a shipwreck, and a dumpster fire.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not out of time. You spoke over time, and I'm going to talk. Here's the deal.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Really messy, two hours? Kind of a slugfest that spun wildly out of control, it was really hard to even hear anyone talking.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The moderators at CBS just gave up. The chaos Putin is hoping for descended on the debate stage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Now the pundits say Biden has upended the race heading into Super Tuesday, but haven't they been wrong all year? I'm Howard Kurtz, and this is "MediaBuzz." We'll get to our political calls, the resurrection of Joe Biden after his huge South Carolina win in a few moments. As the coronavirus spread around the globe, President Trump insisted it was not much of a threat here in America and singled out two cable news networks.
Here's the tweet. Low ratings, fake news, MSDNC, Comcast, and CNN doing everything possible to make the coronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets if possible. The president played down the threat of a virus at a news conference, saying he doesn't think a major impact here is inevitable. When a reporter asked about Nancy Pelosi's criticism that the administration's response was too late and anemic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think Speaker Pelosi's incompetent. She's trying to create a panic. And there's no reason to panic because we have done so good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: And he later returned to criticizing the coverage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have a situation with the virus. We've done a great job. But the press won't give us credit for it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Joining us now to analyze the coverage, Gayle Trotter, Host of the podcast Right in D.C., the Gayle Trotter Show, Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent for The Washington Examiner, and Joe Trippi, the veteran Democratic strategist. Gayle, what's your reaction to news coverage suggesting the president is undermined by past credibility problems and is deliberately downplaying the magnitude of this threat?
GAYLE TROTTER, THE HILL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's funny because President Trump was initially criticized for blocking some travel of people who've gone to China. And now he's saying that it's a hoax of the coverage, because there was criticism of him jumping in. And now there's criticism of him underplaying it. Of course, the coronavirus is a serious matter.
But we're seeing the convergence of two things with the media. The one is the media's tendency to hype any sort of danger. And the second tendency is the very left-leaning media's effort to pin all blame on a Republican administration, particularly the Trump administration.
KURTZ: Susan, any president, obviously, has to strike a balance between a realistic approach when there's a threat and not scaring people. But when Trump says in response to criticism of Nancy Pelosi that she's trying to start a panic, there's been a lot of aha. He's politicizing this. But in truth, aren't both sides politicizing this crisis?
SUSAN FERRECHIO, WASHINGTON EXAMINER CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's hard to say who started the politicization of this. I know Pelosi and the Democrats on Capitol Hill immediately took to criticizing the president as not being competent, as not approaching this in an even-handed way that's going to keep the public safe.
I feel like it began on Capitol Hill. And then the president, as he often does, punches back twice as hard. And now you have this political swinging back and forth between both parties.
JOE TRIPPI, VANGUARD AFRICA FOUNDER: Can we go to the way back machine of Wednesday when the president of the United States, in a press conference, designed calm (ph) fears said that the reason the market had fallen 2,000 points at that point was because of a bad debate the night -- the Democratic debate the night before.
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: -- concern that a Democrat, meaning Bernie, would win the White House.
TRIPPI: -- would win the White House. That's why it fell 2,000 points. I'm not sure that calmed the markets, and it didn't address what the press conference was about, and it definitely politicized this crisis.
KURTZ: Well --
(CROSSTALK)
TROTTER: That's your interpretation of it, though. I mean, you don't know why the market crashed. He's saying why he thinks it did. And that debate was terrible. I mean, the field was uninspiring, and the coverage of the debate was not significant enough to say --
(CROSSTALK)
TRIPPI: This is actually kind of making my whole point here, is that s the fact of the matter is this was a press conference on the coronavirus --
(CROSSTALK)
TROTTER: Oh, and they never asked questions completely unrelated to what the press conference --
(CROSSTALK)
TROTTER: And then you have the secretary of DHS show up at a hearing and not know the difference of what the rates are between flu and coronavirus -
-
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: OK, let me --
(CROSSTALK)
TRIPPI: -- reports that too. These are all accurate facts. If you wanted -
-
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: If you wanted to have one image -- let's put it up here, the New Yorker cover on president telling the coronavirus, I think that about covers it. Gayle, does the president open himself up to media criticism when he offers a rosier view of this than his own federal health experts, including saying, well, the virus will probably be gone in the United States by spring?
