howie: president trump its pounded over foreign policy and immigration. we talk to kellyanne conway on where the white house has made mistakes. >> it's not just biased coverage. it's incomplete coverage it's all the stories not told. howie: two extraordinary leaks about the phone calls the president made to the prime minister of australia and president of mexico. are some pundits making

inaccurate comparisons to another president. >> monday night massacre. president trump fires the acting attorney general for refusing to even if force his travel ban. >> monday night massacre. lou: a look at the coverage of supreme court nominee neil gorsuch. on this super bowl sunday, national football. i'm howard kurtz and this is "media buzz." ' kellyanne conway has been at the center of just about every controversy swirling around the trump white house. i sat down with her in new york.

welcome. the leaking of the president's tough calls with the leaders of australia and mexico is extraordinary. it suggests there are senior officials in the government leaking. >> we are very concerned because we are not leakers. we are tight lipped. wee respect the intel security process. as commander-in-chief we are duty bound to this country to not leak information that could jeopardize all of us. i'm not going to conclude on speculate. it could be state department officials who are holdovers. it isn't rex tillerson and his close advisors. but rex tillerson made clear people at state should expect main changes coming. i would assume leaking cities

one of them. i can't imagine the leaks came from the mexican and australian side because' it was very unflattering to those leaders. howie: when the president this week fired acting attorney general sally yates an obama holdover. many reporters compared it to the saturday mass kerr firings under president nixon. >> if she can't execute on the president's vision she shouldn't be there, if she disagrees with what he's doing, maybe she shouldn't have been there from the beginning. how about if the senate confirms his nominee to the department of justice for southern general jeff sessions. the democrats delayed his hearings and delayed his vote.

as we sit here right now we have a record number of unconfirmed if nominees to a presidential cabinet including treasury and commerce. the democrats want to go on the record. they have time to go and cry and weep at the airport protesting something they bastardized as to its intent and what is effective, this immigration order. you wanted to vote again, vote again, but at least give people a hearing and the decency of a vote. howie: the media theory was one of chaos and confusion on the ban. >> there are several things that go on with any executive action. you have legal approval and communications and rollout.

there is a learning curve for any administration. but i also think any chance people get to demeanor diminish the president they take it and gnaw at it. before it doesn't work. it cause -- it's not reflective of the rest of the country. the majority of americans depending on how the question is asked, they like the content of this executive order. they think the president's first duty is to keep people safe. they believe there are state sponsors of terrorism it's a narrowly prescribed terror list. it gives us a pause to find out if our vetting processes are as good as they can be. if you look at the supreme court

pick. it was such a brilliant pick in judge neil gorsuch that it got subsumed by other coverage. howie: i think 10 analysts on the left said neil gorsuch is a highly qualified nominee. a lot of the coverage has been democrats wanting payback. don't both parties have unclean hands when it comes to acting on nominees. >> last time you saw within you had to be 30 years old, not 10 years old. and they are not acting like that. you have to now forward and rely upon a majority in the senate that america put there. america decided they wanted a conservative american president. howie: steve bannon is getting a

lot of bad press. do you think the fact that he stays away from the cameras contributes to what he calls his darth vader image. >> people are trying to take down president trump through each of us. it's not going to work. because we are a very tight group. we live in the fox hole together, and there weren't that's of us. steve bannon is the chief strategist to the president of the united states. but the ultimate voice and choice for everything is president donald j. trump. anybody who doesn't understand that and writes against that fact is just reporting inaccurate information. howie: you told sean hannity on the radio that the media are inciting mob mentality.

