This is a rush transcript from "MediaBuzz," October 3, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS HOST (on camera): It was the first real chance that challenged the nation's military leaders on the Afghanistan debacle. And they acknowledged on the Hill they advised President Biden not to pull out all American forces.
But another focus was the book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa describing how General Mark Milley made secret calls to China to insist there will be no U.S. attack, spurred by his private concern about President Trump's mental stability. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs described these calls as merely routine, saying he kept two defense secretaries and other top officials fully briefed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK MILLEY, UNITED STATES ARMY GENERAL, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: I personally informed both Secretary of State Pompeo and White House Chief of Staff Meadows about the call. At no time was I attempting to change or influence the process, usurp authority or insert myself in the chain of command.
REP. JIM BANKS (R-IN): Do you regret speaking with Bob Woodward?
MILLEY: No, I think that it's important for me to speak to the media.
BOB WOODWARD, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR OF "PERIL": When this is all washed out, those who were saying that General Milley actually was treasonous in what he did, I think are going to owe the general an apology.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): And at least one pundit, "The View" Sunny Hostin, who had suggested Milley was committing treason, did say she was sorry.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUNNY HOSTIN, ABC HOST: And so I owe him an apology because he didn't act rogue and that was very important. It's important for me to acknowledge.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): The book "Peril" says Milley informed some officials but Milley's version, and obviously he's doing damage control here, is far less dramatic. If the general was briefing even the Trump White House, it's hard to make the case he went a traitor as route (ph) and undermine the civilian chain of command. Some critics question why Milley spoke to Woodward and other authors at all.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX NEWS HOST: You were the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When Bob Woodward calls or Rucker calls, say I'm busy. I have a war to destroy. I have a foreign policy to try to save instead of you're not going to believe how crazy Donald Trump is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): As an author, I don't fully agree with that. You may not like what Milley said or did but he's entitled to offer his side to journalists and authors as Donald Trump did in speaking to the authors of several recent books. But the rest of the media need to scrutinize what really happened.
I'm Howard Kurtz and this is MEDIA BUZZ.
The biggest takeaway is that our top generals warned President Biden that failing to leave a small contingent of troops in Afghanistan could quickly lead to a Taliban takeover.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MILLEY: We should keep a steady state of 2,500 and it could bounce up to 3,500.
KENNETH MCKENZIE, COMMANDER, UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND: My position was, if you go below 2,500, you're going to look at a collapse of the Afghan military.
MILLEY: It was a logistical success but a strategic failure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): But here is the problem. Their testimony seemed to contradict what Biden recently told ABC News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ANCHOR, ABC NEWS: So no one told -- your military advisors did not tell you, no, we should just keep 2,500 troops, it's been a stable situation for the last several years, we can do that, we can continue to do that?
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: No, no one said that to me that I can recall.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): The pundits are sharply divided over the hearing and the actions of the military and the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: How exactly is our country safer or more secure with General Milley leaking and gossiping all over town to every reporter that has a book deal?
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: The nation's top general was set up. He was the victim of a classic political hit job.
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: Sleaze balls these guys are. We told Joe Biden to keep 2,500 troops in the country. We demanded it. On the other hand, because we are bound by the ancient and secret rules of confidence, we can't really tell you what we told the president because that would be wrong.
JOY REID, MSNBC NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Republicans spent their time hammering their performative talking point, attempting to blame Joe Biden for the inevitable result of ending a forever war that Republicans' favorite president vowed to end, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now to analyze the coverage, Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at "The Federalist" and author of the forthcoming book "Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized our Elections," and Harold Ford, the former Democratic congressman. Both are Fox News contributors.
Mollie is back in the studio. I'm sure you agree that Joe Biden has every right as president to overrule his top generals. What do you make of the coverage of these generals admitting they urged the president not to fully withdraw from Afghanistan?
MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, SENIOR EDITOR AT THE FEDERALIST, SENIOR JOURNALISM FELLOW AT HILLSDALE COLLEGE: Some of this had already been covered by the media, that they let people know that they had advised keeping troops there.
What's really interesting about this is not that President Biden rejected their advice. He has every right to reject their advice, particularly on an issue where the Pentagon has worked very hard to stay in the war even when public sentiment was opposed to it. The problem is that he lied about it. He said he hadn't been given that advice.
He has every right to do what he wants and let the chips fall where they may but it seems like he wanted the best of both worlds, to make the decision but then act like that it wasn't in contradiction.
