Print
Close
Media’s Matt Gaetz mystery
Published May 11, 2021
This is a rush transcript from "Media Buzz," April 4, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS HOST (on camera): Less than three months after the Capitol riot, critics were saying the barbed wire fencing around our symbol of democracy had to come down. I understood that sentiment working two blocks from the building but it was a big mistake.
On Friday, as you know, a man rammed his car into two Capitol police officers, killing 18-year veteran Billy Evans and wounding the other officer. NBC's Pete Williams reported the attacker was a white male but that was a serious blunder. In fact, he was a Black man and an avid follower of anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan in the nation of Islam and was killed when he came at the officers with a knife.
Not that his ideology should matter in deciphering this act of insanity. What matters is another Capitol police officer is dead and our condolences to our Billy Evan's family. What matters is our republic remains under threat from inflamed and unbalanced attackers of all stripes. What matters is we must protect our people and our institutions from the scourge of politically-motivated violence.
I'm Howard Kurtz and this is MEDIA BUZZ.
Ahead, we'll talk to former White House spokesman Hogan Gidley and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald. President Biden was on ESPN when he took a swing at a political pitch, whether Major League Baseball should retaliate against Georgia for a new voting law that critics call highly restrictive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: What do you think about the possibility that baseball decides to move their all-star game out of Atlanta because of this political issue?
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think today's professional athletes are acting incredibly responsibly. I would strongly support them doing that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): The next day, the league prodded by the players union did just that, yanking the game out of Atlanta.
Joining us now to analyze the coverage is Kat Timpf, co-host of "Gutfeld," the new show that debuts tomorrow at 11:00 p.m. Eastern, and Liz Claman, who hosts "The Claman Countdown" on Fox Business.
Kat, should ESPN have asked President Biden about the All-Star Game? The network has drawn flak in the past for being too liberal and too political. Do you think Biden weighing in on it emboldened Major League Baseball to make this move?
KAT TIMPF, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Look, it may have, it may have, and I think that I'm not surprised because ESPN, as you said, has been a lot more politically-leaning than perhaps a channel that was more about just sports in the past has been.
But obviously this is going to be a huge controversy. You saw, you know, even that some of the things that Biden said about this bill were quite simply wrong, right? Even The Washington Post gave its comments on this four Pinocchios. They don't go so far as to call -- say he was lying, maybe he just didn't know, and he only looked at earlier versions of the bill and not the final results. But he blatantly lied about these things and so a lot of people are upset about that.
This is obviously going to be a controversial issue --
KURTZ: All right.
TIMPF: -- and so we have people having wanting to boycott because they -- people were taking this in than they are, they want to boycott that --
KURTZ: Let me jump in.
TIMPF: -- so it seems like nobody can stay out of it.
KURTZ: Let me get Liz in here because among those wanting to boycott are Donald Trump. He rushed out a statement saying the league is afraid of radical left Democrats, urging his followers to boycott baseball. If this was a year ago, this would be at the top of every show. How much the media give this pronouncement -- how much play should the media give to this pronouncement by a former president?
LIZ CLAMAN, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK ANCHOR: Well, regarding both presidents, Biden and Trump, yeah, it is a big story. No wonder the media is covering it. It is not just a sports story, it is a business story. You have 193 corporations who banded together to say, you know what, it's got to move out of Georgia. That's everybody from Estee Lauder to Coke to Delta to Under Armour.
But I would have to say that anybody who is surprised that either of these presidents is weighing in, is not paying attention, I mean, obviously, what's interesting about this, Howie, is that this is not some far-left outrage Bernie Sanders group that is doing it. It's Major League Baseball. It's the league and most of the owners, albeit not the Atlanta Braves, who are really happy that it is being moved out and advocated for that.
KURTZ: Right. Barack Obama also joining the debate, saying he supports moving the game out of Atlanta.
Kat, CBS News deleted a tweet promoting a story with this headline. Three ways companies can help fight Georgia's restrictive new voting law. Are much of the media giving a standing ovation to this move by Major League Baseball?
TIMPF: Look, I think that they are and then a lot of detractors, I'd say most detractors are taking the stand of saying, you know, what about China? But I think that there's a business aspect to it, even other than the one that Liz mentioned as well, which is, of course, you know, the economic boom that having an All-Star Game in a specific city really brings that city, right?
I saw this in an editorial in National Review and also in Fox Business, pointing out last year, in 2020, in Los Angeles, brought the city almost $90 million in economic activity.