TROTTER: President Trump has said it's a serious matter, and he is not getting coverage for that. He's taking action. Just yesterday, his administration is restricting travel from Iran which has been very seriously hit. There's not coverage of that. Instead, we have Dana Milbank, a syndicated columnist at The Washington Post, who through a tweet that said remember this moment. Trump just called the coronavirus a hoax. Dana Milbank has not taken that tweet down --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: I've heard this from many people, and it is true. The president didn't call the coronavirus a hoax. He said that the criticism or the Democratic response was a hoax. You can criticize him for that. But I do think that that was misconstrued. What about the president going after the other two cable news networks? I read the tweet. He also said about CNN, it's a very disreputable network, doing everything they can to instill fear.
I don't see any evidence that the other cable news networks have covered this story more than FOX. And on substance, I think the press has been relatively restrained.
FERRECHIO: Well, it's true about the media hyping up the latest, you know, if it bleeds, it leads. That's basically the policy we all follow. And in this age of social media, you're reading little bits and pieces on Twitter, and you're not getting the full picture of what this is about. The fact is it's almost impossible in the way news is delivered right now to fully understand what this threat actually is.
I would recommend everybody read Anthony Fauci -- and other epidemiologists have an editorial this weekend that really outlines where they are on this.
They're talking about a less than one percent fatality rate. No one is talking about that. And the numbers are actually really interesting. But you can't deliver that on cable news sound bites, and that's part of the problem.
TRIPPI: This is another sign of sort of three years of pummeling the press as the fake news and the -- and, you know, the lame stream media, the whole thing. When you call the press the enemy of the people for three years, and now -- right now, you have a bunch of people in the country who don't trust anything this administration says or that Trump says, and a whole other group that doesn't trust anything the press says --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Let me --
(CROSSTALK)
TRIPPI: Now you get --
(CROSSTALK)
TROTTER: When The Washington Post has an updated article on 16,000 lives that President Trump has said that may lose their objectivity, and then they can't trust anything --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: -- for the sake of discussion that both sides have been pummeling each other. It even goes back to the campaign. But on this question of whether the press is being restrained or hyping, it is sort of hard to be restrained when everyday there's a flood of new developments, the first death in Washington State, international meetings being cancelled, school closings around the globe, and then, of course, the DOW's worst week since the 2008 financial crisis.
But I do have the impression -- I mean, this was a serious news conference by the president. You can criticize what he said. A minute later, liberal commentators were just slamming him as if they were talking about Russia or Ukraine, and now they have a new target, the coronavirus.
TRIPPI: Look, there's going to be people on both sides of this when blaming the president, you know, and attacking -- partisans attacking. We only have one president. He's the one that has to be above all this. He has been, like, yesterday he was. But come on. He clearly, time and again in the last week -- over the last week said and did things, his son has, other people, it's been covered --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: All right.
(CROSSTALK)
TROTTER: The altercation -- the Democratic congressmen saying if Don Jr.'s anywhere near him, he's going to get altercation --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Look, we're a little tight on time. So I want to get to these questions. CNN headline, Trump media allies downplay coronavirus risk. And MSNBC media guy said FOX is being close to irresponsible, because in defending the president, it's telling its viewers they have nothing to worry about. Now, we can debate the seriousness of the outbreak and the magnitude of the threat. I haven't seen anybody who works for FOX News saying there's nothing to worry about.
TROTTER: No, of course not. And last night, I think it was on the Judge's show had the surgeon general and he was giving good medical information. So let's stop going to the pundits about medical information, and FOX is interviewing people who have the actual medical information.
KURTZ: I am just depressed and troubled that, you know, and there's a really potentially serious situation facing the country, and we're all involved. And I include the president front and center in the same partisan sniping as we're talking about all political campaign. And Suzie -- Susan, Mick Mulvaney, Acting White House Chief of Staff, had this to say at the CPAC conference.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reason you're seeing so much attention to it today is that they think this is going to be what brings down the president.
That's what this is all about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: But it's also a virus that is now in 60 countries.
FERRECHIO: He's right. He is partly right. I think there is the sentiment that amongst people who don't like Trump that perhaps this is an opportunity to lower his standing in the public eye as we head into a critical election period. But on the other hand -- look, I covered the Ebola virus through the Trump administration very closely.
And the handling of that and the handling of what -- of this coronavirus, President Trump, they're not doing anything very differently from each other. It's very methodical. There's a lot of uncertainty. They are appointing people and -- to oversee things in the same manner. They're taking the same precaution --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Well, if that's true --
(CROSSTALK)
FERRECHIO: The coverage is a lot different. But Ebola spread much more slowly, but it had a fatality rate of up to 90 percent.