And because it was such a disaster, it's really important to know where the buck stops because this pullout and the way that we managed this pullout was such a problem. It's important that we know who to hold responsible.
And one of the very frustrating things about the media coverage and this hearing is that it appears that the answer for the American people is that the buck stops nowhere.
KURTZ: Harold, I want to get you in on where the buck should stop. There was this talk about that this was a moving target in the sense that as we got close to the August 31st deadline, some military people may have changed their mind about the total pullout.
But can you really blame the press for pointing out that what the general said, testifying on Capitol Hill, was totally at odds with what Joe Biden told George Stephanopoulos?
HAROLD FORD, JR., FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, FORMER TENNESSEE CONGRESSMAN: Well, first of all, happy Sunday morning, good morning to you. I think it's important for the press to hold and Congress to hold more importantly any president accountable for war and peace decisions or decisions that affect our national security.
I disagree with Mollie on just one point of hers. I think President Biden has accepted responsibility. We may quarrel about when and where, how often or how often he did not get add advice to leave troops there, but he has said, I think, on multiple occasions that he should be held responsible.
I thought that Congress was not at its best moment or highest moment when it invited generals to come before committee and repeatedly ask them what advice they gave the president. President Trump, to his credit, would not have allowed any generals to come before Congress and answer those questions. I doubt other presidents would either. I give President Biden some credit for not disallowing them, blocking them from coming before the Congress.
I thought some of the montage of press commentary you had with some of the various shows, Joy Reid, I thought, said it pretty well, that Biden wanted to get out of Afghanistan. He has campaigned on it. He has been at that position for many, many years now. Now, she didn't say this but Joe Biden will be held accountable for this decision and whether or not going forward this over-the-horizon strategy that he's projecting, whether or not it works. That's how it should be.
KURTZ: Mollie, I'm sure you have some points you would like to respond to. Let me also ask you to address this question, which is, do you think most of the coverage of these hearings were pretty sympathetic to Mark Milley and to Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary?
HEMINGWAY: Of course it's sympathetic. I mean, I don't know who is being held accountable or what that would even mean. I haven't seen anything about that. I don't think the American media understand just how crushed Americans are about the manner in which we handled this withdrawal. It is true that it had brought bipartisan support to end the war.
KURTZ: Withdrawal itself, yes.
HEMINGWAY: That's why President Trump and President Biden both agreed on that. The manner was dishonourable. No one has been held accountable. You know, low-level soldiers are held to far more account than actual generals who mismanaged this.
The media love General Milley in part because he shares their political views. And so that's what all of this talking with left wing reporters in order to sabotage Trump is all about. He has aligned himself with the Democratic Party. He talks in Democratic Party talking points about white rage and about trying to drive out conservatives from the military.
That's a problem because we have a very unique situation in this country of having a civilian-led military. That's not something that happens a lot in history. It is not something that happens a lot in the rest of the world. It's delicate. You need to be responsible in the chain of command and you also need to not be aligned with one party over the other.
KURTZ: Right.
HEMINGWAY: And because our media are so aligned with one party and General Milley is as well, they don't see the problem there even as the rest of the country is pretty horrified by it.
KURTZ: Well, I don't know if Milley shares the political views of journalists but he certainly provides access to journalists. I do know that journalists like that.
Harold, did the brass being grilled at these hearings, which were carried live on the three cable news networks, force the media to at least briefly resume their coverage of the Taliban's brutal regime, girls out of colleges there, and those we left behind which pretty much had vanished from the journalistic radar screen?
FORD: I kind of hope that none of that ever vanishes from the radar screen. But just to point in perspective at a point you made, Howie, at the outset of the show, President Trump talked with Bob Woodward at the beginning in the height of COVID-19 spreading across the country and no one quarrelled with that. We quarrelled with the things he may have said but no one quarrelled with him taking his time to do that.
I don't think General Milley or General McKenzie, General Austin, now Secretary of Defense Austin is probably more aligned with Democrats because they're serving at the pleasure of the president. I don't assign any partisan feelings to any of these generals. I think they give advice that they think is best.
And ultimately, as Mollie rightly pointed out, our military is civilian-led and the president and secretary of defense, ultimately the president makes those decisions with the advice of those around him.
So, again, if we want to quarrel with someone about this, we should quarrel with President Biden. If we're going to really look at the policy, Mollie, you and I were on a show a few weeks ago and you rightly said also, this is a 20-year accounting that needs to take place before the Senate and the House.
