the university of connecticut with its championship women's basketball team. she dropped out after just two days to go home to the university of delaware. that's it for today. have a great week. we will see you next fox news howie: on the "buzzfeed" this week president trump gets a win. but the mainstream media including many conservatives are dumping on the built. >> i hate to say this on national television but i agree with nancy pelosi. i think they had 0 extricate themselves from a self-made political debacle. >> they have to get the 100-yard dash in terms of getting it through the senate. >> disabled are losing their

benefits and they are look at fat, rich middle class rich white guys. howie: does the press have real problems with this plan or echoing the democrats. james comey defends his last-minute investigation of hillary clinton, and she blames the investigation for costing her the election. calls for stephen colbert to be fired after he refuses to apologize for a crude sex joke about clinton. >> if you saw my monologue you know was a little upset with donald trump for insulting a friend of mine. so in return i had a few crude

things to say and i don't regret that. this is media buzz. [♪] howie: the press repeatedly put out last rites for trump's attempt to repeal and replace obamacare. >> celebrating at the white house. house republicans resuscitate their healthcare plan. >> it died right here on the floor and now it has come back to life like a zombie. >> even republicans in the senate are saying it's far from a done deal. >> lawmakers voted without the final bill being scored. meaning they voted without

knowing how many fewer americans would be insured. howie: joining us, gayle trotter, erin mcpike, and mo eileithee. are the media portraying the house vote as a moderate victory or a modest step? erin: i think the media is reporting it as a huge victory. it was a big deal when they couldn't bring it to the floor in march to vote on it then. why is it they brought together the factions and passed it. >> it's got a long way to go before it becomes law.

and the senators are saying they are going to rewrite this entirely. howie: when the house didn't vote, there were a lot of the oh by the waries and lawrence mcconnell said his presidency effectively ended. gayle: i would say the media are not representing this as a victory. the same media that harangued president trump and the republicans for getting this passed in march won't even call it a partial victory. erin: the hill, "the washington post," cnn, i saw it called a huge victory. and it's just a step. gayle: the articles i have say the white house and president

trump claim it's a victory. erin: it shows paul ryan can do his job. it is being cast as a huge victory. howie: i think it's being portrayed as a bit of a win with a big fat asterisk. mo, how hard it will be to pass in the senate. mo: i think the press is doing both. i agree with erin. i think a lot of the press portrayed this as a needed victory for the president who had this stumbling block the last go-round. but there is a lot further to go. and we are hearing that today on one of the other networks this morning. senator susan collins said senate republicans will start from scratch.

they don't believe the house bill will take care of people's preexisting conditions the way the house leadership says it will. i'm a cable news junky. i watch it all day in my office. howie: let's look at some of the more extreme claims being made. this is the headline from the "huffington post." "house votes to let him die." erin: i think there has been a lot of going overboard on some of this coverage. when the vote didn't -- when they didn't have the vote in march it was a lot about substance. it went down over policy. this time the coverage is all about the drama for getting the win, and so little of it was

about policy except for the amendment that dealt with preexisting conditions. howie: are there legitimate questions from the press about how much preexisting conditions will be covered? part of the press' job is to be sceptical about what the president will do. mo: i'm giving "the washington post" three pinocchios for claiming at sexual assault is a preexisting condition. howie: you are saying the president did his job there. gayle: yes. absolutely. howie: it seems to me a lot of the coverage, the status quo is

fine, the trump bill would change it and that's a bad thing. mo: i don't think you can say the press has treated obamacare over the past nine years. howie: how about the past week? mo: the question is, democrats and republicans accept that obamacare need fixes. the republican plan doesn't say fix, it says replace. so what are you going to replace it with. if you have republican members of congress going on the record saying they didn't right. howie: obamacare was pushed through when the democrats controlled the white house and the congress. there was a nancy pelosi quote the what it was pushed through. the republicans said no we did not have time. and there is no score. and it seems to me they switched