So I think these are all complicated issues. You know, people can get lost in them. And I really think that I'm not surprised, as Liz said, people are talking about them. But there are always a lot of different externalities to anything when you talk about something that isn't just political but is a business thing on many different levels.
KURTZ: Yeah, it transcends news, culture, sports, all of that. Liz, Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp said on Fox that this was cancel culture, that this was based on a bunch of liberal lies about the voting law.
Donald Trump, as we all know, routinely weighed in on sports controversies, particularly the NFL anthem protest. You have Biden weighing in on the players' side in this controversy. Is this the new normal? Are sports and politics now sort of melded together forever?
CLAMAN: Absolutely, Howie. When you look at sort of the meaning of it, you know, if you're looking at sort of the pinnacle of baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, Chevrolet, it is baseball that is very much the American past time, and by association, you're looking at the All-Star Game. So I'm not surprised.
But again, if you look at what position that some of these Georgia politicians are in, Stacey Abrams, who is a big voter advocate, is unhappy that this is being moved out of Georgia. She says it will financially hurt the state. You've got Keisha Bottoms, the mayor of Atlanta, who is also saying she's disappointed about it.
And it is a lot of money. But again, past the money, you've got to figure this is looking through the political prism, whether it's for business or for politicians. But they've got to get the story right.
As Kat mentioned, it was not us, it's The Washington Post that pointed out that people are looking at old versions of this bill and they're not looking at the final version and some of the details which in some cases, not all, but some cases, expand voter rights.
KURTZ (on camera): Yeah, media have to be careful in jumping on this bandwagon to get the facts right. Let me move now to the pandemic. The media rhetoric over COVID really heated up this week after CDC Chief Rochelle Walensky said she was scared.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROCHELLE WALENSKY, DIRECTOR, CDC: I'm going to lose the script. I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Another COVID debate erupted when Donald Trump's former medical adviser appeared in a CNN documentary, and Deborah Birx described a tense call from the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: Were you threatened?
DEBORAH BIRX, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: I would say it was a very uncomfortable conversation. He felt very strongly that I misrepresented the pandemic in the United States, that I made it out to be much worse than it is.
ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, U.S. NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The thing that hit me like a punch to the chest was all of a sudden, he got up and says, liberate Virginia, liberate Michigan, and I said to myself, oh, my goodness, what is going on here? It shocked me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Trump said in a blistering statement that Birx is a proven liar with very little credibility left, dismissing her as a peddler of pseudoscience, while calling Fauci the king of flip-flops who just tried to make himself look good.
Kat, this sniping back and forth now between Trump, Birx, and Fauci is an irresistible story for the media. What's your take?
TIMPF: Yeah, absolutely, right. I was going to say this sounds like a headline with the same headline we saw over and over and over again last year with them going back and forth and COVID getting very, you know, becoming such a political issue.
And look, I think that a lot of people -- what is missing from a lot of coverage is that you can believe multiple things at once, you can believe that this is a real illness, that it's serious, that it's potentially deadly to many people, but you can also believe that, look, it's been a year and we're all being asked to live in a way that's counter to our basic biology as human beings.
We're social creatures. That's important not just to our mental health but our physical health as well. I wish we could just see some more nuance. But then, again, when you've got the sniping back and forth, that's, of course, always, you know, a juicy story.
KURTZ (on camera): Well, speaking of sniping, before I get to my question, Liz, let's play a little bit of how this -- how the pundits are weighing in on this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: This isn't about science. It's about casting Trump as the villain and Birx, Fauci et al as heroes.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Right on cue, Trump put out this screaming statement, going after Birx and Fauci. Why? Because he wanted to make it perfectly clear to you that the type of environment they feared was real.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Liz, isn't everybody involved trying to some degree to either salvage or burnish their reputations about how they dealt with COVID? Fauci had been fighting with Trump all year. It was just last October that the former president called him one of the bunch of idiots. But Deborah Birx speaking out now remained silent. She has drawn some criticism for that.
CLAMAN: Well, it's the rehabilitation. Yes, you're absolutely right, Howie, you know, both sides are trying to rehabilitate their positions and certainly their -- their profile on how this all developed. But we're now into year two of this situation and facts change and scientific information changes, so you've got to change with that.
Yes, nobody is exempt from criticism here, whether it is President Trump or Fauci or Birx. You know, both sides are trying to fight back here. Nobody should be surprised that President Trump is punching back. That's what he does. That's what he always said he would do.
Birx and Fauci are -- certainly both doctors working very hard to say, you know what, yeah, I got certain things wrong, but listen, we really want to make sure that we get the story right.