KURTZ: I have just a few seconds here, so let me ask you. Washington Post news story, at a moment that demands sobriety and honesty, Trump is a leader prone to hyperbole and falsehoods. Trump has a penchant for creating chaos and confusion, and saying this could be Trump's Katrina. Is that fair to bring in Hurricane Katrina on the part of journalists?
TRIPPI: Well, I think --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Is it early?
TRIPPI: It's early, but it could be. I don't mean -- and I'm not talking about, you know -- the question is when you -- if this does become a pandemic and the United States starts to really move, and if they don't start moving kits out there, testing kits faster, I mean, there -- it could turn out that this wasn't handled --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: well, it could turn out. It also would be a difficult crisis for any president to handle, unexpected as it is. When we come back, Joe Biden takes a shot at the pundits after his landslide win in South Carolina. And later, Chris Stirewalt on how the media's conventional wisdom is dramatically changing in the run-up to Super Tuesday.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Joe Biden is vaulting to life, The New York Times says this morning, after winning over 48 percent of the vote in South Carolina, clobbering Bernie Sanders with just under 20 percent. This after most journalists had virtually written him off.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Just days ago, the press and the pundits had declared this candidacy dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: The press has made two major miscalculations in this campaign, not taking Bernie Sanders seriously enough, and predicting doom for Joe Biden from the day he got in, and then just virtually burying him after Iowa and New Hampshire. So Gayle, are journalists now scrambling to write the comeback story?
TROTTER: Yeah. We're seeing a little bit of whiplash on this. Because as you said, they had buried Biden, and now they see him resurrected. Now, there's some validity in that. He had such a strong showing in South Carolina. But I think -- I hate to say this, but I think James Carville is right. It's either Bernie or a brokered convention. And either way, it's a disaster for the Democrats.
KURTZ: Joe, Biden got clobbered in the first two states, but they're small, predominantly white states with relatively few delegates. South Carolina is the most diverse state to vote so far in the first four. What does it say about political punditry that so many of the people in our business basically said Biden is toast?
TRIPPI: I think part of the coverage is always the media wants to create a race. And they want to narrow it to two fast.
KURTZ: Why, because it's a better storyline?
(CROSSTALK)
TRIPPI: -- easier and it's cheaper to cover that.
KURTZ: Right.
TRIPPI: So what happens is when the frontrunner starts to evaporate and you have 24 people out there, you start even -- they're even creating races within lanes, right? And let's have -- and so that's what happened. I think people lost focus and just -- there is such a thing as gravity and laws of physics in politics, too.
And one of them is -- and what should have been obvious for anybody who'd covered this for a while is that Joe Biden was going to do very well with African-Americans unless somebody ate into that.
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: There's a history of these kinds of comebacks when we write people off too early. Now, Susan, could it be that the press dismissed Biden from much of the year because they -- many wanted Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, then it was Mike Bloomberg. But now, they're warming toward Biden because they see him, as Gayle suggested, as maybe the only one who can stop Bernie Sanders and what they would then view as a likely Trump victory?
FERRECHIO: I think that's exactly what happening. Now, I did not write him off. I kept writing Biden comeback stories and everybody telling me I was wrong. But just because --
(CROSSTALK)
FERRECHIO: -- you have to look at the long game here. And he is able to get the pragmatic wing, older voters, African-American voters. However, he still is not in position to go into the convention with enough pledged delegates to be the nominee. It could be a brokered convention. So it's absolutely true --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Let's not get ahead of ourselves there. But with Super Tuesday now two days away, which is unusual, even conservative commentators who don't like President Trump coming out strongly against Bernie Sanders and saying that he could be unstoppable if he has a big day on Tuesday. So both -- some on the left and some on the right are basically mobilizing as Bernie, and that makes him attack the establishment and the media.
TROTTER: That's right. And there's certainly been a lot of effort at groundswell level to have people vote in primaries where they can -- Republicans vote in primaries in favor of Bernie because they'd rather see him with the contest with President Trump rather than Biden. But, you know, given all of the guffaws and pratfalls that Biden has had in a lot of the speeches he's had. I think there's energy for having him contest President Trump, too.
TRIPPI: I think there's two things that can happen -- the coverage just from being on the other side of it from a political campaign. What I said, horse race, get it down to Bernie and Biden, and that's where we're going.
