This is a rush transcript from "MediaBuzz," May 30, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS HOST (on camera): This is a Fox News alert. President Biden is speaking at a Memorial Day service in Wilmington, Delaware. We will keep you apprised of any news made by the speech, an important reminder that this is the weekend that we honor America's fallen heroes.
It was a whack job theory, right? It was loony tunes. It was trashy Trump talk, surely not worthy of serious journalistic attention. The liberal Vox ran this piece 14 months ago. The conspiracy theories about the origins of the coronavirus debunked. Debunked, nothing to see here. That story got an editor's note this week.
Now, more than a year later, finally, belatedly, the press is taking seriously and argue about the origins of COVID-19. The headline on The Washington Post column of the Wuhan lab leak theory suddenly becomes credible.
Look, it's a difficult thing to investigate given Beijing's tight control over Chinese society, but most news organizations didn't even buy. Nobody is buying Wuhan's lab theory, The Guardian declared last year. That's the reason, if President Trump said it, the media dismissed it. If conservatives embraced it, liberal pundits mock it.
This just speaks volumes about our media establishment. Now, nothing has been proven, but the circumstantial evidence is growing. Will there be any soul-searching about what amounted to media malpractice? Don't hold your breath.
I'm Howard Kurtz and this is MEDIABUZZ.
As the media are abruptly acknowledging the seriousness of the Wuhan lab theory, some conservative commentators are pointing fingers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: They covered up for China and smeared those of us who asked questions, all because they wanted to hurt Trump politically.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Your abusively biased colleagues in the media mob, you just hated Trump so much that you're willing to push Chinese propaganda from the World Health Organization to try and make Donald Trump looks stupid.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Now that The Wall Street Journal has reported that three researchers at Wuhan lab have been hospitalized with COVID-like symptoms in late 2019, some pundits are following up skeptically or tying it to conservative politics.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: All of this, of course, could fuel speculation that the diseases are actually originated in the Chinese lab.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: This theory that it was from the lab is gaining traction, especially here, especially in political circles on the right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Here for instance is MSNBC's Chris Hayes last May and this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: A lot of people on the right love that phrase, escaped from the lab, because it sounds like something from Marvel movie or a comic book. This no shame called the lab leak hypothesis by some is not, I got to say, it's not completely insane. It's all kind of indicative of this strange narrative first approach of so much of the conservative media's coverage of the virus.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Joining us now to analyze the coverage, Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist, and in Los Angeles, Leslie Marshall, radio talk show host. Both are Fox News contributors. Mollie, why were most of the media so intent for so long on dismissing and ridiculing the Wuhan lab theory as being some cockamamie idea?
MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, SENIOR EDITOR AT THE FEDERALIST, SENIOR JOURNALISM FELLOW AT HILLSDALE COLLEGE: I think it's a good example of what plagued the media throughout the Trump presidency, which is that they viewed their job not as reporting facts in all of their complexity, but doing whatever it took to oust Donald Trump from power.
And so for them, they viewed the entire coronavirus pandemic, which was a global pandemic that came out of China as Trump's fault. And so when Trump or other people like Mike Pompeo or, you know, even people who weren't in the Trump administration were talking about the troubling facts surrounding how this virus was unleashed upon the world, they felt that that was too close to blaming China.
You know, however culpable China might be, they wanted to blame Trump, and so they couldn't have anything, any coverage, any reporting of the facts that would do anything to move away from their hatred of Donald Trump and their desire to blame him for a global pandemic, however insane that was, and to most importantly get him out of power.
KURTZ: Leslie, just the other day, a New York Times reporter who covers COVID, Apoorva Mandavilli, tweeted and then deleted, someday we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots. Well, journalists who think this is just anti-Chinese racism, not exactly going to keep an open mind.
LESLIE MARSHALL, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: There's so much that I have to say on this. First of all, one of the reasons I believe that the media was reporting that this didn't come out of a lab was two-fold. Donald Trump was saying without scientific evidence when he was president that it came out of the lab. But the international, not just Dr. Fauci, international scientific community was saying quite the contrary.
In addition to that, Howie, both the father and grandfather of COVID-19 were both animal-born as most viruses are. So that would seem scientifically the most logical. Now, we're finding out it might be -- it might be the lab.
I don't think this was to take Donald Trump down. I don't think coming out of the Wuhan lab or coming out of China is racist, but I do feel that the rhetoric -- and we've seen an increase in attacks verbally and physically against the AAPI community, based on some of the rhetoric that came out of the president and former administration where you don't want and the left didn't want, not China, China was to blame, the government of China, but not the people of China.