Let's call them all before and say, when did you know that moneys that we were locating to Afghanistan were going to corrupt practices or corrupt people? When did you know that those troops were not being trained properly? Those are questions I want answered. I was disappointed Democrats didn't ask that in that hearing.
KURTZ: Yeah, years of lies and misrepresentations. You two are agreeing too much. I agree with you on this point, about a 20-year failure. Does General Milley's explanation of all the top officials he coordinated with and briefed about the call to China and even his review of the nuclear launch, chain of command, does it suggest to you that the events described in the Woodward-Costa book were overdramatized or is this pure Milley damage control?
HEMINGWAY: Well, maybe both. This is something that happens every time Bob Woodward puts a book out. He's excellent at spicing things up beyond what reality is. But again, he --
KURTZ: Milley is not saying that these things didn't happen.
HEMINGWAY: He is not saying it didn't happen. He is the one who gave the story. Whoever -- I think it was Cuomo who was saying he was set up. Well, what a set up. He is the one who volunteered that information, just as Harold mentioned, just like President Trump volunteered the information.
And Woodward really does have a problem going back to his Belushi (ph) biography, if not before, of people who interact with him saying that he's not completely truthful with how he characterizes events.
But bigger problem would be that General Milley, who does like to advertise that he's woke, is spending so much time talking to left-wing journalists even as these destructive things are happening. This was the worst foreign policy catastrophe we've had had in a generation and there's not nearly enough media coverage, even as I agree with Harold, that it does extend beyond just the last few months into the last maybe 18 years.
KURTZ: Just briefly, you have another book coming out. Don't you talk to people who are or were in positions of power in order to write a better book?
HEMINGWAY: I absolutely want everyone to keep talking to reporters. It certainly benefits me. I also care deeply though about the security of the country and at the very least know your job is first and foremost to care for our troops, to care about our foreign policy, that it's executed properly, that you listen to the commander in chief properly. That's more important than even talking to people like us.
KURTZ: Harold, isn't the bottom line here that the media are kind of rooting for General Milley, who was a Trump appointee, because he told Nancy Pelosi and this was according to a transcript obtained by those authors, that he agreed Trump was crazy even though he testified that oh, I'm not qualified to assess the mental health of President Trump?
FORD: I'm not convinced that the media is rooting for him. I think the media is -- at the beginning of this withdrawal from Afghanistan, I thought that media that we assigned liberal tendencies to were as critical of President Biden and his team, including his secretary of state, national security advisors and others for what they thought were shortcomings in the planning.
Do the media have political biases? Of course, they're humans. I don't think that the biases came out or manifested themselves at all, conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, in the coverage of this Afghanistan matter. Remember, it was Democrats who called for these hearings, Democratic chairs in the House and the Senate, because Democrats control both chambers.
KURTZ: Right. Well, there was a lot of critical coverage of the pullout from Afghanistan, not about the decision but about the execution, because there had to be, because it was an unmitigated disaster.
Let me get a break here. When we come back, Democratic left-wingers in charge apparently as the party fails to get a vote on the infrastructure bill. And later, Katie Couric settling some scores with her new memoir.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: Nancy Pelosi even with a Hill visit from President Biden could not get a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill that was torpedoed by the progressive wing. Liberal media outlets are basically celebrating after pushing to link it to the $3.5 trillion Democratic wish list bill and treating moderates Joe Manchin and especially Kyrsten Sinema as stubborn obstructionists.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, she has been an irritant in the process.
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: She does not seem to believe in any form of public accountability at all. She is invited on every one of these shows every day and every night and refuses all of those invitations to explain her position.
REID: Today's events are a death blow to the false narrative that it was progressives who are blowing up the Biden agenda.
KILMEADE: The far-left is holding the country hostage, refusing to pass a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill to repair America's roads and bridges.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Mollie, I get that the Joe Biden and the AOC wing are pushing hard for this $3.5 trillion bill. Obviously, it's going to have to be less. But the coverage hasn't really been mainly focused on the amount of money, the tax hikes needed to finance it. Instead, there's a lot of, particularly from the left, beating up on Kyrsten Sinema.
HEMINGWAY: It is striking how little discussion of actual policy we're seeing in this relative to other big battles we've had for big spending packages on the Hill or big transformative legislation. You think about how there were so many debates in the media about Obamacare or so many debates about the troubled asset relief program. That was $700 billion. This is, as you know, at least $3.5 trillion. Some people actually say that the true cost is more like $5.5 trillion.
