this weekend to remember all of the men and women who have given their lives defending our freedom. we will see you next fox news sunday. futures." media buzz is up next with howard kurtz. howie: in a week marked by more leaked stories about the russian investigation, president trump getting high marks from the media for this trip. >> he went to muslim world and essentially embraced it. >> a strong trip to saudi arabia, a strong trip to israel. >> i think it's gone very well for the president. i think it was very ambitious, high risk, high reward. bad things could have happened and he would have stumbled, but

he didn't. >> the substance which was the speech president trump gave in riyadh was very carefully done. it was nuanced. howie: those stories were constantly competing. nbc and the "washington post" touting this story on jared kushner. >> nbc news learned jared kushner, the president's son-in-law and one of his senior white house advisors has come under scrutiny by the f.b.i. >> the man called the deputy president is as they say under scrutiny. he's the most powerful person in the white house except for the president himself, jared kushner, and he's a member of trump's family. so the investigation is now inside the white house. >> what is a non-elected

son-in-law doing representing the united states government to be to the russians, our adversary out there in the world. why is kushner talking for us? >> does it have a single-named source to the story? this is most disgusting. howie: reports the president tried to set up a secret back channel to moscow. is this justified when he hasn't bend called a target. >> if anybody thinks it's unfair to describe a direct line to donald trump called enemies of the state and responsible for beating up a journalist is ridiculous.

>> a trip that was constantly competing for air time with the russian probe. reports say investigators are look at meetings with jared kushner and trump officials a month before the inauguration. and he has not been accused of any wrongdoing. joining us is molely hemingway, joe trippi, the democratic strategist. and erin mcpike. even many of the president's critics and liberal commentators giving him high marks on this first foreign trip. do you think there is reluctance on the part of the media to criticize the president when he's abroad representing us?

mollie: he talked about principled realism. he critiques the lectures of the obama administration and the unnecessary invasion of the obama and bush administration. i think a lot of the appeal trump had with voters is because of his difference in foreign policy. the media laid that out very well. he addressed the muslim world and they didn't quite give that same level of attention. >> not so high marks on covering this up. media expectations were low from a rookie president on the world stage. >> for the most part the coverage was pretty positive, particularly on the riyadh speech. what you don't see is a lot of sort of getting down to the nitty-gritty about not lecturing

saudi arabia on a lot of human rights. but lecturing nato allies on not paying their fair share. and i think there is a dichotomy. i agree with mollie that the riyadh speech was important for him to give. howie: the coverage of the nato speech was more controversial. didn't the media originally view this trip as a distraction from the problems at home? erin: there is a little bit of a view of that. but this foreign trip has been on the books for a long time. in february he said he would be going to brussels for this nato meeting. it was essentially created for him. i think the coverage was good in saudi arabia and israel. but it was much more critical of him in europe because he did not

perform in europe as well as he did in other presidential trips. mollie: many presidents have tried to get nato countries to increase their spending. president trump is the first one getting people to put out their plans for this defense spending to match what their rhetoric is about the supposed threat of russia. if people really think russia is a threat, these countries need to act like it. howie: let me get your take on the reports that jared kushner is under "scrutiny" by the f.b.i. which is kind of murky. "new york times," growing crisis over kushner. mollie: under scrutiny is not a legal term it's a journalistic term that makes it sounds like something is going on that's much worse than what's going on.

they are starting with conclusions of wrongdoing. something jr. nefarious has gone out with this white house. that's exactly what they are saying at that level. that's not a goo a policy. howie: others confirmed about jared kushner offering to set up a secret communications channel with the russians, and this is according to u.s. intercept. the question is, that's kind of interesting, maybe it was a naive move on his part. is there anything nefarious in the incoming administration or is this a case of the press making too much of its own suspicions. joe: it raises the question of is there something nefarious

going on, and that's compounded by the fact that he failed to report the meeting where this happened. this becomes a real news story. howie: but the meetings were made known about. erin: it seems like those are two things he should have disclosed since russia is such a focus. joe: you have the pattern of 18 such meetings by players in the white house. howie: there is such a contrast in the coverage. when these stories broke. cnn and msnbc, hours and hours and hours. talking about the kushner story. fox barely mentioned in prime time. so who is right?