KURTZ: All right. Well, just to clarify, President Trump didn't say flatly that it had come from lab. He said he believed there was a strong likelihood that there was some evidence of that.
Mollie, it is fascinating to see so many media outlets playing catch up now and there were exceptions. A New York magazine ran a lengthy piece examining these questions last January. But even so, you have these liberal hosts and pundits, we showed a few of them, saying, but this is being pushed by the right as if that invalidated the theory all together.
HEMINGWAY: Yeah, this is -- I think people are pretending like we have growing evidence now and there are a little bit more evidence. But actually, what we're dealing with when people are talking about this theory, we knew a year ago. And so the change is in how people are covering it and it is clear had that it was done for partisan political reasons and that's not good.
I think even the fact that the media are admitting that they got it wrong now is really reflection of how they want to be able to keep pushing propaganda and they're worried that the more people realize that they manipulate stories and this is just one of many that they manipulate for political gain, that it decreases their credibility and makes it less likely they can push their propaganda in the future.
They need to radically reform how they're approaching stories. They need to very much emphasize the importance of putting facts first and politics last. You're not seeing that with The New York Times where they are, you know, where the reporter who is saying it is racist to investigate facts, which is absurd, is elevated. And they actually fired one of the reporters who was working on -- who has worked more recently we've been talking about with the lab leak theory.
KURTZ: Right.
HEMINGWAY: They fired him because they claim that he had said something racist on a trip and a 16-year-old got upset.
KURTZ: A student, yeah.
HEMINGWAY: They need to focus on journalism and not politics.
KURTZ: Right. Well, you know, just in February, Leslie, Tom Cotton said we should investigate this because China has a history of dishonesty. We can put up this headline. The New York Post and -- excuse me, New York Times and Washington Post both calling, accusing the senator of pushing a fringe theory and a conspiracy theory.
And Facebook has now flipped and said, OK, you can post something saying you think it might have originated in the lab. Before that, it was actually banned as unthinkable. So don't the media have to do some self-reflection here?
MARSHALL: I have always said, Howie, when I was a journalist back in the day, journalist 101, I would agree with Mollie on this, don't faint, Mollie, I know Sunday morning, we're agreeing on something, but, you know, facts first. Facts matter. It's most important. I was always told that a journalist doesn't make themselves the story, they report the facts, and then they let the viewers, the readers, the listeners form their opinions based on that.
We have a blur between opinions and facts now, Howie. Sadly, that's the world we live in. But I do want to speak to the politics. It's not just the media that made politics and not just out of China or Wuhan, the lab or the origin of the virus, but the virus itself, how dangerous it was and whether we wear a mask or we don't wear a mask.
And quite frankly with a medical epidemic, shame on us, left or right, anybody, because it really harmed not only individuals who were sick and they may have long-term effects or died, but certainly our health care workers and the health care community. This is not and never should be and it still should not be --
KURTZ: Yeah.
MARSHALL: -- a political issue.
KURTZ: Right.
MARSHALL: This is a medical and social issue.
KURTZ: It all became so entangled in politics and that for me was heart- breaking as so many Americans and people around the world were dying.
Mollie, it's hard for the media now to say that this is B.S. because President Biden coming out and saying he has ordered a 90-day review by intelligence agents to redouble their efforts on whether or not the lab origin theory has any credence. It is a pretty abrupt shift in tone from this White House.
HEMINGWAY: Absolute scandal that Joe Biden cancelled the investigation, which is the actual story here. He first cancelled the investigation --
KURTZ: State Department.
HEMINGWAY: into what was happening in China. Yeah. And this is just -- it is outrageous. This is our greatest adversary. This is something that has affected the entire world and has been one of the most dramatic events to this country in its history.
And the idea that he would cancel the investigation, not want to find out the facts, is such -- so alarming. He got a little bit of media pushback when he did that. That's why he started a new investigation. This is a much bigger story than they have let on.
KURTZ (on camera): Leslie, let me play for you a clip from former New York Times science reporter, Nicholas Wade, who was accused -- who says that most journalists are left-leaning and therefore oppose this because Trump was giving the theory credence. Let's roll it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICHOLAS WADE, FORMER NEW YORK TIMES SCIENCE REPORTER: I think it was just the blindness, if I could put it that way, of our media. We're too polarized to see scientific issues for their own sake without putting a political gloss on them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): So, your thought on -- you were kind of alluding to this earlier, if journalists are putting a political gloss on difficult scientific and international questions, it makes it hard to get at the real story or at least to allow for possibilities beyond whatever the conventional wisdom of the moment is.