And the only other possible coverage is more fantasizing or hope -- hoping about a brokered convention. I mean, those are two stories --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Right. Biden did a force (ph) on this show (Inaudible) and many including his first appearance on FOX News in this campaign. But Susan, moments after it was clear Biden was going to win big, I heard all across the channels, I heard pundits say, you know what? Buttigieg should drop out. Klobuchar should drop out.
Some said why is Bloomberg sticking in this? He's helping Sanders. Who elected the press to decide who should drop out and give that kind of advice?
FERRECHIO: That's not a good look. It sounds like they're trying to pick a favorite.
KURTZ: Oh, you think?
(CROSSTALK)
FERRECHIO: -- to be, you know, to take down Bernie, and then he can beat Trump. You can't help but see the pattern. But that is what the press -- the press also tends to kind of become the campaign advisers, too, while they're doing the reporting. They're trying to figure out who's going to win. They're trying to strategize and figure out what the outcome is going to be.
And you see a lot of that. And in this instance, I think it's a good idea for the press to just stand back and do some neutral coverage --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: -- many political analysts are frustrated campaign advisers but they're the press. All right, Joe Trippi, Susan Ferrechio, Gayle Trotter, great to see you all this Sunday. Ahead, the Trump campaign sues The New York Times over an op-ed. We'll take a closer look. But up next, an apology from Chris Matthews, and should ABC have suspended a top correspondent who was secretly caught on tape?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: I went on the air and called for Chris Matthews to apologize to Bernie Sanders. FOX's Marie Harf said the same on last week's program. This after the Hardball host likened the senator's victory in Nevada to the Nazi takeover of France in 1940. Matthews has now done just that. And to his credit, not as some mealy mouthed tweet, but at the top of his MSNBC show.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was wrong to refer to an event from the last days or actually the first days of World War II. Senator Sanders, I'm sorry for comparing anything from that tragic era, in which so many suffered, especially the Jewish people, to an electoral or result in which you were the well-deserved winner. I will strive to do a better job myself of elevating the political discussion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Look, I just want everyone, left and right, to stay away from Nazi analogies and that includes when the target is President Trump. Matthews like some other media liberals has in the past said that Trump's rhetoric is reminiscent of Hitler. It's all just way out of bounds. ABC has suspended veteran correspondent David Wright after he was secretly recorded by James O'Keefe's group.
The network said any action that damages our reputation for fairness and impartiality or gives the appearance of compromising it harms ABC News and will be pulled off political coverage when he returns. But most of what Wright said wasn't troubling at all. Yes, he describes himself as a socialist, but he also said this of President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID WRIGHT, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Wouldn't hold him to account. We also don't give him credit for things he does do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: That's fair and balanced. Wright said that commercial imperative is incompatible with news, a pretty common criticism that television is mainly interested in profits. Perhaps what really rankled ABC was right shot at the networks' parent company.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WRIGHT: It became a profit center. Like now, you can't watch Good Morning America without there being a Disney princess or a Marvel Avenger appearing. It's all self-promotional.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Well, not all self-promotional. But there are certainly Disney tie- ins, and that doesn't just happen at ABC. I think the network really overreacted, and the punishment for what he thought were private opinions, too harsh. Ahead, Bernie Sanders doubles down on his praise for Fidel Castro. Is the press going easy on him on that? But first, Chris Stirewalt weighs in as CNN's Jim Acosta gets in another war of words with the president. Did he cross the line?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Donald Trump and his least favorite White House correspondent went at it again when Jim Acosta from CNN, following up on other questions, asked the President about media reports that Russia is intervening on his behalf in this election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Can you pledge to the American people that you will not accept any foreign assistance in the upcoming election?
TRUMP: I want no help from any country. And I haven't been given help from any country. And if you see what CNN, your wonderful network, said -- I guess, they apologized, in a way, for -- didn't they apologize for the fact that they said certain things that weren't true? Tell me, what was their apology yesterday? What did they say?
ACOSTA: Mr. President, I think our record on delivering the truth is a lot better than yours sometimes, if you don't mind me saying.
TRUMP: Let me tell you about your record. Your record is so bad, you ought to be ashamed of yourself --
ACOSTA: I'm not ashamed of anything.