You're talking about something that is many times more than what tarp was where you had vigorous debate about the policy entailed. That's not what we're getting. Instead we're getting these attacks on Manchin and Sinema even though Manchin and Sinema probably represent much more of their party than they're given credit for.
KURTZ: Yeah, I think these beltway process stories are hard to follow. A lot of people's eyes glaze over. Harold, Washington Post headline. White House is facing gruelling choices in cuts to Biden's plan as if anything less than $3.5 trillion is just so painful.
Where is the media coverage that says, to Mollie's point, that with a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, which has now been tied to this, the trillion dollar COVID relief which was already passed, and this new bill partially written by Bernie Sanders, that maybe this is so much money that it breaks the bank? Why are those questions not being more aggressively pursued?
FORD: They probably should be pursued more aggressively. But I will remind the three of us and I think we all know, the last 20 years, the staggering amount of money we've spent as a nation without raising revenue for it or just disbelieving that we needed revenue at that moment because we could grow our ways out of it, is just unbelievable.
In 2001, 9/11, we had to spend. In '07, '08, during housing crisis, we had to spend. In '19 and '20, the last year and a half or two, with the pandemic, we had to spend. And then a few things sprinkled in between. So I think the country for a whole bunch of reasons just kind of gotten where -- they hear the talk but they don't believe it.
So, I think Mollie's main point here that I would agree with is that Democrats aren't articulating what this bill and what the values are. I happen to believe there are probably are but they have to share that and enumerate that for the country to understand.
I thought when President Biden with before the Congress and Democrats a few days ago was -- I was disappointed. I thought he would gone in and said, men and women, we have a responsibility to lead this country and fund the things that need to be funded.
KURTZ: Yeah. Let me jump in here because I don't think most people even know what is in this bill. It is everything from climate change to pre- kindergarten and expanding Medicare and so forth. But, you know, Biden told reporters both bills will pass in six days or six weeks, which is what you say when you blow past the deadline because you don't have the votes.
The media have also focused on President Biden's negotiating style, how he lets everyone vent, seems to twist arms. This after all of that press hailing him as the next LBJ.
HEMINGWAY: That's what's so amazing about this moment. This is definitely not in the media coverage. We have only one time in our history had a Congress this narrowly divided. We have a near tie in the House. We have an actual tie in the Senate. And we have a president who was elected on the claim that he would be a moderate and unifier.
KURTZ: He wasn't Bernie Sanders.
HEMINGWAY: Nothing in the coverage even deals with this reality that we have a sharply divided country. It's all as if the only people in Congress are these Democrats. Of course, in a year, there might be a dramatic change precisely in response to this legislation because it's not like these other things that Harold mentioned.
It's about doing a spending free-for-all to left-wing interest groups while we are dealing with inflation. People understand this is reckless in a way that's different than what we were doing help for people whose businesses were shut you down by the government.
KURTZ: Yeah.
HEMINGWAY: And yet instead we get these things that if you're cutting, if you propose $3.5 trillion and then you drop to $2 trillion, that's a cut. That's insane. That's not how it works.
KURTZ: Harold, Kyrsten Sinema is saying it is inexcusable not to have a vote just on the bipartisan bill. She was mocked on "Saturday Night Live" last night.
The media, the liberal media in particular, kind of up in arms because Joe Manchin wouldn't say how much spending he would accept. It Turns out he said $1.5 trillion. It wasn't done in front of the cameras. It was done privately. So, did he get unfairly slammed by the media? Is he being unfairly slammed by the media?
FORD: No, I don't think so. He has every right and Kyrsten Sinema has every right to stand where they're standing. If you disagree with them, you have to lay out a case for why we should do something larger.
I would remind you, Democrats rejected Bernie Sanders. Democrats nominated Joe Biden and the country accepted Joe Biden. So, the Democratic Party has to understand the party itself is not where Senator Sanders is and some others are around the spending. I think Senator Sanders is a serious guy but I think his proposals are not serious --
KURTZ: Right.
FORD: -- because probably what Mollie said, this is a tied Senate and a three-vote majority in the House. Manchin said it best. He said, if progressives want this, then elect more progressives.
KURTZ: Right. When you have such a narrow margin, you can't necessarily pass the next new deal. Harold Ford, Mollie Hemingway, great to have you both this Sunday.