MARSHALL: OK, two things. One, facts. President Biden never stopped any investigation. What he did is stopped the State Department investigation because he didn't think it was thorough enough, but he continued the Intelligence Committee investigation and he put actually more people on that, more money on that.
Actually, the investigation has been going on from one administration to the next for over a year. And quite frankly the reason he's even putting more into this within 90 days as so that we get to the truth, but like you alluded to earlier, Howie, very difficult when the Chinese aren't going to let us into that lab. We may never know the truth.
And as to your question regarding what the bit that you just played and the politics surrounding this, look, you know, I said it before, the media shouldn't politicize this, but the media also in the supply/demand kind of way, economics 101, is a reflection of what they're being given, isn't it? By the people that they're questioning --
KURTZ: And then --
MARSHALL: -- and former administration made it --
KURTZ: Let me just jump in because we are short on time. That is what Wade was saying, was that science journalists just accept whatever they're told by their sources. Mollie, I just have a half a minute for you to weigh back in here.
HEMINGWAY: That is the entire problem with so much of what our media are doing. They uncritically accept and regurgitate things without thinking critically about, you know, what the motivations are of people to say things.
It is true, like Leslie, said, that the World Health Organization, which is totally in bed with China, was part of the reason why people were misled on this. You know, early on, they had so many false things that they were saying. Of course, that did so much to destroy people's trust in the World Health Organization.
But we need our reporters to not just regurgitate whether it is that Donald Trump is a traitor who colluded Russia to steal the election or that it is insane to wonder if the Wuhan Institute of Virology that researches coronaviruses might have had a lab leak. We need our journalists to be smarter and less political.
KURTZ: All right. Good discussion. Let me get a break. When we come back, the media are on fire over prosecutors impanelling a grand jury in the Trump Organization probe. Are they celebrating too soon? And later, John Oliver versus local TV news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): From the moment The Washington Post reported that the Manhattan D.A. convened a grand jury in that two-year old probe with the Trump Organization, CNN and especially MSNBC were constantly covering it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Make no mistake, if he's indicted, he's going to start squealing like a greased pig at the county fair. There is no question about it.
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Donald Trump is legally naked at this point. He doesn't have the powers of the president.
MARK LEVIN, FOX NEWS HOST: They're trying to drag this president, our President Trump, in front of this grand jury, a Democrat Party, a democrat city, democrat state, to find something, anything, that they can use against him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Mollie, convening a grand jury is serious business, but that hardly means there will be criminal charges against Donald Trump. Again, it was almost like a collective cheer went up on MSNBC, hour after hour of coverage with all their attacks.
HEMINGWAY: Well, and this is par for the course for a lot of our media. In our country, under rule of law, you're supposed to start with a crime and then investigate the crime. What you see with these types of things and the New York is a great example of this, is starting with a decision that someone is guilty and working backwards to find a crime. You had this experience with the special counsel and how the Department of Justice handled it.
The attorney general of New York who is part of this probe literally told people to elect her and she would go after Trump. This is not American. This is not how you're supposed to do things in this country. The media love it. But I think probably 80 percent of the country looks at this and says, come on, really, are we really doing this? Haven't we done this enough and thinks that this is not how rule of law should be handled?
KURTZ: Leslie, it's not a great thing for Donald Trump, obviously, but it's a two-year-old investigation. What many in the media, not all sometimes missing, you get into real estate transactions and loans and tax liens and inflation of assets allegedly, it's complicated stuff and it might be that other executives get charged or that no one at all gets charged in the end.
MARSHALL: There's so much to say on this, Howie. I mean, first of all, I think just some of the headlines just show how ignorant our nation is on a grand jury. First of all, not easy to assemble. Second of all, two functions for a grand jury. One is accusatory. The second is investigatory.
And what you alluded to also, this doesn't mean it is Donald Trump that they are going after. It is the Trump Organization.
KURTZ: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: It really comes down to Allen Weisselberg and whether or not he flips because he actually right now looks like just from everything I've read, the individual that could potentially allegedly serve some jail time. So, it doesn't necessarily come down to Donald Trump.
KURTZ: Potentially. He is the CFO, just to clarify. Go ahead.