TRUMP: You probably have the worst record in the history of broadcasting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Joining us now from New York is Chris Stirewalt, Fox News politics editor. Chris, Jim Acosta could have defended his network by saying, look, we ran a follow-up piece, it wasn't an apology, saying that the intelligence is murkier on whether Russia is now trying to intervene or not. Instead, what do you think of the way he took on the President?
CHRIS STIREWALT, FOX NEWS POLITICS EDITOR: Or just not. You could just not. You could just ask questions. Look, it's a difficult job, I'm not saying it's not. And I'm not here to say that everybody gets it right all of the time.
But let's face it, this has been probably good for both Trump and Jim Acosta. I don't know how his colleagues certainly at the other networks or even at CNN feel about it, but in terms of elevating each other, certainly it's been helpful.
We know Acosta signing autographs after being taunted at Trump rallies and stuff like that. So maybe this is on brand and works for him, but I don't think it's helping us know more and be better informed.
KURTZ: Yeah. There's a reason a reason the President keeps calling on him in my view.
STIREWALT: Right.
KURTZ: All right. Let's turn to Joe Biden's huge victory in South Carolina. Isn't this the same guy who many in the press, many of the pundits, many of the journalists utterly wrote off after he got clobbered in Iowa and New Hampshire?
STIREWALT: Oh, I did. Joe Biden was dead. There was no way that this was going to happen for him. And then really an amazing thing happened for Joe Biden. Two great things in the span of -- one span of time. Number one, Michael Bloomberg was forced to debate. And when he did, the aspect -- the Wizard of Oz became real. And as soon as that happened, that was good news for Biden.
But then the next great thing that happened for Biden was that Bernie got real. And Democrats and a lot of people in the political press like to pat Bernie Sanders on the head and say you're just an adorable old socialist, aren't you cute. But the reality, when Democrats start thinking about, oh, my gosh, we could nominate this guy. And this could really happen, that's -
- that makes them rethink their votes.
So while there was a sail on Bloomberg, there was also a flight from Bernie. Both of those things added up to really good news for Joe Biden.
And because he had invested so heavily in South Carolina, he was there to pick up on it.
KURTZ: Well, campaigns always have twists and turns, so looking back do you think perhaps a little hasty to downgrade the former Vice-President and his political prospects?
STIREWALT: All of those tapes have been burned. There is no record of any the things that I said. You know, look, you always have -- and here's the thing that people forget in political analysis. There are no straight-line projections. You can't say the way it is today is how it's going to be in November.
KURTZ: Right.
STIREWALT: People talk about these head-to-head polls between Sanders and Trump and or Trump and whoever, that's all garbage. You can throw that all out because the world will look very different when you get there.
KURTZ: Right. And by the same token, we shouldn't overreact, because Biden's got a tough road on Super Tuesday, so many different states, he doesn't have that much money certainly compared to Bernie. But on the other hand, he now has what the press describes as momentum. And I think a lot of journalists are kind of rooting for Joe because it's basically going to be him or Bernie, most likely.
STIREWALT: But it's great copy. My goodness, the Joe Biden stories are just like -- you have to check them to make sure they're not the onions sometimes.
KURTZ: All right. I want to get you in on the CBS debacle of a debate, because you're involved in most of the Fox debates. You know what it takes to put these together. It's not easy and it's not easy to control candidates. Let's take a look at some of the lowlights from that debate in South Carolina.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Steyer, Mr. Steyer.
(Inaudible)
BENIE SANDERS, U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Tom, I think she was talking about my plan, not yours.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think we were talking about math. And it doesn't take two hours to do the math.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's talk about math.
JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not out of time. You spoke over time. And I'm going to talk. Here's the deal -- here's the deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: So enlightening. How did the CBS moderators let this get so out of control?
STIREWALT: Look, it's really hard to do. This is really hard work. They had -- they were hugely disadvantaged by the Democratic National Committee whose rules and policies relating to debates, CBS tried to do a good job. I think Margaret Brennan who they brought in for some of the questioning did an excellent job of trying to hold, hold it down and keep these guys in line.
But the job of the network, the whole purpose of us in this setting is to create a fair game in which people get their rules applied to them. CBS lost control of the situation. They need a buzzer. I hate it, but it's true for everybody. And Bret Baier always says in our debates it does upset the dogs when we ring the bell, but you've got to have means to keep this stuff fair. And they lost control. I know they were trying hard, but they lost control.