But then you've got the flak from the right. But the point being now that we're in year two of this, Howie, and we still have major problems with this virus.
KURTZ: And on that point, Kat, even as vaccinations are ramping up, which is a great thing, there's been a 17 percent increase in new cases, much higher in certain states, and so what's your take this critique that President Biden and the Democrats and the CDC are sort of hyping this and they want lockdowns to go on forever because it increases their political power?
TIMPF: Look, I really think that -- obviously I agree with Liz -- this is a novel virus. So, obviously, we're learning new things and things are going to change as we get more information.
But I think what a lot of people are frustrated with is what they see as hypocrisy from some of the people who have placed these lockdowns into effect and maybe not following, including Dr. Birx, right? She was telling everyone to stay home and then she was on a plane to visit her daughter, saying her daughter is depressed. Everybody is depressed right now.
KURTZ: I was depressed.
TIMPF: So I think it's the, you know, the frustration some see from the words versus deeds. Gavin Newsom, I mean, she's far from the only person who that applies to.
KURTZ: And Liz, when Rochelle Walensky says she is worried about impending doom and she was a doctor who -- is a doctor who saw COVID patients die in a hospital, is she going to become the new media target now, oh, she's trying to scare everybody, when even President Biden says we're not there yet, maybe there in a couple of months, but we're not there yet?
CLAMAN: Dr. Michael Osterholm is on Chris Wallace's Sunday show today saying we've got major, major tipping point, that we are facing phase four, I believe that he invoked that. So it's not just Dr. Birx, it is not just Dr. Walensky or whoever comes out and says folks, people are still dying, sometimes up to a thousand a day.
So, again, you know, Operation Warp Speed deserves so much credit because we are now, of course, coming out with so many vaccinations, millions and millions. And by the same token, Biden is getting amazing -- he's getting amazing polling due to the fact that he is handling COVID the way he is.
KURTZ: Right.
CLAMAN: So while he's under water on things like immigration, he is right on top bipartisan voters on both sides looking at a positive aspect.
KURTZ: We will see if that remains the case. Ahead, former Trump White House spokesman Hogan Gidley. But when we come back, covering the utterly strange sex trafficking investigation of Congressman Matt Gaetz and his counter claim of extortion.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): In a story that can only be called bizarre, the New York Times disclosed that Congressman Matt Gaetz is under Justice Department investigation over allegations he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her to travel across state lines, which would violate federal sex trafficking laws. That is according to unnamed sources who said the probe begun toward the end of the Trump administration.
The Florida Republican is vehemently denying these allegations and told Fox's Tucker Carlson he was being shaken down for $25 million in exchange for getting the probe halted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): It is a horrible allegation and it is a lie. What is happening is an extortion of me and my family involving a former Department of Justice official. We went to the local FBI. And the FBI and the Department of Justice were so concerned about this attempted extortion of a member of Congress that they asked my dad to wear a wire, which he did, with the former Department of Justice official.
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: You just saw our Matt Gaetz interview. That was one of weirdest interviews I've ever conducted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Liz, on Friday, The New York Times had a followup, saying Gaetz is now being investigated for having -- for paying various women for sex, along with a Florida pal who has been indicted for sex trafficking and taking ecstasy with him. My sense is the media world doesn't quite know what to make of this story.
CLAMAN: It's salacious, OK, but at this very moment, we don't have enough evidence to see whether there is actual criminality here. But now, on Friday, you started to see that there may be receipts involving Apple pay. And look, as it becomes more detailed and we don't have those details yet, just as Tucker mentioned, but even Tucker looked confused by this interview because Matt Gaetz have come out proactively to defend himself.
There becomes a point where if there's more credence to it, then Matt Gaetz's shelf life as a representative of the U.S. Congress is going to be very attenuated. That said, paying for women when you're not a married man expensive gifts is not illegal. We need to bear this out and see more details as they become available, Howie.
KURTZ: Right. And Kat, there was initially some press skepticism when Gaetz started talking about an extortion plot. But The Washington Examiner first obtained documents showing in fact that his father, former state Senator Don Gaetz, had been told in a written proposal that his son's future legal and political problems would go away if they put up $25 million to help free an American hostage in Iran.
Not clear how they have the influence to stop a DOJ probe. And so this adds to the aura of ambiguity around the whole mess.
TIMPF: Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of that had to do with Gaetz himself, right? We all remember the tweet where he said, my father has been wearing a wire. He said to Tucker that he did wear a wire. It means the guy is continuing to wear a wire. Of course, mine and many people's first thought was, boy, if I ever wear a wire for anybody and you tweet about it, I'll be very upset.
