>> chris: like his boss, he takes to the twitter account to defend the administration. he got a warning for violated the hatch act when he urge trump supporters to vote howie: on "buzzfeed," the media are ablaze over reports that the president's son net with a russian lawyer who said she had opposition research on hillary clinton. >> it shows a willingness to collude with a russian adversary. >> this interview is an attempt to defend the indefensible. don, jr. is the latest person in president's orbit to mislead you. >> if there is nothing there and that's what they tell us, why

all these lies? why lie after lie after lie? >> under normal political circumstances, this would be the end of the road with the clear admission of guilt. the worst case scenario, we did it. >> trump derangement syndrome out in force today. don, jr. broke no ethics rules. howie: he testified the meeting with sean hannity. >> in retrospect i probably would have done things differently. this was before the russian media. for me this was opposition research. howie: are the meetings as damaging as the "times" says. are liberal commentators going too far saying he may have broken the law?

brit human and ari fleischer join the discussion. joe scarborough says he's leaving the republican party and announced it on colbert. was ivanka trump really ripped for what she wore to the g-20? i'm howard kurtz and this is "mediabuzz" it was the emails that boosted the stories into the stratosphere. rod goldstone said the russian lawyer would provide don, jr. with highly sensitive information about hillary. don, jr.'s response? i love it. >> i can tell you right now i

never referred to any compromising information about mrs. clinton. i desired to see in my story. howie: the president accused the media much desperation and more. >> they want to drip out the story. i'm more than happy to cooperate. sean: as far as you know, this is everything? >> this is everything. howie: gillian turner, katie pavlich and joe trippi, all fox news contributors. don, jr. essentially confirmed the basic details of the meeting. is it fair to say this is another case of fake news? gillian: he basically disclosed

the details of the meeting in four separate disclosures. my bigger concern with this issue is to me, these meetings are a matter for concern. they constitute in the worst case scenario a national security issue. but the media has so far so grossly overexaggerated many of the scandals when it comes to this administration that the average person is going to look at this and think, oh, this is another trump administration scandal, the media is losing their minds. howie: let's look at what the president said in paris. >> i think from a practical stands point most of people would have taken that meeting. it's called opposition research. i think the press made a big deal out of something a lot of

people would do. katie: i think the emails are a big deal, talking about it coming from a high government source from russia to help his father's presidential campaign. second issue is the changing story coming from donald trump, jr. and it's coming from him. sean hannity asked him specifically is there anything else and he said no, this is it. but days later we know there wasn't just one or two people in this meeting. the meeting wasn't about adoption. there were four or five people from the highest level of the trump campaign. what did the president know. was he told about this meeting? the trump camp says he wasn't

told about this. howie: rather than reporting this and an embarrassing political embarrassing episode. the democrats are shifting to treason. is this a real story going to the media hype position? joe: it's a real story and it will go through the media hype machine. everything is an 11, when the 29 second handshake is getting repeatedly run on cable -- howie: referring to the president and the first lady of france it was horrifying, wasn't it. joe: when that's a big deal it detracts from when this is a big deal. it wasn't everything and it keeps dripping out.

howie: so you have the initial statement on don, jr.'s part. i'm told he wanted to put out a more detailed statement that this is what white house officials came up with saying this was about the russian lobby adoption issue. then came the second statement, that there was opo research on hillary clinton. then we get this friday. >> nbc learned there was someone else in that controversial meeting, also in that june 9 meeting at trump tower was another person with alleged ties to moscow. a former soviet counter-intelligence officer suspected by some u.s. officials of having on going ties to russian intelligence. howie: doesn't this sort of

thing fuel the suspicion that we are not getting the whole story? >> of course it does. i would say these kinds of details like who exactly was in the meeting are important to an investigation. those standards will be upheld in a court of law in the ongoing case in the investigation. but when it comes to the court of public opinion as reflected by the media, they are holding the administration to a much higher standard. they want to know generally their commander-in-chief is acting with integrity, transparency and putting the national interest at the forefront of everything he's doing. it's this kind of story that calls that into question. i think that's what the media is grappling with as a whole.