Up next, Julie Banderas on why Instagram is under fire. And later, Glenn Greenwald on censorship at YouTube over vaccinations.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): "The Wall Street Journal" expose of Facebook has triggered a storm of criticism with one senator likening the company to big tobacco. Facebook's Instagram chief went on to NBC and says the company is pausing a proposed Instagram for kids' site.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADAM MOSSERI, HEAD OF INSTAGRAM: I do want to be very clear that if anybody leaves using Instagram feeling worse about themselves, that's an important issue that we need to take seriously.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now from New York is Julie Banderas, a Fox News anchor. And Julie, the internal documents unearthed by "The Wall Street Journal" make it pretty clear Facebook knows that Instagram makes one out of three young girls depressed, anxious, having body image issues, and even suicidal thoughts. This seems to have touched a nerve.
JULIE BANDERAS, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: It absolutely has. The fact that it just reached this point a couple days ago where they actually came forward to say that they believe that Instagram accounts for kids might not be a good idea is a shame, I think that when you hear the vice president talk about how he understands how it might make young girls and children feel about themselves, well, yeah, that's the whole point of social media.
That's why most adults, most parents should keep kids off of social media. Cyber bullying is something of such a great nature these days that have led to such a high suicide rate among children, young tweens. It's quite frankly disgusting.
I also want to touch on Facebook's independent oversight board, how they are now coming forward and saying that they're actually going to put a check system in place. How long has Facebook been around? I don't know. I don't know the exact number.
They're putting a check system in place called the "X check program" so that it's finally going to cape celebrities and millionaires and those that have some privilege on social media in check while at the same time the same oversight board in fact kicked Donald Trump off of Facebook.
How many celebrities can you think off of the top your head that have been kicked off of Facebook for spreading a false narrative? I can't think of one.
KURTZ: Yeah, that's a very good point. Look, I mean, for them to say -- Mark Zuckerberg is keeping a very low profile here -- to say we're reviewing this Instagram for kids 12 and under rather than we're getting rid of it just seems to be like damage control, but we will how they comes out.
"60 Minutes" tonight is going to air an interview with a Facebook whistleblower who has a whole lot of documents and who is going to say new things. The company is treating this as a PR program. Is the impact on young girls -- is a lot of it Instagram's fault? Because before there was social media, we used to blame the women's magazines for girls being worried about how they look.
BANDERAS: Mm-hmm. I think it's the parents' fault. I mean, to be honest with you, I know that there's always going to be advanced technology out there and we as parents need to be responsible for our children. So I think for parents to blame Instagram and blame Facebook is a weak position. I also, however, believe that they need to filter the content that is viewed by kids.
Now, there is Facebook Kids Messenger, which is something I have on my phone. It's a way for my children to communicate with other kids. But it all goes through my iPhone so that I can actually see everything that's being exchanged in regard to messaging.
I believe the internet is a really dangerous place and I think that parents need to stay on top of their children. I think the parents should not give kids iPhones when they're 10 years old and they should wait.
KURTZ: It is great to criticize Facebook and hold it accountable, but you're right, parents play a very important role, and I'm really glad you brought that out. We will see you again in a few minutes.
Next on MEDIA BUZZ, should YouTube be banning anti-vaccine videos? Glenn Greenwald weighs in on that. And later, how Katie Couric supported Matt Lauer after he was fired for sexual harassment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATIE COURIC, FORMER CO-HOST, NBC: Sounded good. I still can't decide whether I'm captain or Katie.
Hi, everyone, I'm happy to be with you tonight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Katie Couric is coming out with a memoir and, man, does she burn a lot of bridges. In "Going There," obtained by the Daily Mail, Couric says that when wee co-hosted The Today show she froze out younger women to avoid what she called self-sabotage, saying there was always someone like Ashleigh Banfield, younger and cuter around the corner.
When Couric became anchor at the CBS Evening News, she writes and said she faced an insurgency at the network, feeling embattled, defensive, misunderstood like Hillary Clinton. She does admit to some unforced errors.
After NBC fired her longtime co-host Matt Lauer for sexual harassment, Katie revealed she texted him, I am crushed. I love you, and felt it would be heartless to abandon him.
And we're back with Julie Banderas. Julie, why would Katie Couric after a distinguished career feel the need to take shots at Ashleigh Banfield, and Deborah Norville. Both of whom saying they were deeply hurt to hear these worlds. Although she was candid in saying she was protecting her turf as a woman.