But look, right -- and Liz is right. This story does have everything. It got sex. It got drugs. It has Matt Gaetz who is a very polarizing figure. He's a very staunch supporter of Donald Trump, so people either really love him or they really hate him.
But I think it's been really interesting, if it is, you know, buying expensive gifts for women and sleeping with them, it is not -- that's isn't illegal. We certainly need to figure out exactly -- there are receipts coming in. We still need to figure out more about what happened.
But it's been interesting to see some in the media on the left who normally wouldn't be so puritanical about something like that, being very puritanical and not just look at following the facts of it which, again, it is bizarre, so it is hard to know what those are.
KURTZ: Right. Oddly, just before this all broke, there were a couple leaked stories saying that Gaetz might resign his House seat to join Newsmax.
TIMPF: Newsmax.
KURTZ: Then something came out. So, Liz, the media consensus is the congressman hasn't exactly helped himself with this round of media interviews, especially going on Tucker Carlson's show.
CLAMAN: He's a lawyer. He went to law school. And when he came out and specifically said it's verifiably false that I have travelled with a 17- year-old woman, of course the media is going to try and tease out legalese in here. Number one -- is he just denying that he travelled with her and why do you call a 17-year-old who is a minor a woman?
But putting all of that aside, he went out there to defend himself. Again, we have to wait for these details. I would simply say that you've got a very, as Kat said, a polarizing figure right now who has gone out there and is now exposed in certain cases of -- there are two things that make this certainly legitimate, Howie, as a news story.
Number one, it came not from Biden's attorney general but from Donald Trump's attorney general. If Donald Trump is batman, Matt Gaetz has been his robin.
TIMPF: Yeah.
CLAMAN: And so there is that, that relation. Number two, Kevin McCarthy, the Republican in the House, lead ranking Republican --
KURTZ: Yeah.
CLAMAN: -- is saying if there is more to come and there's an indictment, he will be removed from his House seat.
KURTZ: Well, if there's an indictment. We don't know. There may not be. Kat, just briefly, we don't know anything about the timing of these leaks to The New York Times but they ended up kind of blowing up the FBI probe of the extortion part of this story, the extortion allegations being made by Gaetz. Quickly.
TIMPF: Look, absolutely. That's why this story not just because it's weird but also because it's moving so quickly, it feels like it's impossible to know, wait, this happened, what happened. We'll have to just keep watching it. I know I am. I'm not alone there either.
KURTZ: You may have some company on that. All right --
TIMPF: Yeah.
KURTZ: -- Liz Claman, Kat Timpf, great to see you this Sunday. Ahead, Glenn Greenwald joins us with his unique brand of media criticism. But up next, a closer look at the George Floyd murder trial, which is bringing disturbing images and emotional testimony into our living room.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): The killing of George Floyd which shocked the world burst back into the news with the trial of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, which has been streamed and carried live on two cable networks. Perhaps the most powerful testimony has been those of the witnesses, including Darnella Frazier, who said she stays awake nights wondering if she could have done more to save his life.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DARNELLA FRAZIER, WITNESS (voice-over): When I look at George Floyd, I look at -- I look at my dad. I look at my brothers. I look at my cousins, my uncles, because they are all Black. I have -- I have a Black father, I have a Black brother. I have Black friends. And I look at that and I look at how that could have been one of them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Floyd's defense lawyers tried to depict these bystanders as a distraction to police.
Joining us now is Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins. Griff, I'd still say the most powerful moment was watching the unedited nine minutes and 29 seconds with the officer's knee on George Floyd's neck. But there were some pretty emotional testimony from the woman we just heard and other witnesses who just happened to witnessed what they believed was a slow motion murder.
GRIFF JENKINS, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Howie. Very emotional, very powerful testimony, and we should point out never before has a judge allowed a full trial to be filmed in the state of Minnesota like this.
But it is that nine minutes and 29 seconds that really moved everybody when they relived that and that is really why it is such an uphill battle, if you will, for defense attorney, Eric Nelson, who is going to make the case, has made the case in opening statements this week, that it's about more than just the videos of Floyd's slow death but that parade of witnesses ranging from age nine to age 61, many of them breaking down on the stand, very powerful.
One of them that stood out to me, Howie, the convenience store clerk who expressed guilt for suspecting in the first place that the $20 bill that Floyd passed was fake or the firefighter --
KURTZ: Right.
JENKINS: -- who begged the officers to let her check Floyd's pulse and then having the two paramedics back it up and say they found no signs of life.