that's a very strong charge. you think negative media coverage could lead to mob violence. >> did you see the martyrs at the airport, the conscientious civic participants. protests are part of our first amendment. howie: we have seen this in some of the urban riots. >> why don't they go and talk to -- they are the media. they already missed america. they don't understand america and thup their nose at most of america and you know that. america didn't go to the ivy league schools like the media did. there are some people in the media whose dry cleaning bill for the year is basically what some people earn in the cities and counties where donald trump won. fast forward, why don't they go and see who is going to benefit

and talk to the people who are tactically going to benefit from keeping the factories here. howie: when you say some of these stories aren't covered. howie: trump versus iran, trump versus australia, trump versus the berkeley protest. isn't it true that the white house makes so much news that some of this stuff -- there isn't the band widths. >> there is plenty of bandwidth. >> it's a matter of selective coverage. it's not just bias coverage. bias is easy to detect. look at the guy beating his wife. but it's the incomplete coverage, the stories that are not told.

it's the curated media coverage. the media are watching this in their pajamas saying she is picking on the media. no, i'm not. i am asking you to do a service to america by giving them the full story. a lot of americans suffer from information under load. from all the overload we have, there is information underload. we have to do what everybody else is doing. why? then pretend our an independent thinking or you are unique or a disruptor. the independent voice is donald trump. that's how he got elected because he sounded different and he does things differently.

you can just measure and feel and see the difference not just in flip but in content and volume. howie: when we come back our panel weighs in on those leaks on the presidential private calls to foreign leaders. you wouldn't want your painter to quit part way. i think you missed a spot. so when it comes to pain relievers, why put up with just part of a day? aleve, live whole not part. painter: you want this color over the whole house?

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about the tough phone calls i'm having, don't worry about it. don't worry about it. they are tough. it's time to be tough. we are take be advantage of by every nation in the world, virtually. howie: joining me to analyze the coverage. kelly riddell and marie harp, former spokeswoman for the state department and a fox news contributor. the independent journal review. what do you make of the leaking of these phone calls. i have never seen anything like it. >> it's wrong to lump the two phone calls into the same category. we don't know where they came from. people are assuming it came from the white house. if you read that associated press story closely, it could be that leak came directly from

mexico. howie: is there a danger when you take someone's account of a call or a partial transcript, you are not getting the full story and the tone of the talk between two leaders. >> it was a partial transcript and the reporter took their own confirmation bias, they wanted to put out bad news about donald trump and spun it. in the a.p. story it never said donald trump was going to send troops down to mexico to get those bad hombres. then everybody went on to social media and said president trump is going to send troops down to mexico. oh, my gosh, we are going to war with mexico. it's fake news and per pet waits

the news trump put out there. howie: in this context wouldn't only senior officials have access information about these calls? >> i think only very, very small number of officials at the white house. i would doubt anyone in the trump statehouse had access. they don't seem to be relying on them for policy guidance. i would be shocked if they shared these at the state department. particularly with obama holdovers. howie: would you agree somebody was trying to embarrass him. >> i think some people might have been concerned about the tone and wanted to send a message. this is not how you do foreign policy and how you behave as president. the trump administration said they messaged to him through the media. howie: with the call to the

prime minister of australia, trump was reported to have said, this was his voice call and ended the call after 25 member it, it was supposed to go an hour. big disagreement over the obama deal to send a certain number of refugees to the u.s. >> it hasn't been favorable on either one of those stories. but we are trying to get to the bottom of where those leaks came from. howie: speaking of coverage, a federal judge in seattle temporarily blocked the president's order on limited travel ban on refugees in those 7 countries. trump strongly went after this judge and called him a so-called judge. that has gotten a lot of media coverage and criticism. >> it's a twitter tweet. that's all it is. let's put this in context. you had obama in 2010 go after

the supreme court in his state of the union speech after the citizens united case. you had an organized political campaign starting at the white house targeting john robert saying if you don't obey the rules for obamacare you are politicizing the court system. this is not new for presidents to go after court rulings they don't agree with. howie: but trump uses colorful language. >> there is a difference between attacking personally a federal judge. trump did it on the campaign and he's calling into question the judiciary. what does so-called mean? >> we'll let the viewers decide. up next president trump stirring controversy when bill o'riley