KURTZ: Yeah. I mean, you know, the fact they didn't mean to, but they rewarded the candidates who kept interrupting even while other candidates were talking. And it became just hard to follow. And this was the debate where now suddenly Bernie was the front-runner, at least the press recognizing that. And he was going to be held accountable. And they did ask some good questions. But in all the noise, and the waving of the hands, didn't all that get blunted? It was just -- it was just so hard to follow at some points.
STIREWALT: And what it also does is incentivizes malarkey, as Joe Biden would say, right? So you can talk about the rules instead of the questions.
You can talk about the process instead of what you're going to do. That helped Sanders. It insulated him at several points because instead of the real focus being on him and his record and tough questions, the focus was on the process itself.
And if you're the front-runner, that's what you're looking for. You don't want to talk about you, you want to talk about anything but you. And Bernie Sanders was helped by that.
KURTZ: All right. In our remaining moments, it's just two days now to Super Tuesday, all of these states. What is more important once that voting is done, the number of delegates accumulated by Bernie, Biden, and the others, or the press pronouncements on who had a good day, who came back, who appears to be winning, who took the key states?
STIREWALT: So there's -- think about it in two different scenarios. So the scenario A in which Bernie Sanders gets so many delegates, he gets more than 300 delegates in California, he does surprisingly well in Texas, he wins Massachusetts, and he gets so many delegates that the wind starts to go out of the sails of the Bernie resistance that people say, oh, we're not going to be able to catch him. And in that case, it doesn't matter who finishes second. It does become math.
But on the other hand if it's muddled, if it's close, if Bernie underperforms somewhere then the narrative starts to really count. And then the pressure's either on Bloomberg or Biden, whoever had the less good day to get out.
KURTZ: Right. My point is, how important -- just briefly, how important is the press in shaping that narrative?
STIREWALT: Well, look -- I mean, if it's a muddle, then the press will say grace over whoever is second place and call it a two-man race, yes.
KURTZ: All right. Chris Stirewalt, great to see you. Thanks so much.
STIREWALT: You bet.
KURTZ: And next on MEDIA BUZZ, a Cuban-American journalist on why she's outraged by Bernie's serious comments on Castro, and whether the media are being tough enough on the guy who remains the front-runner.
And later, is the Trump campaign planning more lawsuits against the press?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: It began when Bernie Sanders told 60 Minutes that Fidel Castro had done some good things during his long reign as Cuba's dictator.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANDERS: He came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing even though Fidel Castro did it?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: And the Vermont senator didn't back off during the CBS debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You also have a track record of expressing sympathy for socialist governments in Cuba and in Nicaragua.
SANDERS: Of course, you have a dictatorship in Cuba. What I said is what Barack Obama said in terms of Cuba, that Cuba made progress on education.
Yes, I think --
(Inaudible)
SANDERS: Really, really? Literacy program is not bad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Joining us now from Florida, Cathy Areu, publisher of the Hispanic magazine Catalina, whose family is from Cuba. And, Cathy, since your parents did grow up there, what's your reaction to Bernie Sanders saying nice things about Fidel Castro throwing in hey, an authoritarian regime.
CATHY AREU, CATALINA PUBLISHER: Yes.
KURTZ: And then refusing to soften his remarks?
AREU: I can't believe -- I can't believe he said it, first of all, on 60 Minutes. I thought the next day he was going to make an apology and realize he was factually incorrect. But he did not. He continued.
And if you fact check, it's completely incorrect, because in Cuba, you had free healthcare and free education before the Castro regime. Castro actually shut down the university after he took over. So the facts aren't even right.
And I don't know how you could compliment a dictator and a communist. This wasn't socialism. This was communism. People died, people are still in jail, were in jail, people lost their houses, my family lost everything, and he's saying that something good came out of a revolution that brought a dictator onto an island that was fine before the dictator?
KURTZ: Right.
AREU: Yeah.
KURTZ: So this is, obviously, very personal for you. But could younger voters look at this differently? For example, Castro, obviously, has been dead for four years, the Cold War is long over, and the U.S. has diplomatic relations with Havana?
AREU: Yeah, I know. What's interesting is younger Cubans -- Cubans have been Republican. They are really a strong Republican group in the Hispanic community, but we're 6 percent -- Cubans are 6 percent of all Hispanics.
They've usually been Republican because they were upset about the Bay of Pigs, which younger Cubans don't really remember, don't know about. We weren't around.
But the younger ones are Democrats. But Bernie, by saying this, has helped all the Cubans now reeducate the new generations and explain the history.