KURTZ: Yeah, those were strong moments. Do you think the judge's decision to stream this trial online, CNN and MSNBC have carried most or all of it, Fox has dipped in and out, is changing the way the case is perceived by the public?
JENKINS: Well, certainly, and it's important to remember that the general public watching this emotional trial and it continues this coming week do not have the same challenges that the actual jurors do or responsibilities to look at the letter of the law.
I remember in covering the trials of all six officers in the Freddie Gray trials in Baltimore, it was very different in what you may perceive is what happened to what the jurors had to look at, and that is simply why defense attorney Nelson is going to argue that Chauvin did indeed follow his training and that his actions were legal when obviously that video leaves one thinking anything but.
KURTZ: Right. I've got about half a minute. Look, George Floyd was not an angel. He was a drug addict who initially resisted arrest. Yet I'm not seeing a lot of commentators go on the air and saying, you know what, Derek Chauvin is getting a bad deal and being charged with second degree murder and manslaughter. It doesn't seem to have moved the media a needle much if at all.
JENKINS: It doesn't indeed. The testimony from Floyd's girlfriend, Courtney Ross, was quite powerful, talking about their addictions, shared addictions to drugs. And one of the arguments that the defense is making is that the death of Floyd was because of pre-existing conditions and drugs, but that's really pretty much in full display now.
KURTZ: Yeah. Obviously, we will watch for the veric and the world will be watching for the verdict in this case. Griff Jenkins, thanks very much for stopping by.
Next on MEDIA BUZZ, we'll look at the coverage often filled with praise of President Biden's massive infrastructure plan. Hogan Gidley is on deck.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): With the former president increasingly taking shots at his successor on a number of high-profile issues.
Joining us now from Palm Beach, Hogan Gidley, the former White House deputy press secretary and a top spokesman for the Trump campaign.
Hogan, welcome. Let me start with this. President Biden as you know just unveiled a $2 trillion infrastructure plan, there's plenty to criticize including its massive size. Donald Trump said in various statements that this is a globalist betrayal, that it is a cruel and heartless attack on the American dream, that our economy will be destroyed. Why such incendiary language as you know most former presidents give their successors at least a few months before pounding on them.
HOGAN GIDLEY, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRINCIPAL DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: Listen, you just fell for the oldest trick in the book outlined by the Democrats, calling it an infrastructure bill. It isn't. Only 5 percent of this bill is dedicated toward roads and bridges, that means 95 percent of the spending in here is a liberal, communist, socialist wish list dream.
Most of it has to do with Green New Deal projects and reparations. If you want to put those two bills up and talk about them and debate them in the American public, let's do that. Let's have that conversation.
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Let me jump in here.
GIDLEY: The problem is --
KURTZ: That's fine. There's a lot of --
GIDLEY: Democrats know that it's unpopular.
KURTZ: There's a lot of stuff in here just as there was in the COVID relief bill, but communist, is that really a charge you want to make?
GIDLEY: Well, look, when you ask for a government takeover of our oil industry, you want Green New Deals to be pushed down on top of the American people, which would absolutely hurt the poorest among us, it would be problematic for our economy. When the government takes over anything, you better believe that mirrors communism and what the communist countries of the past have tried to do to the people that they represent.
The same applies here. This is what Democrats have been doing for a long time, naming bills something --
KURTZ: Yes.
GIDLEY: -- that the American people think it will accomplish when in fact it has nothing to do with it. You touched on COVID. It's the same thing.
KURTZ: All right.
GIDLEY: The package was a COVID relief package, but yet nothing really went to COVID, vast majority of the bill went other places.
KURTZ: All right. Just to be clear, it's not a government nationalization of oil companies. But I want to put up a headline on a CNN story on this very subject. With an eye on history, Biden moves on big, bold, and progressive infrastructure package, that's a news story. It starts out with Joe Biden staring every day at the portrait of FDR that he hung in the Oval. Is this typical of the tone of the coverage in your view?
GIDLEY: Absolutely. It always has been. Listen, under Donald Trump this -- under Donald Trump his policies were America first. Under Joe Biden, his policies are America last. But the media want these types of policies implemented in this country. They don't care that the infrastructure package doesn't address roads and bridges. And in fact, most of the roads and bridges are up to the states to fix and maintain and build. That's why they have taxes at the local level to do that.
This is a federalization of that project. Joe Biden has been talking about this now for a long time. So have Democrats. We know under Barack Obama there were all these shovel ready jobs that weren't actually shovel ready. They didn't do anything to prop up the American economy. This won't either.