howie: "time" magazine has donald trump, jr. on the cover red-handed. the position of the media campaign, is there a sense among many of the pundits, aha, this time we got him. katie: this is why the administration and the trump campaign would argue, they are not going to continue to talk about the story. they are saying you got caught, you were lying, but there is some credibility to that in that the story has changed multiple times. the administration doesn't have a lot of credibility on the story because of the change narrative and the media doesn't have much credibility because we heard this story before, alleged ties to the kremlin and

operations in russia and those stories have been wrong. howie: exaggerated. katie: someone watching those, the administration can't get their story straight, the media can't either. we would like to focus on other things such as obamacare. joe: the coverage of flynn, that wasn't true, there were no meetings, then it turns out he lied to the vice president. then he's gone. then sessions recusing himself. this is the first time wasn't the fake news media saying something it was emails provided by: donald trump, jr. i think a lot of journalists jumps on that. there are a number of news commend kay tores who said this looks bad.

and some of theme were never trumpers in the campaign. when you have pro-trump commend day towards saying -- commentators saying it's not illegal. that doesn't mean it doesn't look bad. gillian: that's the point i was trying to make less eloquently than you. in the court of public opinion people want to know the president and his team are following the letter of the law and acting in the national interest in all their interactions. so this is the kind of story that fuels mistrust and kept civil and doubt about the president. howie: i think the whole coverage will be what did the president know?

yahoo is reporting that trump lawyers were told three weeks ago about these emails. now we have all these colorful characters, the british p.r. guy who represented the pop star whose father was politically involved. he's sort of like the kato kalin of the soap opera. katie: looking back they probably wish they didn't let so many people like this close to the top tier of the campaign. looking at the meeting itself. fit was a low-level meeting it wouldn't have been paul manafort and jared kushner and donald trump, jr. there. howie: more on ari fleischer on

how the president deals with this. why are the media making this

hey you've gotta see this. c'mon. no. alright, see you down there. mmm, fine. okay, what do we got? okay, watch this. do the thing we talked about. what do we say? it's going to be great. watch.

remember what we were just saying? go irish! see that? yes! i'm gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. howie: donald trump, jr. set up that campaign meeting with the russian lawyer but many in the media want to make it about jared kushner who sat in on part of the meeting. >> jared kushner is in more legal trouble for that meeting than don, jr. and paul manafort is. five years more. >> who would leak a story that makes their brother-in-law look like an idiot. even if their brother-in-law is

an idiot. howie: it's fair to criticize him for not disclosing the meeting on his security clearance form. why is the press trying to make this about jared? katie: there was an allegation the emails came from jared kushner's legal team. howie: they discovered these emails in the course of researching. katie: jared kushner is the reason why trump won the presidency. he had an operation going on to target voters. he was behind the strategy getting donald trump elected in mitch can. he didn't go out and cause problems for trump. the media hates donald trump and they want to take him down and

they know kushner is the one running the who and telling the president what to do. joe: he has a security clearance, so i think that's what is the sort of sea change in the emails. now the investigation or the evidence has implicated him. howie: he's the president's son-in-law. all those in the media who would love to attack the president on this feel they would like to scuff up jared kushner. it strikes me as the focus is a little unfair. joe: i think because he's the only one of them in the white house. that's why the focus has come to him, fair or unfair. howie: many in the media resent jared kushner because he's a

young wealthy guy and he's married a trump and he never gives on the record interviews. kate are's an easy target. i agree the media seems as a whole terribly biased against him. but that said he's got a target on his back not just because he's young and successful and married to the president's daughter. he's got a target on his back because the president made him a foreign policy advisor. i would argue he's traveled to israel and the palestinian territories representing the president. he traveled with the secretary of defense to iraq and met with foreign heads of state. he has been involved in every foreign head of state visit to the white house.

howie: in other white houses they don't get the negative press attention. joe: and none that i know of took me attempts to fill out their forms correctly and only altered the forms when evidence came out. katie: in -- howie: when people go on television and say hillary clinton emails and hillary clinton and ukraine. they may be legitimate stories, but is it basically a reflection? katie: yes. hillary did very bad things, that's why people didn't vote for her.