MARSHALL: Yes, correct. Thank you. In addition to that, I would say, look, there are certainly people that hate Donald Trump, but from where I sit as a Democrat, I certainly saw a lot of hatred toward Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama. It's wrong either way. You can't just convene a grand jury because you don't like somebody who was a former president.
KURTZ: All right. Let me talk about the prosecutors here with Mollie because you have the Manhattan district attorney, Cy Vance, Jr., and then you have the state attorney general you alluded to, Letitia James, and that's -- it is getting to reminiscent of Trump versus Bob Mueller. Are the media giving any credence to Trump's arguments that these are partisan New York Democrats who are investigating it?
HEMINGWAY: The media are part of this whole operation so they're not going to do a good job of emotionally distancing themselves to cover it. You are so right to point out that grand jury that is investigating the Trump Organization isn't the same as going after Trump. But just like with that special counsel probe. It's all one in the same.
The idea that certain people in the establishment have is that they don't just need to destroy Trump. They need to destroy literally anyone who had any support for him or were tied to him. There were a lot of people that had their lives destroyed by that special counsel probe even though nobody found a single American who colluded with Russia to steal the election, which is the whole point of it, likewise with here.
I'm sure that if you dig long and hard enough, you can find anybody has committed any number of crimes.
KURTZ: Right.
HEMINGWAY: that is not how we are supposed to handle things. The fact is the establishment won, they defeated Trump, but they're still going after because they don't want to even have any part of this movement survive. It's a very scary moment. The media are contributing to the problem and that is partly why there will be such a backlash against both the media and the Democratic Party and this type of raw abuse of power --
KURTZ: All right. Leslie --
HEMINGWAY: -- that we're seeing in our justice system.
KURTZ: -- just briefly, I thought Trump scored a point when he talked about Letitia James calling him an illegitimate president before she even took office. The New York Times in 2018 said she opened herself up to criticism, she has gone too far, and allowing politics to shape her agenda. But that has vanished from the coverage.
MARSHALL: You know there are many people and people on my side of the aisle that say that. They may not say it on national television but there are some that say that and feel that. But I do want to point out that a special counsel to impeach versus a grand jury to potentially indict are two very different processes --
KURTZ: And on that point --
MARSHALL: -- and two very different platforms.
KURTZ: And on that point, we're out of time. Mollie Hemingway, Leslie Marshall, thanks very much for joining us this Sunday.
Up next, Republican leaders repudiate Marjorie Taylor Greene. Is the press over-covering the freshman congresswoman to make the GOP look bad?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): The media are pounding Marjorie Taylor Greene once again and the Georgia congresswoman is giving them plenty of ammunition, such as this interview with reporter David Brody.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): We can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star and they were definitely t treated like second class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi, Germany. This is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: She also tweeted this, vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo just like the Nazis forced Jewish people to wear a gold star.
After five days of silence, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said Marjorie is wrong and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the holocaust with wearing mask is appalling. Senate counterpart, Mitch McConnell, is calling the Republican freshman's comments outrageous and reprehensible.
Joining us now is Susan Ferrechio, chief congressional correspondent for the Washington Examiner. Here is the media question. Are journalists encouraging Marjorie Taylor Greene by giving so much coverage to remarks that even some top Republicans find to be outrageous and that's how she gets attention?
SUSAN FERRECHIO, CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Well, Republicans and Democrats are engaged in what I call labelling war. Each side try to identify the other as an extremist party and the media loves that kind of conflict. They love it. And those make great stories when you talk about conflict between parties and within parties. And Marjorie Taylor Greene is a case of both.
She has divided the Republican Party. There are few there defending her and saying that no one should be telling her what to say or do when she tries to talk about the socialist policies she thinks Democrats are pushing forward. But there are many people within the party that say people like Marjorie Taylor Greene are making the GOP look terrible and that she should be punished, silenced. Some think she should be pushed out of Congress. She has lost her committee assignment.
KURTZ: Right.
FERRECHIO: But she is receiving a lot of criticism. As you just pointed, Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, two top leaders, because that is a danger to the party to have them identify with someone who tries to bring up the holocaust and compare it to anything in the United States.
KURTZ: But are the media -- is the negative attention helping her in a way? Since she doesn't have the committee assignments, the press is constantly looking for any little thing that she says, not defending at any way, shape or form the holocaust analogy. But then she can punch back against the press. In fact, in this case, she said she is blaming the controversy on the media and the Democrats.