Think of it this way. All President Trump's border policies were reversed under Joe Biden. So, we have a different result. People flooding into the country, you now have incentives for people to expand the drug trade, human traffic, child smuggle. That's what happens under Joe Biden versus Donald Trump.
KURTZ: All right, let me get in here.
GIDLEY: The same thing applies here.
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: I do think --
GIDLEY: If you are going to cut taxes and get deregulation, you are going to grow the economy.
KURTZ: OK.
GIDLEY: Joe Biden is doing the opposite. And those policies will impact the American people negatively and I don't think they're going to be happy about it.
KURTZ: I do think that coverage of Biden and the border has been more aggressive than other areas. But let's play baseball. Because as you know President Biden strongly supporting the move by Major League Baseball to move the all-star game out of Atlanta to protest the Georgia voting law. I'm sure you disagree with that.
But Donald Trump again is calling for a boycott, not just of baseball but of Coke, Delta, Citigroup and other of big corporations that are supporting either the Georgia law or similar state proposals. He says in a statement with a rigged and stole our 2020 presidential election which we won by a landslide, why go there, weigh in on baseball, but why go there?
GIDLEY: Well because corporations like Coca-Cola which are now in the alcoholic beverage space, I'm sure that requires an I.D. to buy that, Delta Airlines, for example, you have to have an I.D. to fly on a plane. This woke ideology is very problematic for this country, for so many reasons. And this is kind of the culmination of that,
You have a vocal minority out there crying racism every single time Republicans put forth a policy. In this particular instance in Georgia, what part of this bill do Democrats dislike? The expansion of voting on the weekend? More days to vote absentee? Voting on Sunday, for example? Or the drop boxes that other states controlled by Democrats like Joe Biden's Delaware do not have.
The fact is, Georgia opened up its voting and the Atlanta Journal Constitution put forth an incredible correction this week in which it basically said none of the things in this bill curtail voting. In fact, it kind of expands voting. My question is --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Well, that's pretty much --
GIDLEY: OK, first of all --
KURTZ: That's very much in dispute. Hogan, I want to get one more thing but you can come back --
(CROSSTALK)
GIDLEY: No, but hold on. But lastly, they're talk -- no, they're literally talking about this piece of legislation. What were they reading on the frontend that made them write the lie in the first place? Talking points from a Democrat Party. These leftists in the mainstream media just lap up whatever Democrats say and post it and a week later they're coming out with all of these corrections.
That's a problem. Because now it's already engrained into the American people's mind. They did that on purpose. This bill is not racist. The people at Coke, the people at Delta, the people on the left they know it but they continue to push it forward because what they want --
KURTZ: As I said --
GIDLEY: -- is to make everything in the legislature racist that Republicans want so eventually they can get rid of the filibuster which they also say is racist --
KURTZ: All right.
GIDLEY: -- even though Democrats used it more than 300 times in the last year.
KURTZ: Details remain very much in dispute. You make some points. I have half a minute for you. Just before we came on the air Donald Trump's statement, happy Easter to all including the radical left crazies who rigged our presidential election and want to destroy our country. A lot of criticism there of the tone that he almost sounds a bit angry about what happened.
GIDLEY: What are you talking about? He's wishing happy Easter to everybody, even the ones who attack him and don't like him and don't want him --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Wants to destroy our country?
GIDLEY: -- to be in office.
KURTZ: Want to destroy our country?
GIDLEY: Yes. Happy -- the president was very clear. Happy Easter to all of you too. We know you don't like America, we know you think that this country is the cause of the world's problems, and we're racist and we're sexist and we're bigoted and we're homophobic as a nation, even though millions of people want to come here. They're literally dying to do that. We understand. But the president is being very nice.
KURTZ: Hogan --
GIDLEY: Happy Easter to you too.
KURTZ: Hogan, happy Easter to you as well.
GIDLEY: Thanks so much.
KURTZ: Hogan Gidley. After the break, what happens when those who dare criticize journalists become the target of online attacks. Glenn Greenwald is up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): When USA Today ran a piece naming Trump supporters who were charged in the capitol riot - they are using crowd funding sites to raise money for their defense - that sparked some criticism in the paper which triggered a big backlash online.
Joining us now from Brazil, Glenn Greenwald, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who now writes on Substack. He is the author of the forthcoming book "Securing Democracy: My Fight for Press Freedom and Justice."
And Glenn, what's your main objection to this USA Today story, the people who are charged here raising money, they're not charged with violent acts but breaching security at the capitol. And tell us a little about the blowback you got for the criticism.