side. erin: the republicans are the ones who made that point. republicans wanted to know what was in it so they have to live up to that own standard. howie: the democrats did the same thing. gayle: they don't care about reading it. howie: doesn't the press give president trump credit for this. he ran on, i don't want to take insurance away from anybody. he basically pushed the house to come up with something where at least they would try to have the impact of this bill not kick people off the rolls because they had a previous medical problem. he took a more moderate stance than house conservatives. >> the details of the bill don't bear that out. yes he went out there and said even the day before the vote, i want to make sure people with

preexisting conditions are covered. but this bill does not guarantee that. it also kicks a lot of people off medicaid. but it doesn't guarantee it. his promise was to guarantee it, and the next day he's standing in a rose garden ceremony declaring victory. howie: charles crowd hammer said that -- charles krauthammer who has a medical degree, he says republicans are attempting to deal with preexisting conditions, and there are other parts of obamacare that have been kept. the freedom caucus sort of had to go along with that how much has the political debate moved from where it would have been seven years ago. gayle: when you have a big

entitlement bill passed through congress, it's hard to roll it back. americans want a partial repeal or rollback of obamacare. insurers are pulling out of the exchanges. in the last week the cbs, abc and nbc have not done a good job of showing the flaws of obamacare. erin: you are right, over the past week the existing problems with obamacare have not gone the that kind of coverage. i asked a communications director to an influential senator, we know obamacare need to be fixed, here are our package of fixes. this person said to me that you can't really put out the exact policies we want to pursue

because then the media will shred it. howie: let me get a break here. let us know what you think. mediabuzz.com. james comey defends his clinton investigation on the hill. and corey lewandowski on the president's wins on healthcare. did you know slow internet

can actually hold your business back? say goodbye to slow downloads, slow backups, slow everything. comcast business offers blazing fast and reliable internet that's over 6 times faster than slow internet from the phone company. say hello to internet speeds up to 250 mbps. and add phone and tv for only $34.90 more a month. call today. comcast business. built for business. howie: senators grilled james comey about why he revealed the hillary clinton investigation in the final days of the campaign. >> this is terrible. it makes me mildly nauseous that

we could have had some impact on the election. >> is that the new standard for the f.b.i. director, mildly nauseous? >> 20 days before the election, that's a hard argument to make. howie: i would say the press was mildly nauseous over comey's defendant money. but getting it from both sides. james comey not a very popular guy in the media these days. gayle: from the conservative or mainstream media, some people would say that's an indication he's displaying his independence because he's not making anybody happy with his testimony or the

actions he took in july last year or trite before the elections. the mainstream media didn't like it because he called out bill clinton for meeting with loretta lynch on the tarmac. howie: does the coverage reflect the fact that liberals and liberal commentators are still upset about the monkey wrench they believe james comey threw into the campaign and conservative commentators are upset he didn't bring charges against hillary clinton in the first place. mo: i think what was going through james comey's mind in the last year is one of the great unexplained questions in politics. when he was asked why he released one and treated the hillary clinton differently than he treated the donald trump stuff, he said i didn't.

i thought about it the same way. he said one i waited several months and did it this way. i don't think there are a lot of people on the left or right that would agree with that. howie: nate silver said the following. if comey's letter altered the outcome of the election, the media may have some responsibility. the story dominated the news coverage drowning out other head lines and he says jumping to conclusion. was that overcovered or not. erin: i remember that friday afternoon it came out. it dominated that last weekend. of course it had some impact, you can't say that it didn't. howie: now the story with comey and the investigation and huma abedin seems to be going in a different direction. erin: the coverage is switching

to the fact that this classified information was transmit from huma to her husband. you see the shifting from look at director comey's decisions to the act of huma abedin and anthony weiner. howie: it's like -- it's like they are still endlessly replaying this election. mo: we are still talking about an open investigation at the f.b.i., the house and senate intelligence committee about donald trump's campaign aides and their ties to russia. erin: we don't have any answers. comey has been indicating that he knows so much more than he's letting on, and i think that's why he got some difficult coverage. howie: up next hillary clinton

taking heat from the media for saying she would be president today if not for jim comey. stephen colbert doesn't regret his crude sex joke about the president.