FERRECHIO: Certainly with some of her constituents, she comes across as a populist and she goes after the media which is something that a lot of people praise because they think the media is unfair in certain parts of the country. It just depend what party you belong to.
You're never going to scare the media away from a story like that. The media gravitate to conflict and may gravitate toward the controversial lawmakers like Marjorie Taylor Greene. There's going to be a lot more coverage in the future, depending on what she says. I think there will be more of it as we get closer to the next election.
KURTZ: There was a CNN report that both McCarthy and McConnell were pressured into condemning the congresswoman after initially staying quiet for several days. Does that sound plausible to you, that they would kind of read the political tea leaves and then felt like they had to come out and issue those condemning remarks?
FERRECHIO: What I know the Republicans loathe to do is react at something that makes it look like they're reacting to something the Democrats want them to do. They really -- everybody, like I say, they're engaged in a labelling war now.
The Republicans were all too happy to point to the Squad, the very liberal faction of House Democrats, for remarks they have made, supporting Palestine versus Israel with the latest rocket battle in the Middle East. Like I said, they want to identify each other as an extremist party. So there is always reluctance among Republican leaders who just dive in and condemn one of their own. Nobody likes to do that because you have inner party conflict.
KURTZ: Right. You've set us up perfectly for the next segment. We will see you a little later in the program. Next on MEDIABUZZ, is there a double standard between the Marjorie Taylor Greene saga and the non-coverage of members of the Squad making questionable attacks on Israel?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): The media have slammed Marjorie Taylor Greene, there's been no criticism of the most liberal lawmakers using what some critics call anti-Semitic language against Israel. But the squad's rhetoric is drawing harsh criticism on Fox News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Anti-Semite Ilhan Omar accused Israel of running an apartheid state and engaging in terrorism and then demanded that Israel answer for war crimes.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Congresswoman Tlaib, Congresswoman Omar accusing Israel of terrorism. Hey, Nancy, Joe, Chuck, are you accepting this?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): But Israel launched a bombing campaign in response to Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza, so as Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley tried to link what they view as oppression of the Palestinians with the problems of Black Americans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. AYANNA PRESSLEY (D-MA): The systems of oppression here in the United States and globally, Palestinians are being told the same thing as Black folks in America, there is no acceptable form of resistance.
REP. RASHIDA TLAIB (D-MI): Palestinians aren't going anywhere no matter how much money you send to Israel's apartheid government.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now to analyze the coverage, Gayle Trotter, host of the Right in D.C. podcast, and Richard Fowler, radio talk show host and Fox News contributor.
Gayle, why are members of the squad not drawing much media scrutiny in stark contrast to Marjorie Taylor Greene for ripping Israel as terrorist state and apartheid state. Whether people agree with them or not, you'd think that would draw some serious coverage.
GAYLE TROTTER, HOST, RIGHT IN D.C. PODCAST: They're the media darlings. They have this protection that the media run cover for the Democrat Party and it's a study in contrast to see how CNN, for example, selectively denounces rhetoric and the mainstream media seems like they want to go after anti-Semitism, perhaps, except they're not willing to denounce anti- Semitism from the left.
And we see this over and over again with the vile, reprehensible, anti- Semitic remarks of the squad. And yet the left and the media and the Democrat Party don't want to be tied to these comments by the squad. Instead, they want to bury them and not hold any Democrat politicians accountable for what members of their party are saying and it's typical. It's not something that's unusual from the mainstream media but here is yet again more evidence where the mainstream media run cover for the Democrat party.
KURTZ: Richard, I want to make clear there's nothing wrong with legitimate criticism of Israel's actions. You have both American Jews and Jews in Israel often at odds with the Netanyahu government. But it was a couple years ago that House Democrats passed a resolution denouncing anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, as aimed at Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
So, Gayle says the media -- they're media darlings, talking here about the members of the squad. How do you view it?
RICHARD FOWLER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I wouldn't call them media darlings by any stretch of means of the imagination. But to understand how the media covers the squad you first have to understand that the media oftentimes when talking about Israel and Palestine, they really do have a myopic black and white view when we all know if you ever visited the region that it's actually 50 shades of gray.
Because you can't be pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian, right? And I think because it's all about ensuring that, you know, Israel is a state and it should be allowed to be a state but there also has to be self-determination and human rights for Palestinians that live in that region.
Now sadly, that's not where the squad is. But to say that the media is treating them like media darlings, I wouldn't go that far. Because like I said once again, I think this particular issue is really 50 shades of gray and not black and white as many in the media try to make it out to be.