So, I think he lost Florida with this one, because there are Cubans, one million in Miami, they're in Tampa, they're in Orlando. It's all of Florida. So he can cross Florida off the list.
KURTZ: Yeah, obviously a very big story in Florida, as elsewhere. Bernie has also been taking some shots at the media. Let me play you a clip of that.
AREU: Yeah.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANDERS: Corporate media, to a large degree, is freaking out. As you're aware, some really horrific things have been said about me on at least one television channel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Television channel -- he's talking about MSNBC. When Bernie Sanders says corporate media, is that his version of President Trump's fake news?
AREU: Yeah.
KURTZ: In other words, his way of saying that the press can't be trusted because I'm a different kind of candidate?
AREU: Isn't that funny that once the press starts fact checking and taking candidates seriously, they immediately say it's all fake news and you can't believe journalists?
Hillary Clinton said fake news, actually. Nixon said -- Nixon started it, I think, with independent -- was it liberal media bias against him. And Trump, of course, doesn't necessarily like journalists or says fake news all the time. And now, Bernie's saying it.
KURTZ: Yeah. On the other hand -- on the other hand, Cathy --
AREU: Yeah.
KURTZ: I mean, he does get kicked around a bit. For example, CNN asking him the question this weekend can either the coronavirus or Bernie Sanders be stopped?
But last question for you is, look, Bernie's remarks about Cuba, what he said about the Sandinistas in the 1980s, he honeymooned in Moscow, all of this is all old news now being brought back by the press. Do you think the press has done a good job of vetting Bernie Sanders as a serious candidate for President?
AREU: Now, they are. Now, they are. Before it was feel the Bern, AOC, they're very soft on him -- with Bernie Sanders. He seems harmless and OK.
But he's a chameleon. So this chameleon was an independent when you want him to be, a Democrat when you want him to be. And now he's not a sweet front-runner anymore. He's a little scary for the Cubans. This is scary, a man who sides with a dictatorship?
KURTZ: All right.
AREU: Yeah, the press is fact checking. And they're doing a good job right now.
KURTZ: All right. Happy to have your perspective. I don't think the press was taking Bernie Sanders all that seriously until recently. Cathy Areu, nice to see you this Sunday.
AREU: Thank you.
KURTZ: After the break, the Trump campaign suing the New York Times over an opinion case on Russia, how strong is the case?
And later, the decidedly mixed verdict against Harvey Weinstein.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: The Trump campaign has sued the New York Times over an op-ed piece.
Former Times executive editor Max Frankel wrote last year that there was no need to show detailed electoral collusion with Vladimir's Putin oligarchy, quote, because they had an overarching deal, the quid of helping the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy.
The campaign says that's 100 percent false and defamatory. The paper's response? The Trump campaign has turned to the court for trying to punish an opinion writer for having an opinion they find unacceptable. The President addressed the lawsuit at a news conference.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it your opinion or is it your contention that if people have an opinion contrary to yours, that they should be sued?
TRUMP: Well, when they get the opinion totally wrong as the New York Times did. And, frankly, they got a lot wrong over the last number of years. They did a bad thing. And there'd be more coming, there'd be more coming.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Joining us now from New York, Mercedes Colwin, an attorney and Fox News legal analyst. So the Trump campaign suing the Times over an opinion piece saying the paper has extreme bias and animosity toward the President.
Does this lawsuit have a chance?
MERCEDES COLWIN, FOX NEWS LEGAL ANALYST: Hey, Howard, great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
KURTZ: Absolutely.
COLWIN: This case is DOA, dead on arrival. Why do I say that? When you have a libel case, especially against an op-ed editor, the very nature of an op-ed is that it's opinion. There's lots of well-settled law that says when you're expressing an opinion, you are devoid of making a defamatory statement.
So -- and even when the President said at that press conference that, well, he got the opinion wrong, well, by his own admission you're talking and criticizing an opinion? The case law is very clear. If you express an opinion, you're not actually making a statement that's defamatory.
KURTZ: Max Frankel may well be wrong. The Mueller report found evidence of a deal with Russia, but why would the President through his campaign want to open himself up to depositions and discovery on Russia matters that's now, you know, old news?
COLWIN: That's a great point. But I'm not even sure it's going to get to that part. First, I'm sure there's going to be a motion to dismiss by the New York Times expressing exactly what I stated. When you're talking about opinion, it is not libel.