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call now to request your free decision guide. and learn more about the kinds of plans that will be here for you now - and down the road. i have a lifetime of experience. so i know how important that is. howie: hillary clinton still pointing fingers over her loss to donald trump. especially the f.b.i. the former first lady said this. tie was the candidate. but i was on the way to winning until the combination of jim comb christmas letters on october 28 and russian wicky leaks in raised doubts in the mind of people who were inclined to vote for me but got scared off. if the election were held on october 27, i would be your

president. >> everybody i talked to, democrats, independents, republicans alike said that was pathetic. >> the children tons have taken victimhood to a new scientific height. howie: ed hen are you who covered the clinton campaign, good to see you. hillary clinton was quoting nate silver when she said she was endorsing his view that she would be president if not for comey. but she says she'll take responsibility. but it seems like she is not acknowledging any mistakes on her part. ed: sean spirals sean spicer sae temperature super bowl would have ended at halftime the

atlanta falcons would be the winners. to say i take responsibility, this one is on me, then name five other people that allegedly were to blame. the fact her own staff was out on twitter lark out at reporters saying you are being unfair. she claimed to take responsibility, then blamed everybody else. how require wasn't about having an economic message or visiting those rust belt states. you covered part of that campaign. they blamed journalists for making too much of the investigation. ed: in these books like "shattered" and all of the postmortems, her own advisors seem to be admitting the people situation was a disaster from the start.

john podesta said in retrospect we should have released them ourselves. they realized this was a disaster. yet they were pointing the finger at the press and the republican critics throughout. they realize within the campaign itself that the email situation was a disaster and they never dealt with it. we learned from wikileaks, throughout the campaign we need more answers, we don't know what her message is. they didn't know. howie: let's take a look at the interview. >> what do you imagine your election as the first female president of the united states might have said to the world and the women of the world who are look for validation, for somebody to heart that highest and hardest ceiling? >> it would have been a really big deal. howie: how would you rate the

level of questioning by amanpour. ed: if you look at her statement about donald trump being fee quitedda to a dictator. most failed presidential candidates leave the stage, she just can't seem to do it. howie: some people are calling for stephen colbert to be fired for his offensive joke.

howie: the media has all kinds of questions about president

obama's first major legislative victory. joining me is corey trump's former campaign manager. was he able to get this through the house with one vote to spare. there was criticism about millions of people will lose their coverage and some people will die. do you think the coverage has been fair? >> you know the coverage hasn't been fair. they said he couldn't win the primary, then he couldn't win the presidency. then he couldn't get the healthcare done. it made itthrough the house and the media doesn't want to give him the credit. of course, it's not fair. howie: why doesn't the media want to give him the credit? >> because they are a bunch of liberal individuals who wanted to see hillary clinton win. 89% of the media coverage was

negative. they look at nbc, abc, cbs. 1,900 minutes of coverage. of that 89% was negative. of that, 11% was neutral or positive. grace under fire. but that's how great they treated obama. howie: since this bill does face a rough road in in the senate, t about the criticism that they were spiking the football in the rose garden ceremony. >> why don't we give them the chance to get the bill through the senate. i think the president has the opportunity to say, look, the media has a false narrative against him. he has gotten the legislation

done on the house side. it's now going to the senate side. he's going to get this bill done and he will come through and get it done. howie: all these tweets where he talks about fake news, sometimes he doesn't even describe what specific story he's objecting to. don't you think it lose its punch saying it over and over again as opposed to reserving it for truly outrageous coverage that is unfair. >> no. the coverage is unfair in totality. 97% of the respondents surveyed said they didn't let the media bias change their opinion on who they voted for. fox saw 97% of the people who voted for trump stand by him. he has to call them out.