KURTZ: All right. Gayle, when Marjorie Taylor Greene talks about the Holocaust or, you know, lasers controlled by a Jewish family, reporters run to Republicans and Republican and said what's your reaction, do you condone that. I don't see the press asking Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi to respond to some of the squad's harsh rhetoric towards Israel.
TROTTER: No. And this is yet again another example of professional malpractice by the media. They're not fair and balanced. They don't make sure that they hold sides account to the same value or standards and you couldn't have said it better. That they're not asking the same types of questions of Democrat leaders like Schumer and Pelosi and they're not hammering them with headlines about this all the time.
Instead, they're running headlines to try and deflect from it. And you see this over and over again. And this is just the latest example of this professional malpractice by the mainstream media.
KURTZ: Richard, the other day, four House Democrats released an open letter condemning rhetoric by some of the squad members. We talk about apartheid by Israel and so forth. Quote, "these statements are anti-Semitic at their core and contribute to a climate that is hostile to many Jews."
So, again, people may agree with that, then they may not agree with that. But it was a blip, and hardly got any coverage. And I'm wondering if there's just a natural tendency to shy away from taking on members of the Democratic left, particularly on the volatile issues of the Middle East.
FOWLER: Listen, I don't think there's an effort to shy away. Like I said, I think the media is missing the story on how they cover Israel and Palestine. Now let me say this. We must reject anti-Semitism in every form it comes in. But we also must reject xenophobia and Islamophobia in any extreme or form that it comes in.
Now what we're seeing here is when Marjorie Taylor Greene releases language about the Holocaust, right, that is very, not only inflammatory but it's wrong. And I think there's a distinction between that and the squad members calling out Bibi Netanyahu's government for their occupation, for the blockades and for the eviction of innocent Palestinians. And I think when we mix those two things together, we make a big mistake and I think the media oftentimes does that too much.
KURTZ: Yes, the one time that you see coverage, is where you have Bernie Sanders and members of the squad pressuring the Biden administration to talk more about the rights of Palestinians and President Biden having to grapple that.
Before we go this was talked about naturally on CNN. And I want to play for you an exchange with Dana Bash and Wolf Blitzer that shows you how for some people this is a very personal subject.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANA BASH, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN: My grandparents were Nazi refugees. My great grandparents perished at Auschwitz. Your parents were in slave labor camps.
WOLF BLITZER, HOST, CNN: Yes. And I'm a son of Holocaust survivors. But all four my grandparents were murdered during the Holocaust, two of them at Auschwitz.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: When have you that kind of family history, you know, it's impossible not to -- I think it's a good thing to share it with the audience.
Let me get a break here. Coming up, the journalistic disappointment over Democrats failing to pass the January 6 commission and the rather questionable effort to paint Donald Trump as an irrelevant force online.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): The media have utterly embraced the Democratic push to create an independent commission to investigate the capitol riots. And most journalists were clearly disappointed when it failed with the Senate failing to overcome a Republican filibuster threat despite six GOP lawmakers defecting.
So, Gayle, look at the way CNN covered this. There's a Chiron on Anderson Cooper's show, if we can put that up. GOP to choose between Trump and the truth. Now, given that there are other investigations, including by the Justice Department, why have the media turned the January 6 commission into such a crusade.
TROTTER: It's a transparent attempt to impeachment 3.0, and this is a partisan drive to create a drip of headlines that will go through the midterm elections in 2022, and it's really this effort to push a narrative that they want to continue on and on and like you said, the media cheered the first two impeachments and everything was breathlessly reported and they want to this impeachment 3.0. So now only they finally benefit from the eyeballs that go their media platforms but also to push for the preferred political preference as well.
KURTZ: Richard, what happened on January 6 was utter attack on our democracy. I want to find out everything I can about it. And I get that it's become politicized and Republicans want to move on. But shouldn't the coverage reflect at some degree by creating such a commission, independent commission, and bipartisan commission would benefit Democrats politically by keeping a spotlight for the rest of the year on Donald Trump's role in the violence of January 6.
FOWLER: Well, look, I think you can only have that view if you don't see January 6 as a day that lives in infamy. It's not about political party. It's about the fact that a group, an angry mob broke into our capitol. And just like the 9/11 commission, after when terrorists came here and knocked the World Trade Center and attack the Pentagon, a report and a bipartisan commission on what happened and how we can prevent it should be something that's like a bible to how we do national security in this country just as the 9/11 commission.