erin: jared kushner is a very influential figure in the white house. the press reported he's a positive influence on president trump. he's obviously hard working. it's time for jared kushner address the media and take some questions. mollie: there is nothing wrong with what he's even alleged to be doing by anonymous story. nobody is named in any of these leaks. then it's presented as if something really bad was happening. setting up back-channel communications is a totally normal thing. even if it's true, it's not a big deal. joe: the russian technology and their security sources of communications to have that channel -- mollie: the media are pushing two simultaneous stories. one is a leak by intelligence agencies and the other is it's

supposedly bad to try to avoid these intelligence agencies that can't keep secrets. howie: the president had something to say about this. it's my opinion many of the leaks coming out of the white house are fabricated lies made up by the hashtag fake news media. fabricated lies? erin: fabricated lies is over the top. that was the president pouring gasoline on the fire. joe: these are all leaks from the white house that are fake. mollie: that's quite the claim to make. and at the same time it's true. we have no ability to judge niece leaks. it's always a possibility you will use an anonymous so we are led to believe but we don't have a way to independently determine

if that's true. we have no ability to judge these for ourselves. nobody is willing to put their name on any of these things. what have the media common in the last year? joe: the president of the united states was there saying i love wikileaks. now leaks from his own white house -- howie: there are so many stories i can't even get them in anymore. there was a story that dan coats asked for a pushback on comey's f.b.i. probe. then there was a chyron saying nuke flynn is taking the fifth.

erin: there are so many stories coming out fast and furious, we get away from the broader issues. there is minutia every day and it's hard to follow. howie: do you think there is a lot of resentment in the media. he married into the family and therefore disparaging his role. the president has given him a lot of responsibility. mollie: the media seem to have an incentive where they need to bring down the president rather than just do their job which is report accurately what's happening. howie: does bringing down the president include bringing down his son-in-law? mollie: of course. stick to facts and be careful

how you present the facts. don't make everything the most nefarious thing you have ever heard. howie: when we come back, james rosen how a flood of leaks is undermining the trump presidency. how is it trump's fault that a montana candidate physically attacked a reporter?

howie: leaks, sometimes illegal leaks are sometimes driving the news. james rosen is here in studio one. welcome. you worked with confidential sources over the years. you were eve enif snared in a lk

investigation under the obama administration. what do you make of the report that jared kushner is the subject of investigation. james: it strikes me as a and daished you leak out of an stress gay tough law enforcement agency at what we might call an embryonic time of investigation. not the same sensitivity or order of magnitude as the leaks of president trump's transcripts of telephone conversations. howie: it has caused a media explosion and you have endless segments on certain cable net w saying jared kushner under investigation. is that a bit unfair when he is not the subject much investigation? james: if my source was good or i had a document in hand, i

wouldn't. but jared kushner probably has some good basis for feeling defamed if he records himself as innocent. but we saw the same things during watergate. people think because nixon and his aides left office that everything leaked about them in the runup to that was accurate and it wasn't. howie: it's a crime to leak this kinds of information, but not a crime for reporters in their judgment to decide it should be published or aired. the british were furious over the u.s. side leaking intel about the horrifying manchester concert bombing. the photographs that were leaked. and trump was june set about it and said this posed a grave threat to national security and ordered an investigation. somebody is out to embarrass the

president, it seems to me. james: not necessarily. the motivation of the leakers are unclear. it could have been to curry favor with a reporter at the "new york times" or to drive the investigation. we don't know. howie: you talked about the leaks of confidential phone calls or conversations between the president of the united states and form leaders. there was one:the philippine president in which the transcript showed -- revealed there are two u.s. nuclear subject marines off north korea -- hu submarines off the coast of north korea. james: we are in the age of trump witnessing a zenith for illegal leaks of classified information to the news media. it exceeds what we saw during the nixon presidency. it's something this

administration has to get on top of or it won't be able to survive. howie: it seems to me that these are totally designed to embarrass president trump. rather than get out to the public some vital information the public needs to know. james: there are authorized leaks, unauthorized leaks. there are unauthorized leaks to make your boss look good. in the leaking of the unmasking of general flynn which seemed to come from former obama administration officials seemed to be to under mine the incoming president. howie: we had the president meeting with bibi netanyahu. '. the highly classified stuff about isis terror attacks, the new york times saying the source was israel.

>> i never mentioned the word or the name is rail. never mentioned it in that -- the name israel. never mentioned it in that conversation. howie: doesn't he in fact confirm israel was the source of this highly classified material. james: he said the word is rail was never mentioned in a particular meeting. howie: the president put on the defensive on another leak designed to undermine him. james: the face of bibi netanyahu was precious to behold. and the media event was derailed by the president take that question. i don't think it helped the president, but he mass bigger problems right now.

howie: let us know what you think. mediabuzz@foxnews.com. fox news retracts a story