it doesn't seem like a standard republicans hud live by. howie: a poll out this morning said 63% said the russian meeting was inappropriate including republicans. the london "sun" reporting on the transcript of his meeting with theresa may, i haven't had great coverage out there recently says the president. and she says you know what the british press are like. brit hume suggested the thing is kind of a farce. what dose say now. why did sebastian gorka ridicule growing up, we were german. we danced in a german dance group. i wore lederhosen. when i first got on ancestry i was really surprised that i wasn't finding all of these germans in my tree. i decided to have my dna tested through ancestry dna.

the big surprise was we're not german at all. 52% of my dna comes from scotland and ireland. so, i traded in my lederhosen for a kilt. ancestry has many paths to discovering your story. get started for free at ancestry.com.

howie: one white house official

making the rounds on tv is sebastian gorka. you are 13th place in national ratings behind "nick at night." >> you used that line monday. but i think it's funny you have enough time in the white house you are able to sit around reading nielsen numbers. >> i get press briefings from my team. >> it's like the hungarian don rickles. howie: does it make sense for white house officials to do that and attack the ratings of the network he's on? gillian: i think it makes sense from a political object for somebody who works on political communications and the press team to do this.

i don't think it's even safe for somebody who is advising the president on counter-terrorism to take on that role. i don't know if dr. gorka assumed that role unilaterally. howie: he told hannity somebody has to be the president's pit bull. what do you think about how anderson cooper handled it saying he's a hungarian don rickles. gillian: that was kind of funny. i am one of those people who cringes when i watch cable news battles where people are attacking each other. i never think that's a good thing. i don't understand why administration officials who don't even have press and media in their portfolio are out front on this issue. howie: because they are an aggressive surrogate. gillian: sebastian gorka as a

counter-terrorism advisor is not a surrogate. howie: cnn third place in total viewers for cable news. kellyanne conway, a contentious 35-minute interview. >> the snarky looks, the furrowed brow, the rolling of the eyes from so many of your panel. you made a business decision to be anti-trump. >> and you made a decision to be antagonistic towards media and lump us all together. gillian: i think what this is about is the gop for the first time maybe since watergate since the 70s has a leader who is willing to go attack dog style

on the media, and i think that is working for the party. the gop. there is a behind the scenes consensus among all the leadership that this is something that's work for them and they appreciate. that's why we are seeing it go on for so long. howie: fox's lisa boothe on "the five" said hillary clinton would literally sell her daughter to be president. chelsea went online and said she disagrees. the president tweeting fake news the president tweeting fake news is distorting our democracy.

you won't see these folks at the post office. the president tweeting fake news is distorting our democracy. they have businesses to run. they have passions to pursue. how do they avoid trips to the post office? stamps.com mail letters, ship packages, all the services of the post office right on your computer. 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: president trump is tweeting this morning from his new jersey golf course. fake news is distorting our

democracy in our country. joining us is brit hume. when the president goes off on fake news and fraudulent reporting. brit: the released emails are part of the story. they confirm the truth of the event and everything that has come out of trump world and don, jr. himself. it's what it means. it's not fake news. that's opinion and analysis. i don't see fake news applying. howie: you said this whole business was a farce and was almost laughable. brit: as a political matter this is a big deal. but as a legal matter and wrongdoing matter, what we know about this, at least what we have been told about it makes it

look like a fiasco. donald trump, jr. gets lured into this meeting and the conversation turns to an issue of interest to the russian government. she pretended to be an adoption advocate. but she wanted sanctioned lifted and he said he didn't have the power to do that. if this meeting is going somewhere does jared get up and walk out? does paul manafort sit there on his phone the whole time? the tone of the coverage is overheated to the extent that we had th the man who ran for vice president just a few months back, less than a year ago said we are getting towards treason and that received wide covering. the coverage was not sympathetic

to that. it was an extraordinary statement. there have been extravagant conclusions being drawn from his. howie: and democrats like tim kaine are fueling that. you had a metaphor that if someone tries to rob a bank and you get there and the vault is empty is it a crime. brit: my thinking about this is the analogy i thought was overdrawn where you go to the bank and you break into the vault and you don't find anything in there and therefore, i don't think this reaches that level. this looks like trump jr. and his unbelievable naivete. as far as we know no opposition