JULIE BANDERAS, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: I think she's a disgrace not only to women in this business but to women in general. I think she is a disgrace to young girls growing up like myself when I was once a young girl. And I used to look up to her and think to myself one day I want to be an anchor like Katie Couric, I want to hold these serious interviews and be taken seriously as a female journalist.
So, she is a disgrace on every single level. And when you look at her book, she should actually take her own words and apply them to herself. When she says something about Martha Stewart, it took some healthy humbling. Humility is the most important thing in our business, and as long as you have humility, you will be a success.
If you are insecure, such as Katie Couric, then your career is ultimately going to go down in flames. She should take another page out of her book when she talks about Dianne Sawyer must be stopped. Dianne Sawyer was an incredibly talented, graceful and a lovely journalist who took her job seriously but wasn't --
KURTZ: All right.
BANDERAS: -- stabbing people in the back.
KURTZ: I think that last one was a little tongue in cheek. And again, Katie Couric --
BANDERAS: I know.
KURTZ: -- was not saying these were terrible women. She is kind of pointing the finger to herself for being so conscious of her turf. But let me move on to the, you know, she was a $15 million anchor, a year anchor at the CBS Evening News. She blames the insurgence at CBS. There was resentment over her huge salary and her celebrity status. But she also deemphasized hard news in favor of features like a nine-minute interview with Michael J. Fox. So, do you see blame shifting here?
BANDERAS: I mean, I think it was great that she was able to carry these light interviews. I thought that she had a bubbly personality. But unfortunately, she has chosen to tarnish her entire legacy because Katie Couric is no longer ever going to be seen as the lead anchor of The Today show for so many years, she is going to be seen as a woman hater who supported a misogynist and an alleged rapist.
And she herself is a misogynist. So, she's basically, you know, tarnished her legacy which I think is a real shame, considering, you know, somebody like myself who's been in this business for 20 years. I pride myself on helping other young women who are rising in this business.
What she did to Ashleigh Banfield is just absolutely disgusting. She was a talented woman who got recognized after her coverage of 9/11. She went to NBC and after a year her show was canceled and she was canned and basically her career never went any further.
KURTZ: Yes. It was a very difficult episode for her. May not all have been Katie's fault. But since you made an allusion to Matt Lauer, and I don't think it's fair to throw around things like, you know, alleged rape -- rapist. But he was fired by NBC --
BANDERAS: Right.
KURTZ: -- in 2017 after allegations of serial sexual harassment. And what do you make of the supportive test -- texts from Katie Couric, long-time co-host, obviously.
BANDERAS: Right.
KURTZ: They were close. She was obviously torn. But what about the female staffers who accused him of misconduct?
BANDERAS: Right. And I also just want to be clear when I say alleged rapist, a woman did claim that he did rape her in his office. I mean, and on a trip.
KURTZ: In dispute, obviously.
BANDERAS: Yes. Exactly. So, these are obviously, he said, she said. He was never charged, let's just be clear on that. But as far as the text messages are concerned, look, I understand. I've worked with a lot of men in this business. Some of whom had personal issues. But you do get attached to your co-anchor that you've been working with for years.
So, I don't have a problem with her loving her former co-anchor and supporting him. But to cast doubt on the accusers, that's the problem I had. She heard whispers. Of course, she knew what was going on. She in fact writes in her book about how Matt Lauer's wife at the time called the control room to find out who it was that his -- that her husband was having sex with and she makes it a mockery in her book.
Now she herself is a widow and she was once married. Couldn't she put herself in a woman's shoes to know that she was scorned by Matt Lauer and not make a joke of it. It's not a joke.
KURTZ: All right. I'm going to put you down in the critic category. Let me just say I've known Katie Couric a long time. She does have journalistic accomplishments. We don't have the whole book.
BANDERAS: Yes.
KURTZ: But this is so at odds with her sort of upbeat persona that I think she may have done herself some damage.
Julie Banderas, great to see you. Thanks for taking some time for us this Sunday. And Glenn Greenwald who I mentioned earlier will talk about vaccinations and YouTube and the NBA in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): Some NBA stars are refusing to get vaccinated. And one of them is Jonathan Isaac. He's upset about a Rolling Stone piece saying Isaac started studying black history and watching Donald Trump's press conferences. He learned about antibody resistance and came to distrust Dr. Anthony Fauci.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN ISAAC, NBA PLAYER: I was pretty badly misrepresented in the Rolling Stone article and because of that I can't understand anyone who may say they don't transparently or overtly trust the media. I'm not anti-vaxx, I'm not anti-medicine, I'm not anti-science. I didn't come to my current vaccination status by studying black history or watching Donald Trump press conferences.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Joining us from Brazil is Glenn Greenwald. The Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who writes at Substack and is the author of the book "Securing Democracy: My Fight for Press Freedom and Justice."