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now's your chance at completely clear skin. just ask your doctor about taltz. howie: bill o'reilly's sit-down with president trump airs before the super bowl. with respect to vladimir putin -- >> will i get along with him? i don't know. bill: putin is a killer. >> there are a lot of killers. you think our country is so innocent? >> i think the press needs to cool down. donald trump is not a politician and he's not going to always speak politically. you had nikki haley going into the u.n. with a heated position

towards russia. look at the actions. howie: you think that's more important than what he says in a nationally televised interview? >> he had a -- what he's doing is what's important, not the rhetoric. howie: what would have been the reaction on the right if president trump had said that. i think words matter. i think policies matter. when you are president of the united states, words matter. that was a bizarre exchange. howie: in a cold way president trump may be right. but what we talked about in the last segment. so-called judge. he doesn't edit himself on every syllable. >> barack obama didn't say that

it was donald trump who said that. we need to slow down and question donald trump and continue to question donald trump to get to the bottom of what he means. he will continue to be president for four years and we'll continue to hear from him and continue asking questions. >> we'll know what he means through his actions. howie: saying don't listen to what he says, only look at his policies. every president gets enormous attention by what he says, are we being unfair? >> no, but we need to draw it back or we'll miss the story. in four years people will be bert off in this country and people will have no idea why that happened or what occurred. howie: let me mention that the president again is dealing with african-american leaders took another whack at cnn. what's happening is with one exception since the election, no

evenerreno -- no senior adminisn official has appeared on cnn. i'm told that will change in the coming days. you can see bill o'reilly's full pre-super bowl interview with president trump. the super bowl is tonight. why is the media so focused on tom brady's relationship with donald trump. kellyanne conway on the criticism that comes with work for this president.

howie: my conversation in new york with kellyanne conway. you are drawing a lot of flack for talking about a couple iraqi

refugees who became terrorists in the bowling green massacre. >> it was a plot. they were master minds. i should have said plot and i should have called them terrorists. people should look at the abc article i was referring. it's from 2011, and it talks about these two radicalized iraqis part of al qaeda. they bragged about attacking american soldiers. they knew how to make i.e.d.s. i clarified later. msnbc never corrected. i got you doafs and accolades -- i got kudos and accolades for giving that interview. the corrections in if the

newspaper are three paragraphs long. the corrections in the newspapers are three paragraphs long every day. howie: should the white house be attacking the press on fake news on something that's been corrected? >> he's talking about things that are invented and not just inaccurate. i am one of the most pro press, pro first amendment people at the white house. everybody pretends there is some kind of power and sisterhood. i'm pro-life and i'm the first successful female campaign manager. i don't talk about that or brag about that. i feel it's a blessing. donald trump gave me that opportunity. i had a fabulous team that it worked with and we got job done on behalf of america. howie: chelsea clinton addressing you said don't make

up fake attacks. >> i thought that was funny since the nbc "today show" paid her. i don't remember be one report she did, please help me. she was treated like a fa -- lia fabrege egg when she was in the white house. why did the reporter who texted me at 6:32 a.m. this morning? why didn't he ask me about what i had said the night before on his network and i turn on the "today show" and i'm being attacked. and all the haters.

howie: you talked about chris wallace and the people that got the election wrong and none of these people have been fired. >> how about admitting getting out of the denial, grief and anger stages. there has to be some introspection and soul searching. they were wrong up until 1:00 a.m. on november 9. we have all the clips. tino people are wondering if i'm talking about them. let it be a lord of the flies situation where they don't know if i'm talking about them. even with this massacre nonsense which i clarified right away. i didn't mention by name the prominent edover a successful liberal website last night saying i'm -- ran a story about your tweet about the holocaust?