Now, there are -- there are circumstances where there's, it's nuanced. So if your opinion is that person's a thief, well, the underlying opinion is stating that that individual has actually engaged in criminal behavior.
That's completely separate and apart, something of that nature would be considered libel. But this is not what we're talking about.
We're talking about an op-ed editor who simply said this is how I see it.
Frankly, you don't need to show any detailed collusion because in my opinion, there was collusion to start because they wanted a pro-Russian President in the White House.
KURTZ: Right, this is the --
COLWIN: I'm not sure it's going to get to these depositions, but that's a great point, Howard. If it does, that's a significant risk you're taking.
KURTZ: Yeah, it's a former editor of the New York Times. And even the President has a right to sue. We'll see what the courts do. But when the President said more are coming, do you see this as him ratcheting up attacks on what he sees as the fake news in what happens to be an election year?
COLWIN: Great point. That is a deterrent. If you make these types of statements that I, as President of the United States, believe is wrong, you're going to be facing this type of action. You're going to be facing litigation wherever it is possibly venued. That's what's more so of a deterrent.
KURTZ: All right.
COLWIN: But he's not going to stop anything. Howard, he's the most powerful man in the Free World. You're going to be scrutinized. Your actions are going to be scrutinized.
KURTZ: Let me jump in -
COLWIN: It just comes with the job.
KURTZ: Let me jump in because we're short on time.
COLWIN: Yeah.
KURTZ: So the President also went after two liberal Supreme Court justices. The backdrop here is Sonia Sotomayor had criticized the court in a dissenting opinion in a ruling that clears the way for the administration to be more restrictive in issuing green cards. Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2016, she later regret it saying that the President was a faker, the candidate was a faker. Here's what the President had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I always thought that, frankly, that Justice Ginsburg should do it because she went wild during the campaign when I was running. And I just don't know how they cannot recuse themselves for anything having to do with Trump or Trump-related. And what Justice Sotomayor said yesterday was really highly inappropriate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: We've got about half a minute.
COLWIN: Sure.
KURTZ: Do you have any problem with the President going after of two justices by name?
COLWIN: Interesting because, frankly, I thought this was unprecedented,, but there is actual precedent back in 2010. President Obama did also criticize the U.S. Supreme Court for their opinions and their rulings, so that was back in 2010. So I was very surprised.
I think, frankly, these are my rock stars, the practicing lawyers look at the U.S. Supreme Court. And they have changed the course of history in very significant cases. In my opinion, they're pretty much off limits, but the President can express his opinion. But to say specifically that these two justices who have tremendous careers, tremendous opinions, have made some really significant rulings.
KURTZ: Got that go. The President can and does express his opinion.
Mercedes Colwin, thank you so much.
COLWIN: Thanks, Howie.
KURTZ: Still to come, the Harvey Weinstein conviction and why it never would have happened without a few dogged journalists.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Harvey Weinstein was of course convicted this week and the case would not have been brought if not for a few determined journalists. Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey of the New York Times exposed some of the wrong doings by the disgraced Hollywood mogul. And even more was reveal by Roland Farrell, whose findings were shapely spiked by NBC despite substantial evidence and published instead of New Yorker. It's easy to forget how much pressure the well-connected Weinstein brought to bear including hiring private eyes an how difficult it was for the women to publicly accuse him especially on the record.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEGAN TWOHEY, NEW YORK TIMES: We wondered if we'd ever be able to publish these initial -- at least the initial allegations against him.
If you had told us that two and a half years later we would watch Harvey Weinstein being the one sitting silently in court as these women took the stand to tell detail accounts what he had done to them, I wouldn't have believed it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: And the verdict was indeed mixed with Weinstein convicted of third- degree rape and a criminal sex act, but acquitted on more serious charges in part because the two main accusers had consensual relations with him after the initial assaults. But thanks to a handful of reporters, Harvey Weinstein is a convicted rapist.
Well, that's it for this edition of "MediaBuzz." I'm Howard Kurtz. We hope you also like our Facebook page. We post my daily columns there. And let's continue the conversation on Twitter @HowardKurtz. We enjoy hearing from you, good, bad, and ugly.
Check out my Podcast, "MediaBuzz" Meter. You can subscribe at Apple iTunes, or Google Play, or FoxNewsPodcast.com. We have a lot to tackle here in the wake of South Carolina and even more on Super Tuesday next Sunday, just a reminder that we will be back at 11:00 Eastern. And we will see you then with the latest Buzz.
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