he has a platform which the mainstream media hates. social media going directly to the american people. howie: this week you left the washington firm you co-found after the election, avenue strategies. there were reports that some foreign client were being solicited with dangling the possibility of access to president trump possibly through you. >> you are right. there were reports that said there were international companies companies soliciting firm. i had no knowledge of them. anybody making promises on my behalf, so i stepped away. howie: were you worried that the stories about the firm that you were previously associated with

were become a distraction for the white house? >> not so much a distraction for the white house. anybody who will use my name, likeness without my knowledge is a problem and i can't a part of it. if i can help move the white house agenda forward i will be happy to do that. howie: there are stories fueled by leaks coming from senior white house officials. we saw this with steve bannon. and all these stories about how he's losing influence. but the "new york times" piece on reince priebus, the chief of staff, the day after the win in the house on healthcare describes this as less of a reprieve, less of a victory than a reprieve saying he's a

gatekeeper in search of a gate. do these leaks hurt the president? >> of course leaks hurt the president. there has always been leaks and will always be leaks. but it would be a nice thing to give reince priebus the credit he deserves for getting this legislation done on the house side. ryan is was making phone calls and talking to members. any of these internal leaks. i said 100 times and i'll repeat it here. anybody who is not on the president's agenda should not be working for the administration or the government. there is one agenda that has to move forward, and that's the president's. what we saw was ryan priebus on the president's agenda getting healthcare through congress on the house side for now. howie: headline. cory to leakers, get out.

howie: great to see you, corey lewandowski. thanks for joining us from new hampshire. stephen colbert using crude language. and jimmy kimmel taking a swipe after doctors save his baby's life. went to ancestry, i put in the names of my grandparents first. it gave me a leaf almost right away. within a few days, i went from knowing almost nothing to holy crow, i'm related to george washington. i didn't know that using ancestry would be so easy.

howie: stephen colbert is the most anti-trump voice in late-night tv. >> you talk like a sign language gorilla who got hit in the head. the only thing your mouth is good for is being vladimir putin's [bleep] holster. howie: colbert responded by saying he had no regrets. >> i have jokes, he has the launch code. so a fair fight. so while i would do it again i would change a few word that were cruder than they needed to be. howie: in new york, marisa guthrie and in washington, carley shimkus. marisa, stephen colbert revised his ratings and got himself out of last place by bashing president trump.

that ugly joke was beneath him. why couldn't he say, i'm sorry. marisa: he said nothing is off limit when it comes to trump. i think he knew what he was doing and i didn't like that joke either. some of the critics of it have a point. but he raiftsed his ratings and his buzz by bashing trump so he's not going to apologize for it. howie: carly he brought back his own comedy central factor. could he be alienating his audience? carley: the trump bashing is off the chart quite literally. there was a recent study that found the president has been the butt of more jokes during the first 100 days in office than the last three presidents in

their first year. letterman said that johnny carson didn't like to talk about the vietnam war during the show. because he saw the distinction between the late night talk shows and the evening news. howie: there is a hashtag fire colbert. marisa: we are at a point in our history where boycotts are called for every five minute. so they lose their impact so when somebody is always objecting to something someone is saying somewhere. stephen colbert is a late-night comedian. the people saying he should be fired are not his fans. so the people in his audience watching his show don't think there is anything wrong with the trump bashing.

howie: i wonder how they would act if those jokes had been told about barack obama. also this week jimmy kimmel had a very heartfelt moment. you probably have seen it because it's been so viral. but he injected politics into it. >> the doctor opened his chest and fixed one of the two defects in his heart. he went in with what cal pell and did some magic. he opened the valve and the operation was a success it was the longest three hours of my life. president trump proposed a $600 billion decrease in funding to the national institute of health. howie: i hesitate to criticize him. but then in the end he brought in trump budget cuts.

should he have blend his personal trauma with politics? carley: the white house responded and said they agreed with what jimmy kimmel is saying, the coverage of preexisting conditions. i would have to say what kimmel did is far less egregious than the insult lobbing colbert. howie: kimmel is also a trump critic. some critics of his are saying he's rich web's an elitist, this sort of thing doesn't affect him, why did he have to take this authentic moment and make it political. marisa: i think he genuinely felt he had an opportunity to say something. he was saying this during the week when the house was passing their second version of the american healthcare act which as he noted has deep cut for the

national institutes for health. i think his grief and relief was genuine, but i also think he genuinely is concerned about these things. and just because he makes a lot of money and doesn't have to worry about healthcare doesn't mean he can't have concerns for the other people who don't. howie: bill maher suggested incest between donald and ivanka trump. the hand gesture and it hasn't gotten as much attention. finally, samantha bee, just about all the late-night comedians are anti-trump. carley: it's like if you don't bash the president you can't sit at the cool kid' table.