GLENN GREENWALD, CO-FOUNDER, THE INTERCEPT: Sure. So, it's really based on my idea of journalism and not just my idiosyncratic idea but one commonly accepted in the profession for decades.
There's an old saying in journalism often cited by the Pulitzer committee when they award Pulitzer Prizes, which is that the role of the journalist is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Meaning that our job is to turn a light not on powerless people, those who we're supposed to be defending but on the corruption of power centers, governments, security states, large corporations.
And what this USA Today story like so many other recent stories over the last couple of years did was exactly the opposite. It targeted private citizens, people who are indigent and who are charged with very serious crimes by the Justice Department in connection with the January 6 riot. Some of whom are charged with committing violence. Most of whom are not but all of them are entitled to a vigorous defense and they were trying to raise money online so that they could defend themselves with good criminal lawyers against the full weight of the Justice Department crashing down on them.
And the point of this USA Today article explicitly was to prevent them from doing that. In fact, they went to a lot of these companies that were being used to fund raise --
KURTZ: Yes.
GREENWALD: -- like PayPal and Stripe and other platforms and they got them kicked off and they celebrated it.
KURTZ: Let me jump in.
GREENWALD: So, what kind of journalism is that?
KURTZ: Well let me jump in. Let me put up on the screen something you wrote about this. The primary target of the Trump era media has become private citizens and people who wield no power, yet who these media outlets believe must have their lives ruined because they have adopted the wrong political ideology. So, you see this as ideologically based?
GREENWALD: Absolutely. You know, one of the examples I cited was a couple of years ago, CNN went to the front yard of an elderly woman in Florida to confront her because she had posted a pro-Trump rally on her Facebook page that CNN claimed was actually engineered by the Russians, and tried to basically confront her whether she was some kind of Kremlin operative, this 75-year-old woman.
They dox people all the time if you make a pro-Trump meme or an anti-media meme. They dox you all the time. And then in this case what they did, and this is what they always do, Howie, that's even more disturbing, is if you criticize them, I'm talking about major journalists from the second largest newspaper in the country which is USA Today, I criticized them, others did. They then turn around and make themselves the victim.
They say by criticizing us as journalists you're inciting hatred against us, you're inciting harassment. They've completely reversed the dynamic. They attack marginalized powerless people but then pretend that marginalized, powerless vulnerable ones are themselves so that it's illegitimate to criticize it. So many elements --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Let me a couple -- let me give a quick -- let me give a quick example. Because the lead byline in that story belonged to a woman named Brenna Taylor (Ph). And NBC's Ben Collins called you a member of the extreme right. Other people said that you were bullying Brenna Taylor, this fragile young woman. A female NBC journalist tweeted, it seemed some powerful men are determined to go after female tech journalist. Your response?
GREENWALD: It's so ironic. Because the whole point of feminism, the feminist movement which I've always supported and still support is to say that women are as strong as men and are as capable as men of doing professional jobs. There's obviously a lot of strong women in journalism.
And what they're doing is reversing that. They're saying no. Women are too fragile, we need to treat them like these China dolls who cannot be criticized, who cannot be critiqued in any way because if you do, you're somehow harming them.
It's a really regressive kind of sexist trope that they're using to place themselves off limits from criticism even though they wield a lot of power.
KURTZ: All right. Let me just get this one question in, because I want some room to talk about Hunter Biden. You tweeted people in the liberal sector of the media have not come to terms with how widely and intensely hated they are. Hate is a strong word. Hated by who? Hated by the right?
GREENWALD: Not only by the right. If you look at not just the trends in digital media where these digital media outlets are completely failing, huge layoffs or even closure, but even polling data from Axios at the beginning of the year showing trust and faith among American citizens in the media is at an all-time low. It's a crisis in journalism and they refuse to take any responsibility or even ask whether anything that they're doing is responsible.
KURTZ: That's why we ask those questions. All right. Let me get a break here. Still to come, Hunter Biden admits that the laptop linked to his foreign influence peddling, well, may have been his.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): Hunter Biden is out with a book detailing his struggles as a crack addict and alcoholic. In a CBS interview, the president's son was asked about the infamous laptop found in a Delaware repair shop that included e-mails about his foreign business dealings.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRACY SMITH, CORRESPONDENT, CBS NEWS: Was that your laptop?
HUNTER BIDEN, JOE BIDEN'S SON: For real, I don't know.
SMITH: Yes or no if the laptop was yours.