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get a 4 week trial, plus $100 in extras including postage and a digital scale. go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again. howie: fox news retracted an online story about a murder in washington, d.c. seth rich was shot to death during what police described as a botched robbery. there were unsubstantiated allegations the murder was connected to wikileaks. a local fox affiliate in washington and foxnews.com reported that rich leaked tens of thousands of emails to a wikileaks official. the family said may 16 a story was posted on the fox news

website on the murder of seth rich, the dnc staffer it was not subjected to the high degree of scrutiny. upon appropriate review the article was found not to meet those standards was removed. it would have been better if fox's website had never published that story. fox news says they would continue to investigate the story. hannity said those criticizing the story are phoney hypocrites because they are pushing the story of russia collusion. the family said it's causing them additional pain, suffering and sorrow. >> i totally completely understand how upset and how hard this is on this family,

especially over the recent coverage of seth's death. however, out of respect for the family's wishes for now, i am not discussing this matter at this time. howie: after the liberal advocacy group media matters listed hannity's isers, several of them pulled their ads. i have liz claman on the budget and health bill. why are some pundits blaming the president because a montana

howie: montana congressional candidate greg gianforte slammed

a reporter to the ground after he came into his office and shoved a microphone into his face and started asking about the healthcare bill. reporter: gianforte grabbed him with both hand, body slammed him. got on top of him and started punching and yelling at him. ben jacob scrambled to his knees and he picked up his glasses. howie: gianforte was charged with misdemeanor assault. but some pundits blamed the incident on president trump. >> you don't think it's because the guy in office said horrible things about reporters and said they are the enemy of the american people? >> a guy assaults a reporter. it shouldn't be too surprising in an age of trump where he

calls the press the enemy of the people. these reckless words have consequences. howie: i think we can all agree violence against reporters is unacceptable and disturbing. and it's also politically stupid. but how did this become possible. mollie: this is insane to think that this has to do with donald trump unless you believe evil never existed in the world until donald trump was on the scene. you wouldn't blame democrats for bobbette ring mabob ethridge maa reporter. the media's response top the president has been extreme.

howie: i hate this guilt by association. during the obama administration some people blamed obama when a police officer was shot. how is donald trump responsible for greg gianforte essentially slugging this guy and breaking his glasses? joe: i are don't think you can make that case. the president hasn't been the model of what he was talking about. he doesn't help himself when he tweets this morning congratulations for a great win in montana. no point was said that this was an abysmal abuse of behavior that shouldn't happen. that doesn't mean that you can blame him for ben jacobs. he kind of just never pushes back on stuff. erin: i think both president

obama and president bush would have done that. howie: he put out a statement saying or his office did saying these were badgering questions and aggressive behaviour from a liberal journalist. the gotcha question was about the cbo score rather than something personal. erin: i had the opportunity to interview gianforte when i was in montana and i found him to be an uninspired candidate. he was not able to answer tough questions and he couldn't really answer why it is he wanted to come to congress. i'm sure he will find a tough audience when he gets to tap hill. howie: the argument would be if president trump with his criticism of fake news is creating a dangerous climate and

we can debate that. but i think people are responsible for their own actions. this guy might have done that if this guy was still selling golf courses. we have not seen that on both sides. there is no justification for body slamming a reporter and no justification for how the media created a clue mast distrust, unfair rhetoric. it's important for the sake of the republic that we you'll work together as a country and everyone needs to make sure they are putting their best foot forward. howie: sometimes you get caught up in these media scrums and you can get elbowed in the head. this was not that. joe: if this set him off, the cbo score, come on, when this

guy gets here, as erin said, he can be a big problem. howie: the thing that got an enormous amount of media attention had to do with melania trump, the first lady and some video. we have two pieces of video, i'll call the alleged hand slap. here is the close-up, now we are treating this like a film, was this an actual slap or did she just pull her hand away? she pulled her hand away, but i didn't see the slap. >> maybe she was high fiving him. i don't know. but it looks like she was walking away. howie: a second video when they were coming off the plane. and once again the first lady is

not interested. so what? it never happened to me. even when you were 16? joe: no, that never happened. howie: the high road question is, take these incidents. is there an evident to sort of understand their marriage through these little glimpses? mollie: that's what's going on. people are trying to get a great deal of meaning out of these snippets. but more than that we should also remember that if you are focusing on this type of thing it's an indication the trip went pretty well. howie: if that's the worst thing they can say about it. thank you for joining us. coming up. the media portrays the president's budget as heartless towards the poor.

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how report "washington post," steep budget cuts don't sit well with many in the gop. the "new york times" columnist, finally some good news for president trump. his new budget stands no chance of being enacted by congress.

joining us is liz clayman. the media are casting his budget as hurting the poor and many working class trump voters. is that fair? and is that whole picture? liz: i have seen more pointedly harsh headlines on this budget than i have seen on the manchester bomber. but is it fair? what can the press do and what should the press do but go to capitol hill. so, they go to capitol hill and of course the democrats are quite vitriolic in their dismissal and criticism of this budget, including some of the cuts, for example, the national science foundation. you dig into the weeds albuquerque find there were spending plans to do research on things like the fashion industry