Glenn, the NBC is 90 percent vaccinated. But, what do you make of the Rolling Stone who by the way told reporters that he didn't feel he needs the shots because he had COVID which is not an insane argument?
GLENN GREENWALD, CO-FOUNDER, THE INTERCEPT: I think that's the key point. It has become this huge article of faith in sectors of the media and liberal culture that anyone who is even questioning the need for the vaccine for themselves is either incredibly stupid and primitive, morally defective or a combination of both.
And if you listen to Jonathan Isaac speak, and to possible to say that he's ill-informed. He's saying look, I'm 23 years old, which means that my risk no matter what is extremely low. I'm extremely physically fit with no comorbidities or underlying health problems, and most important of all, I already had COVID, which means that the immunity I have.
The natural immunity from having recovered is greater than what the vaccine can give me. So, therefore, as low as a risk as it is to get the vaccine in terms of adverse consequences what he said, I still fear the vaccine more than I fear COVID.
Now I'm somebody who got the vaccine. But I listen to that and I think that people like that should have the ability to make that choice for themselves and there's no way to listen to him and to conclude that he's stupid or ill-informed.
That's a rational, cogent way of making a decision but they instantly label him anti-vaxx because all that term means at this point is somebody who questions Dr. Fauci or the World Health Organization or the scientific consensus.
KURTZ: Yes. I mean, look, I think everyone should be vaccinated. But I also think that somebody like an NBA player has to make a personal decision. Other stars like Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets may not be able to play any home games because of New York's vaccine mandates and the mandate question is a very difficult debate beyond whether the safety and effectiveness which most -- which everyone should agree on for these vaccines.
Let me move on to Google's YouTube, which, as you know has a huge reach, has now said it will ban any posting of anything. I'm going to read the exact language here. Any content that falsely alleges that approved vaccines are dangerous and cause chronic health effects, claim that vaccines do not reduce transmission or contraction of disease or contains misinformation on the substances contained in vaccines. Your response?
GREENWALD: So, you have to remember that Google which owns YouTube is probably the single most powerful corporation in the world in terms of their control over data and our speech and in terms of their wealth. Do we want this mega corporation policing our discourse and determining what can and can't be said on the internet?
The reality is, Howie, there are mainstream news outlets like The Guardian which two weeks ago reported on a study that said that for boys from 13 to 18 the risk of a bad outcome from the vaccine is greater than the risk that if they got COVID they would actually suffer any serious illness.
So, the idea that you can't debate these things without Google intervening and censoring you out in the internet is compete madness. I mean, how authoritarian do you need be to want a corporation like Google telling us what we can and can't say, not just on COVID but across many political debates.
And the most ironic part of all is that it is journalists who are supposed to defend free discourse and free inquiry, leading the way not just cheering Google for doing this but demanding more and more censorship.
KURTZ: Yes. I'm not seeing many if any critical stories challenging YouTube's action here. I mean, I have mixed reactions. I don't think people should be able to use social media to lie about the vaccine. But the key question is debate. And then I read in YouTube's explanation, well, the company will allow personal testimonials on vaccine as long as the channel, the YouTube channel, doesn't show a pattern of promoting vaccine hesitancy. That sounds pretty subjective.
GREENWALD: That's the key, though, right? No one thinks lying is a good thing or even a healthy thing. Of course, it isn't. The problem is, the history of the vaccine is one where these authorities have gotten things wrong, really critical things wrong over and over.
So if you had gone in March of 2020 and done a YouTube video saying, I think you should all wear masks even if you're not symptomatic, you would have done deemed at that time for -- that you were spreading COVID disinformation because Fauci and the WHO were saying don't wear a mask, it's unnecessary and may be even dangerous.
So, what is the scientific consensus evolves over time? And it's crucial that we remain free to question the pronouncements of any authorities, public health officials, politicians or otherwise, and the power of big tech monopolies is being used more and more to erode our ability to do that. It's very dangerous.
KURTZ: You talked about the role of the media. So, New York state has been widely reported is in the process of firing a certain number of hospital and healthcare workers who refuse to get vaccinated. There's a headline in Salon, the liberal web site, it's time to start firing unvaccinated people. Trump fans are overdue for a lesson in consequences.