i said did i tweet about the holocaust? he said my god, it was a fake account. i don't say his name because i don't want him to get what i get which are death threats and haters and people mentioning my kids by name and showing up at my house. the negative coverage and snarkiness that was put on donald trump the candidate, the nominee, the president-elect and now the president all looks the same to me. there has never been a deep breath of these cable and network stations saying he's the president and we ought to show him respect and deference to the office. but chelsea clinton attacking me. really? your mom said texas and georgia were turning blue and you spent all that money there and you

ignored wisconsin and michigan and we did not and done there are won. howie: you mentioned cosmopolitan magazine. it says how does conway square her conscience with what she signed on to do, explain the actions of a man accused of fraud, sexual assault, hate mongering. >> because i note full measure of the man and people should pay attention to what he's doing for this country. he's already creating more jobs and keeping jobs here and boosting wages. howie: you seem like a nice person. how do you work for this president? >> i know he and his family have sacrificed so much. thank you. howie: coming up. why many in the media compare

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happened to be on the arab predicted what would happen next. >> she takes her place in history alongside the attorney general who defied the president of the united states. >> since nixon, since the saturday night massacre, we haven't had a president dismiss someone because she disagreed with the legal analysis. howie: this involved a criminal probe of the white house over watergate. >> donald trump and sally yates did exactly what they should have done. howie: sally yates if she disagreed could have resigned. but she made a big political move and you are saying that's okay? >> donald trump was right to fire her. i think both sides did exactly

what could be expected. let me read you a tweet from my former editor. she was setting herself up. howie: even the liberal harvard lawyer allen - alan dershowitz d sally yates was wrong. >> i'm not a constitutional scholar, but i agree with erin. she did what her job was. howie: the office of legal counsel approved this. >> they are not the be all and end all. they had a history of torture during the bush administration. howie: you don't think she was grandstanding? >> i agree she did what her job was. i think she felt she had a legal responsibility.

now after we have seen multiple judges questioning the refugee ban, what she did doesn't seem that crazy. >> donald trump was right to fire her? howie: talk about the optics of the way this was covered. there was a womb in the news, sally yates. an obama holdover did this in part to get attention. >> she wants the job at msnbc as a political pundit. she is a liberal hero. but the rule of law was not followed here. the press coverage was overblown, the massacre thing was completely wrong. cnn weren't with it all day monday. they had stuff online on their site thursday calling it a sunday night massacre.

the huge story this week because there has been so much news this week. liberal and con sr. analysts are weighing in on the president's pick of neil gorsuch. >> if president trump makes no other decisions phrased by both side, he couldn't have picked a more conservative individual. >> what i'm impressed with in terms of judge gorsuch is not only that he has incredible credentials, but he has the judicial temperament. howie: i was impressed with the fairness in which these analysts dealt with judge gorsuch. i think the big story is democrats want to slow this down and defeat it because they are angry about merrick garland. >> i think it coverage was -- i

think kellyanne. that was a big part of the coverage after the pick. i think he got a lot of good press. >> it's fair to say the democrats will fight this and they are angry about what happened to merrick garland. >> i agree. i thought the press was positive here. the only problem i had was leading up to the announcement and how cnn basically said donald trump is trying to grand stand for prime time ratings. howie: reports that turned out to be untrue is hardiman * was at a gas takes in altoona. >> i think it's been well acknowledged.

howie: they say republicans did this last year with garland. this strikes me about what people hate about washington. >> i also think americans don't like hypocrisy. i think it's hard for some americans when they see republicans saying he needs a vote right away. we need to move forward. we know what happened to merrick garland. he should have gotten meetings and conversations on the hill and people don't like that either. howie: thanks very much for stopping by this sunday. after the break, it's super bowl sunday. we'll go live to houston in just a moment. (avo) did you know two areas