in turkey or viking textiles in iceland. and here is the best one. $700,000 spent by that organization to create a musical on climate change. a musical. so the democrats lose legitimacy when they can't even say that one or two pieces of this need to be cut and that's appropriate. so they go to the republicans. guess what, some republicans are very critical of it. they say d.o.a., dead on arrival. >> any time you have a budget where you are cutting spending. you can go to potential victims. but at same time there is another side to this. the taxpayers have to pay for all this stuff. i think that focus is sometimes lost in the coverage of this particular bill. liz: i looked around for people who are being realistic about it

on cnn and online. the former head of the cbo put an op-ed on there and said it's not as bad as what everybody says. what we have is unsustainable and everybody knows that. at what point do we wage and realize we absolutely have the reform this. when president trump put out his budget, he put out his priorities. his priorities are to not touch social security and medicare. to add more spending when it comes to the military and veterans organizations. so if those are his priorities. the press has to look at that and say let's take it from there. >> we now have the congressional budget office scoring saying 23 million people over a decade would move their health insurance coverage. some of them with preexisting conditions.

this morning the "new york times" editorial trump care, cruelty reaffirmed. how does the press referee this? liz: it's fascinating to watch how some press do referee fairly, like you see the hockey referees in the national hockey league. they just want to make sure they are making the right calls. that's the important thing to do here. and many of them are not. they are only pointing out this headline number that says 23 million over ten years will not be insured. part of that has to do that this healthcare plan i am naits that mandate that you have to buy coverage. but then people are now putting this right back where we were. they don't buy insurance, but they show up at the hospital at their worst point. my dad was a doctor. he says they come at their worst point and that falls on the rest of us who do pay insurance

because costs go up. as you look at the trump plan, you have to realize there are things that have to change. obamacare was going to buckle under its own weight. it already is. talk to anybody in certain states where there aren't any plans left or just one single choice. howie: the coverage is leaving out that part. i love the way you drill down on these things. your part part of -- now that iw your father is a doctor i will ask you on this subject. the president meets the pope and the

how report president and pope francis after a cordial meeting, the media with a charming headline "poach and dope." in that president the president is smiling broadly and the pope is not. do you think this meeting was a bigger deal than the coverage would have suggested and focused on things like a photo? mollie: you can have a photo with a smiling pope or non-smiling pope. whichever one you choose sets the tone for what you are going to say about the meeting. every time a president meets with a pope there will be areas of common amount and disagreement.

immigration enforce f., you had that with president obama. the pope was opposed to his position of you a the porting abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. every president will have certain things they have common agreement on and certain things they won't it's better to reflect the full comple full ful complexity. the reporting confirmed they are spokes inman confirmed shiefs a park advertising catholic. so first of all, how is it the media were unaware of it. one of the ways that media violated norms and how they cover presidential politics is we didn't get a lot of those profiles of melania and mrs. pence. so we have things like we don't

know what religion they are it's interesting because melania group in a communist country where religion is banned. sow she didn't have the childhood religion experience. was she secretly baptized in slovenia or not. howie: this hasn't really been that big a story. i would think given how many catholics there are just in america and around the world that the press would want to know more about this. mollie: kudos to the daily mail for following up on this. they did get confirmation from the white house that she is roe man catholic. howie: sean spice wer -- shiewns

exclude from the meeting with the pope. he is a catholic and really wanted to meet the pope. mollie: this is the palace intrigue story reporters like to eat up. i'm sure there were other high-profile meting who weren't there as well. there could be thousand reasons. we need to make sure we find out the actual reasons before we speculate. howie: great to see you as always. mollie hemingway. still to come, billy bush on that tape that's ended his

howie: the fcc received

thousands of complaints about stephen colbert's sex broke about donald trump. you can say whatever the blank you want after 10:00 p.m. which is considered a safe harbor because there are fewer kids in the room. and it was bleeped. billy bush lost his perch at the "today show." he had been a host a decade earlier when a tape showed him yucking it up engage in locker room talk with women. he broke his see you excellence today on rival "gna." >> do you believe you should have lost your job over this.mot tape, i understand people's reaction. i agree, i also felt that way.

we live in a visual and digital age. we get this video, this moment, and we react emotionally to it. and then you have social media and the ability to respond in real-time, and a flame becomes a bonfire very, very quickly. i look back and wish i should have stopped it. but i didn't have the strength of character at the time to do that. i wish i did. howie: he's taking responsibility for outtakes he never thought would see the light of day. that's it for this edition of "mediabuzz" and howard kurtz. i hope your enjoying your day. i hope you like our facebook page. i respond to people there. let us know what you think about the media. no political speeches.

we have a lot of media news every week to get in and we try to shove in as much as we can. back here next sunday, see you. >> don't forget those who have served. thank you. >> president trump is back on u.s. soil and going after the media already. this is the week he begins a new round of the white house chang changes. the president and first lady arrived after a world when nine days abroad last night. president trump sticking to his america first agenda, pressing for leaders on defense spending and trade. at home, a major staff overhaul is in the works. we have word of that coming up s