And the fact that Republicans are putting politics over this ideal of getting to the bottom of what happened --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Right. But I'm asking you --
FOWLER: -- and ensuring that it never happens again.
KURTZ: I'm asking you about -- I'm asking you about the coverage and whether they should at least acknowledge that there's some political benefit here for Democrats.
TROTTER: And it's reprehensible to compare this to 9/11.
FOWLER: Yes.
TROTTER: All the families of the 9/11 victims are so upset about this. And where's the media coverage of that? That is outrageous.
FOWLER: But Gayle, but Gayle, to be -- but to be fair, the capitol one of the most -- should be one of the most protected buildings in this country.
(CROSSTALK)
TROTTER: Were you here on 9/11?
FOWLER: And on January 6 it wasn't.
TROTTER: Did have you to find your loved ones?
FOWLER: But to your question --
TROTTER: Did you get police officers coming to your home --
FOWLER: But allow me -- allow me to answer Howard's question.
TROTTER: -- and telling you that your loved one had passed away?
(CROSSTALK)
FOWLER: And the best way --
KURTZ: OK. Let hear from Richard briefly. Go ahead, Richard.
FOWLER: And the best way to answer your question, Howard, is I think the media coverage of this has been fair. Because this is not about political party once again, it's about ensuring that the capitol is safe and protected and, yes, will there be some political implications for the Republicans, absolutely.
But has everything to do with the fact that the president, former president, rather, has had terrible rhetoric and incited some of this insurrection.
KURTZ: All right.
FOWLER: And that's not my words. That's the words of Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell.
KURTZ: I don't think anybody can watch the coverage and not conclude that most journalists are in favor of this commission.
Let me turn to another story. The Washington Post the other day, let's put up the headline, Trump is sliding toward online irrelevance. Now, Gayle, if you ban Donald Trump from Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, yes, his online interactions go way down. Wow. But the idea that he's still not at the center of Republican Party politics, that all these media narratives don't revolve around him, January 6 commission, the New York grand jury we talked about earlier, the midterms 2024, it seems pretty far-fetched.
TROTTER: They protest too much. They want to make him irrelevant. Their effort is to either make him irrelevant, to prove that he's irrelevant or to push people towards that. But the fact is, the Hill reported last week that a majority of Republicans want President Trump to run again in 2024. So, their effort to push President Trump out of the headlines and to drive, this is another narrative they're trying to drive.
KURTZ: All right.
TROTTER: And the headline of that article should have been despite being banned by social media platforms, by the cheering of the mainstream media, President Trump still holds a majority of Americans -- Republicans who want him to run for president.
KURTZ: I think Fowler, back in just briefly. Trump's statements since big tech has illegally banned me, tens of millions of our supporters have stopped using these platforms because they've become boring and nasty, your thought?
FOWLER: Listen, Trump is the elephant in the room for the Republican Party. The reason why we can do a segment on Marjorie Taylor Greene or a segment about Matt Gaetz has everything to do with the fact that Donald Trump still runs this party, whether or not he's on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, he is the leader of this party. His rhetoric has controlled this party.
And anybody who says that they're trying to silence Donald Trump is missing the fact that every single story about the Republican Party circles around Donald Trump, whether or not he's in the headlines or not.
KURTZ: And I think the media kind of like that. I don't know about tens of millions of people leaving the platform. Gayle Trotter, Richard Fowler, thanks very much for joining us.
After the break, Andrew Cuomo's curious defense of his brother advising him after Chris Cuomo's apology and Rick Santorum ripped CNN over his firing. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): Rick Santorum is not happy about CNN dumping him as a contributor after his controversial comments about Native Americans caused an uproar. So, he showed up on Fox to criticize the decision.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK SANTORUM, FORMER SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, CNN: I think it does show that the left is intolerant. They're worried I'm sure that their viewership which is obviously very left, they're going to pay a price. And I hear from a lot of liberals, in fact many CNN contributors who talked to me afterwards who were very, very concerned about, you know, the cancel culture that's now hitting them at CNN.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): We're back with Susan Ferrechio lightning round. Wouldn't CNN likely have kept the former senator if he apologized for saying Native Americans contributed very little to American culture rather than saying he misspoke?
SUSAN FERRECHIO, CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER: I think he did say later saying he misspoke, essentially saying he shouldn't have said what he said and that he didn't mean to be insensitive to Native Americans. I think it's just another case of selective outrage where if you say something and you're conservative, you get canceled, but if you're liberal you're excused and it's OK. And I think that's what Rick Santorum is complaining about on CNN.