BIDEN: I don't -- I have no idea. I have no idea whether --
(CROSSTALK)
SMITH: So, it could have been yours.
BIDEN: Of course, certainly. There could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me. It could be that I was hacked. It could be that it was Russian intelligence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: CBS' Tracy Smith asked the question several more times in there. Glenn Greenwald, should the press accept Hunter Biden's response that he doesn't know if a laptop filled with his e-mails is his, maybe it is, maybe it isn't?
GREENWALD: It's totally irrelevant, Howie, because there's no doubt then, there wasn't then and there's certainly isn't now that those documents are authentic. Nobody from the Biden family ever claimed that a word of those e-mails or documents that were published are anything but authentic.
There are people who were on the e-mail chains. Witnesses who have said I have these e-mails and they're all real. If you're somebody like Hunter Biden and the press organization publishes e-mails in your name that are fake, the first thing you do is say they're fake. But he still won't say it because those documents were authentic and always were.
KURTZ: On that point, NPR ran a rather belated correction, it says a previous version of the story said U.S. intelligence had discredited the laptop story. U.S. intelligence officials have not made a statement to that effect. What about that?
GREENWALD: You know, I really think we haven't sufficiently appreciated how serious and grave this attack was on our right to have the dissemination of information. What happened before the election when Facebook and Twitter that wield enormous influence censored these stories, refused to allow the stories, this reporting from the oldest newspaper in the country, The New York Post, even to be circulated because they accepted a lie from ex-CIA officials like John Brennan that this information was Russian disinformation.
There's been no evidence that Russia had any role. And we know now it wasn't disinformation, the documents are real. It was not just widespread censorship weeks before an election but based on lies from the intelligence community that prevented millions of American citizens from hearing about relevant information about the leading presidential frontrunner.
And I think it's an incredible scandal that we ought to revisit in light of this interview.
KURTZ: Yes, I was highly critical of it at the time. And Twitter's Jack Dorsey has later admitted now this was a big mistake. Look, Hunter Biden writes in this book beautiful things about smoking crack every 15 hints, the drinking problems, his father -- visiting his father and then his dad chasing him into the driveway and when he left the house and saying I don't know what to do about your addiction coverage.
Is the coverage and the interviews he's doing starting to generate Some sympathy for him as a person since obviously addiction is an awful thing to deal with?
GREENWALD: Well, I never have regarded his addiction struggles as newsworthy, nor his consensual sexual adult relationships which were part of these documents. So, talking about that is, if it's his choice, is a noble thing to do. What I considered newsworthy and what was censored were the parts of the documents showing that he was peddling influence with Joe Biden's brother in China and Ukraine that raised real questions about the extent to which Joe Biden knew about it and was participating in it.
So, if they want to focus on his addiction problems, I support Hunter Biden and anyone else struggling with addiction. But the real story was corruption and influence peddling in countries in which Joe Biden, then the vice president, had a lot of influence and power and we shouldn't let anyone distract from what the real story was.
KURTZ: Right. Well, obviously, Hunter Biden's motivation in writing this book beside the reported $2 million advance, was to show and paint a more sympathetic portion of himself. But you think now he has opened the door for us to revisit these questions about Ukraine and Burisma, you know, some of which got an awful lot of attention during the first impeachment. I've got about half a minute.
GREENWALD: Yes. I mean, we should be revisiting it regardless because the real story was not just what that document -- those documents showed about Biden and China and Ukraine but also the use -- the abuse of power by Facebook and the Democrats to censor a major story right before an election. It was incredible interference and manipulation of the right to vote and the right to be heard.
KURTZ: Yes. And so, therefore, the question you would ask is could this happen again, in other words it's not just old news. A few seconds left.
GREENWALD: Yes. I mean, it was a template that's very dangerous and very disturbing which is why we need to denounce it now.
KURTZ: Glenn Greenwald, thanks very much for being here. Good to see you.
And that's it for this edition of MEDIA BUZZ. I'm Howard Kurtz. I'd like to wish you a happy Easter. And also, you can like our Facebook page, we post my daily columns there. Continue the conversation on Twitter. Hey, check out my podcast, Media Buzz Meter. You can subscribe at Apple iTunes or on Google podcast or get it on your Amazon device.
Well, we pack a lot in as we try the to do every week. We are back here next Sunday, 11 Eastern. Hope to see you then with the latest buzz.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
Content and Programming Copyright 2021 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2021 VIQ Media Transcription, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of VIQ Media Transcription, Inc. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
/transcript/medias-matt-gaetz-mystery