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howie: nice graphic as we count down to the super bowl. the usual media hype has turned political. tom brady was asked about his relationship with donald trump. >> i'm not talking politics. why? because i want to focus on the positive aspects of this game. the teammates and the reasons why we are here. and, you know, taking a lot of hard work to get to this point. howie: what's the matter of you sports reporters? big game, nfl championship on

the line, patriots, tom brady in the game again and they keep asking him about his relationship with trump. what does it have to do with the super bowl? >> it's a time-honored tradition to ask players in the super bowl about something other than the super bowl. certainly brady has a history of this. brady had the make america great hat in his locker. it's always disappointed that he gets so much of this instead of bill belichik who sent a note to donald trump that he read the night before election day. tom brady is answering every question that way, including questions about football. i'm just trying to be positive. he abcs all questions that way. so it's not a surprise that trump would get that answer. >> it's all about the xs and os. but there is a serious side.

we are reading the sports columns. tom brady no longer gets a pass on his friendship with donald trump. he's giving a passive endorsement to trump and the chaos he created. she goes on to say, some people are calling tom brady out. the guy is maybe a friend of trump but he's a professional football player. >> i get it. going back to the belichik idea. brady never once came out and said i support donald trump. i voted for him. he had the hat, but they are friend. that was the way he put it. i think that the idea of what's interesting is happening more and more in the nfl, you see someone like wilson for the seahawks. he actually made a political

statement this week. the world brady always operated in is that we can have sport separate from politic. it generally worked for him. but trump has a way of making everything conversation whether culture or sport kind of about donald trump. the rules have changed. howie: you anticipate my next point. i have done super bowl coverage before. i said the media seems to have it in for tom brady. but donald trump take on nfl commissioner roger goodell who imposed the four-game suspension. goodell is a weak guy, a dope and a stupid guy. so we have to report on that, right? >> it's worth noting for all people after brady. i think a statement from him -- i'm just a positive guy focused

on the game, why would they do something that roger goodell won't answer. they asked him what he thought of the muslim ban. the nba commissioner has talked to the state department about what the muslim ban need for the players. what did goodell say? i'm just concentrating on the game. i'm busy with the super bowl. if roger goodell can't answer that question, i don't think it's fair to expect tom brady to go into a political discussion when he has to play in the game. howie: do you think it does provide a backdrop for part of the coverage of the super bowl? >> it's funny, tom brady, one of the most polarizing athletes in american history. people really don't like roger

goodell. i think there is a sense because deflategate was not well put together. howie: i have got 20 seconds. you live in the atlanta area. do you think the falcons have been overshadowed in the super bowl coverage? >> the falcons are opponents. they drive influence and inspiration from that it's not the cowboys. the falcons are a good team. howie: thanks for joining us from houston. the blockbuster story on steve bannon turned out to be riddled with errors. ♪ everything your family touches sticks with them. make sure the germs they bring home don't stick around.

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steve bannon of pressuring john kelly not to exempt green card holders from seven primarily muslim countries. white house press secretary sean spicer told me while the paper criticized us about the use of facts, the idea that they didn't follow basic journalistic standards and then excuse their pathetic reporting is unbelievable. he said it never happened. the paper said bannon joined other officials about the executive order. he did not. the "post" updated the story last night and was trying to be transparent about it. speaking of sean spicer to use a

football term, he got ruffled up a little bit last night on "saturday night live." >> i wanted to ask about the travel ban on muslims. >> it's not a ban. the travel ban is not a ban which makes it not a ban. >> you just called it a ban. >> because i'm using your words. you said ban. >> the president tweeted and i quote, if the ban were atbhownsd a one-week notice. >> exactly you just said that. he's quoting you, it's your words. howie: when melissa the covers you on "saturday night live" you know you have arrived. i'm howard kurtz. dvr the show. if you miss it.

enjoy the super bowl with the latest buzz. eric: a setback for the trump administration on the travel ban. will it stick? the president lost another round and its travel ban. federal appeals court in san francisco, the 9th circuit denies the administration's request to reinstate the ban after the federal judge in washington put a hold on it. arthel: that decision coming down one day after the president lashed out on twitter against the judge who blocked his executive orders. meanwhi