If you get rid of all your conservative voices on CNN, then can you really describe yourself as a network that's trying to be fair or impartial or trying to get viewpoints in from both sides.
KURTZ: Got it.
FERRECHIO: And CNN is losing that reputation by getting rid of someone like Rick Santorum.
KURTZ: Let's move on to Governor Andrew Cuomo who addressed with reporters for the first time the thing that caused his brother Chris Cuomo to apologize privately advising him. Let's roll that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): Conversations with my brother, because he's my brother and he's my best friend. He always tells me his thoughts. Sometimes I follow them, sometimes I don't.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): The governor went on to say, I talk to journalists about situations all the time, they tell me their thoughts and their advice. Now even if that's true, And I don't know if it is, they're not related to him and they're not joining damage control calls with the governor and his top staff.
FERRECHIO: Yes. You know, who is surprised by any of this? Cuomo appeared on his brother's show regularly. You know they have a close relationship. You know they must talk constantly about everything. So, I, for one was not the least bit surprised to hear that Cuomo was talking to him about this absolutely critical issue, where he could be forced out of office, frankly.
People are calling on him to resign over these allegations of sexual harassment. So, it doesn't surprise me at all. And who knows what he's talking about, whether the media are giving him advice or if they're interviewing him and talking to him and he interprets that as advice, we'll never know unless somebody in the press steps forward and says, yes, I also consult with Cuomo. Journalists should not be doing that. And it gets back to the problematic situation with the Cuomo brothers.
KURTZ: Yes. Well, CNN president Jeff Zucker has said that Cuomo, Chris Cuomo made a mistake and he's human.
All right. Tennis star Naomi Osaka said she won't talk to the press at the French Open because she just got fined $15,000. She's going to face more fines because she says it's better for her mental health and she doesn't like the questions reporters ask. Excuse me. Hasn't positive media coverage made her a worldwide celebrity who earned almost $50 million last year?
FERRECHIO: This is really interesting because she has completely circumvented the media and making this announcement. Because you can. Now you can use your own social media account to communicate with your fans. And it raises a question, how important is the media to the sports world anymore if they can just conduct their own interviews and talk to fans through their own social media outlets, and of course, connection to the fans is through the media and these interviews as well.
So, she makes tens of millions of dollars a year. Now she is facing $15,000 fine. She is also citing mental health as part of the reason. And she's laying the marker down for other report -- other media sports fans and sports stars to think about skipping past the regular press interviews and just communicating with fans themselves through their own social media.
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: But again. She mostly got positive coverage. She makes all that money because the media help her make her famous. I always liked her. The head of the French Tennis Association calls this a phenomenal era and they are even talking banning her in the future. I hope that doesn't happen.
Susan Ferrechio, great to see you this Sunday. Thanks so much. Still to come, John Oliver's expose on how to buy off local TV news. It's serious business and totally hilarious. You've got to see this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): It's a long running scandal that some local TV newscasts are paid for product segments in from commercial (Ph) really that they dress up as news. Well, HBO's John Oliver just exposed it with a hilarious scam, creating a totally bogus product called a sexual wellness blanket and paying for segments on ABC stations in Salt lake City, Austin, and Denver. Here's Utah for us, chief medical correspondent.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: I'm excited to talk with Erica Hernandez with the Venus veil of revolutionary new product on the line.
UNKNOWN: It is the world's first sexual health blanket. It's using this feel of monogenetic I was talking about, and also a technology that's been around for a long time that was pioneered in Germany about 80 years ago. So, this is full of cutting-edge technology but it just looks like a blanket.
UNKNOWN: Yes, it does. And that's because it is. It is just a blanket.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): And here's the Austin, Texas station.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: So, the idea behind the veil is that with the right blend of proprietary magnetic fibers you can create a self-contained magnetic field that simulates blood flow and gets you feeling like your normal self again.
UNKNOWN: Very interesting.
UNKNOWN: Is it, is it interesting? Or is that obvious bull (muted) that shouldn't have been on in the same hour of coverage as the ceasefire in the Middle East.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): This newscast sold their integrity for 7,00 bucks, 2,800 bucks, all to a comedian with a ludicrous idea.
That's it for this edition of MEDIABUZZ. I'm Howard Kurtz. I hope you are enjoying this Memorial Day weekend. Hey, check out my podcast Media Buzz Meter.
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