What do you make of that and the particular, you know, almost taking glee in Trump supporters allegedly, obviously they're not the only group, losing their jobs over these mandates?
GREENWALD: I mean, it's pure stateism. Who would celebrate people losing their jobs with economic struggles and in the middle of the pandemic, especially over ideological differences? I mean, that's demented. That's really sociopathic. And the problem is, Howie, just like I was saying earlier. They want to maintain this narrative that's false that anyone who is vaccine hesitant is stupid or primitive or ignorant.
They also want to maintain this narrative that's also false, and it's just Trump supporters who are vaccine hesitant. When the reality is, a poll showed that there are large percentages of African-Americans, Latinos, people who live in large urban cities who are also vaccine hesitant and long have been in fact disproportionately.
So, what they're really doing when they're calling on people to be punished for being vaccine hesitant is calling on black people, Latinos, liberals, and Trump supporters, deplorables, all to lose their jobs and be otherwise punished instead of trying to persuade --
KURTZ: Right.
GREENWALD: -- them that you would do in a civil society.
KURTZ: Yes. I hate that it has gotten so politicized and I hate anybody who takes any pleasure or glee and people losing their jobs or getting sick if they were opposed to the vaccines. I'm glad to had a chance to talk about the free speech implications here.
Glenn Greenwald, always great to see you.
GREENWALD: Always a pleasure, Howie. Thanks.
KURTZ: Still to come, Britney Spears is flying high. A Politico story sinks Corey Lewandowski. And Jon Stewart's comeback gets panned. The Buzz beater is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ (on camera): Time to beat the clock on the Buzz Beater. Go. Britney Spears says she's on cloud nine and posted an Instagram video of her flying a prop plane after a judge finally removed her father from the conservatorship, she says was absolutely oppressive. The decision came as Netflix posted a program about the pop star. And after a New York Times documentary revealed that Jamie Spears hired a private eye firm that among other things recorded his daughter's bedroom conversations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: Her phone, her own phone, her own private conversations were used so often to control her. They would also monitor conversations with her friends, with her mom, with her lawyer.
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KURTZ (on camera): This was absolutely abusive and Britney's social media campaign paid off.
A Politico story has caused Corey Lewandowski his job with a pro-Trump super PAC. Politico quoted Republican donor Trashelle Odom as saying that during a Las Vegas event last weekend Donald Trump's former campaign manager repeatedly touched her leg and buttocks, talked about his sexual performance and his influence on Trump and that she felt intimidated.
Lewandowski's lawyer dismissed what he called accusations and rumors but did not deny the report. The Make America Great Action PAC says Lewandowski will no longer be associated with Trump world. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem also severed ties with him.
Pat Robertson is stepping down as the host of the 700 Club after 55 years at the Christian Broadcasting Network he founded. The minister and one-time presidential candidate have been an influential and controversial voice of the Christian right. And he is 91.
Ozy media is dead. Its demise coming just four days after a New York Times expose. Its new chairman resigned, an outside probe was ordered and now it's toast. Times' columnist Ben Smith disclosed the network founded by former MSNBC anchor Carlos Watson had a co-founder impersonate a YouTube executive during a conference call with Goldman Sachs which was weighing a $40 million investment. More has come out this was clearly a house of cards just waiting to collapse.
Jon Stewart launched his TV comeback on Apple TV. And even though he warned the new program won't be as funny as The Daily show, he's getting some pretty lousy reviews. He started with a deadly serious topic. Iraq war veterans who haven't been able to get healthcare after being exposed to toxic chemicals.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON STEWART, COMEDIAN: Burn pits. Burn pits. We did that to ourselves. And as these smoldering ashtrays of freedom burned, they released a bouquet of poisonous carcinogens like benzene dioxins and it has had devastating consequences for the people who served.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ (on camera): Stewart chatted with ailing veterans, interviewed the V.A. secretary. He knows 45 minutes of this sober stuff doesn't have mass appeal, and he's right. Crusading rather than comedy is a pretty tough sell.
Just founded that -- there it is. Just gotten under the wire.
That's it for this edition of MEDIA BUZZ. I'm Howard Kurtz. I appreciate you watching. I hope you like our Facebook page. We can continue the conversation on Twitter as well. And you might want to check out Media Buzz Meter, my podcast. You can subscribe at Apple iTunes, Google podcast or on your Amazon device. I'm out of time. We're back here Sunday. You know the time. We'll see you then with the latest buzz.
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