fallon is getting criticism for not making fun of the president enough. they are trying to play toward young voters who are not very fond of the president. the millennials. but they are alienating a lot of other people. howie: i'm all for comedy and comedians having leeway. carley shimkus, marisa guthrie, thanks for joining us. president trump says the fake media are officially out of control.

howie: president trump keeping up his assault on the mainstream media tweeting the fake news media is officially out of

control. they will do or say anything to get attention. there has never been a time like this. we are back with ed henry. he didn't provide anything specific. he's watching the a-block of niece shows he claims he doesn't watch. he has a beef with some of this big picture coverage. you were talking about what was a major victory. he has more to come on healthcare. but he moves the ball forward. what is the narrative from the mainstream media? people may die waiting for coverage because their premiums will go up so high. wouldn't people already been dying from obamacare when in the state of arizona premiums are up 160%? howie: the dying narrative has come from some in the media, particularly on the left. howie: at the end of this

interview with john dickerson where he called it details the nation on the air. they got into -- he called i will deface the nation on the air. >> you can take it any way you want. >> i'm asking you. >> i have my own opinions, you can have your opinions. >> i want to know your opinions, you are the president of the united states. >> that's enough, thank you. thank you very much. howie: what do you think of the way john dickerson kept asking the question and seemed to get under the president's skin. ed: i think he asked a legitimate question multiple times. the president of the united states started this whole thing by allegedly being wiretapped by

president obama. and he said you started this conversation and rather than referring to the fake media, you are the president of the united states. i'm standing in the oval office. you tell me what really happened. that's a fair question. and what is the white house communications staff doing if they think's so unfair, giving him access to the oval office on a show the president calls deface the nation. howie: amazingly we found a lot of dee baits about the civil war. it came because of comments by president and the washington examiner. we have audio of that. take a listen. >> had andrew jackson come later you wouldn't have had a civil war. he was a tough person. and was really angry when he saw

what was happening with regards to the civil war. howie: wasn't all the media scolding and finger pointing a little over the top? ed: this is a classic example where any utterance by donald trump becomes a national outrage. could he have said that better? should he have cleaned it up? sure. with north korea launching missiles and all the other stories. the obsession that mainstream media has just gets ridiculous. great to see you. still to come, another big change at fox news. stressful days can lead to sleepless nights making you feel helpless. take control of your sleep with unisom® sleeptabs. you fall asleep 33% faster and wake up recharged

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howie: bill shine resigned at the network under pressure. he played a huge role in building fox news to its present position. is dpeend deeg parture came 12 days after fox cut ties with bill o'reilly after reports of settlements on five complaints of sexual harassment. s herks in has denied any wrongdoing. jay wallace haas tapped as president of news and suzanne scott as president of programming. it's unclear whether the murdoch family is searching for another executive at the top of the company. that television couple after

months of rumors confirmed they are a real couple. the m nrks snbc co-hosts telling "vanity fair" they are engaged to be mayor idea. "saturday night live" having a little bit of fun with that. >> you are being dramatic. you are being a lit the stinker. >> i'm not being a stinker. >> peekaboo. that's not going to work. howie: this won't stop them from having those on-air spots, will it? we hope you will give our facebook page a like. we post a lot of original content there. we'll check out your email and talk about the media.

continue the conversation on twitter@howard kurtz. thank you for spending time with us on this sunday. have a good night. >> what just happened in europe could affect us here in america. france has a new president. he is a pro- european political newcomer. the woman known for promising france first nationalism have lost. this election date drew worldwide attention. would france accept the european union just like britain. would we see a french version of brexit? not today, not for now. a populace and former banker has