research of any consequence was presented. so it looked to be if you are going to use the bank robbery analogy, you didn't end up with a plan and don't up doing anything. >> one of the president's lawyers did the full ginsburg today. let's look at some excerpt of those appearances. >> you know that goes on in campaigns all the time. opposition research goes on all the the time. chris: it doesn't go on with the russians all the time. >> isn't it important whether or not it's legal, whether or not it's wrong, whether or now it's ethical? >> what took place legal or not. almost every legal expert says it's not illegal. how report emphasis on it's not illegal, does that help the

president's case? brit: the legal matter is important. if they did something illegal, that's a big deal. and whether it's a legal matter or impeachment material that doesn't consider illegality. what about the political effect of this. whether it's legal or not, there is a propriety issue. an ethical way to behave. the answer to that is assuredly no. howie: you don't have sean spicer and sarah huckabee sanders. brit: you are not on good ground politically when you say what your client did, the president, is not illegal. howie: one more tweet from the president. hillary clinton can delete

33,000 emails and my son don is being scorned by the fake news media. brit: his problem really now is not one that i think can be solved by tweeting. the meeting was never previously disclosed. and with it was disclosed, details were omitted. i'm not sure it was a dishonest withholding of the information. we are now in a situation where you have probably not much of a legal problem but a serious political problem. the what about what they did? that makes talking points for the reporters but doesn't change the question. what came of this? was there really a collaboration between the russian government directly or indirectly and the trump campaign? these tweets don't go to that question. and that's the question that has

to be answered. that's why this isn't going away any time soon. howie: brit hume, great to see you. ivanka trump at the g-20. did a cnn commentator say she let down the sisterhood with a girly outfit?

howie: let's dig deeper on how president trump is dealing with his son now that most of briefings have been moved off camera. i spoke with ari fleischer. welcome. ari: thank you, howie. howie: when the "new york times" goats to donald trump, jr. and says we are about to publish your emails, and he releases them, what is the fallout from that? ari the newspapers and media have the obligation to go to the source. but if you then take that and preempt the media, next time the media needs something from you they will call you 10 seconds

before they have to file their story, and that doesn't help you in the long term. howie: as a matter of white house damage control with the press, how damaging is it in the case of the president's son, his first white house statement says it's a meeting primarily about adoption. the second statement says we were told this russian lawyer has opo information about hillary clinton. and then we learn there was a russian counter intelligence officer there. ari: this is a classic case of how not to do it. bill clinton's white house taught everybody how to do it. when you have damaging news put it all out and do it on day one. the trump white house did the opposite. they stretched it out from a

one-day into a four or five day story. i don't know the white house's thinking that they could keep the additional details secret. >> turn it into a one or two-day story. this whole question of this story about donald trump has oozed out came up in a briefing with sarah huckabee and materials. >> the drip drip drip is undermining the credibility of this administration. >> i think it's under mining the credibility of the media because they drip drip drip things that don't have much to do about nothing. howie: undermining the credibility of the media not the white house? ari: here is the core issue. how significant is this meeting. as somebody who has been critical of the white house and donald trump, jr. unless and until there is

evidence that donald trump and his campaign if collaborated with russia on the john podesta or dnc emails. that's the collusion that is the damaging collusion. this meeting was foolish and should never have been done it was an opening to russia, no one should open to russia. i don't see the crime in the meeting. i think that's the distinction the white house wants to make. howie: i am not saying anything illegal, but it does not look good. that was an off-camera briefing by the press secretary. they have moved most of of the briefings to audio only. that may cut down on grandstanding by tv reporters. but does it also inhibit the administration's ability to get its message out?

out? ary the purpose is to tone things down so it's not such a red hot tv show. i think everybody in washington needs a tone down. everything is so furious, so break news, so red hot, and that's not what the country wants out of washington. taking the briefing off, downplaying it to some degree is good for the body politics, it will take time because this white house is still pretty red hot. but still it's fundamentally the right thing to do. howie: you wrote as a contributor to cnn. do you buy the assessment of fake news? ary air. ari: i any the media makes a lot

of mistakes and it's mostly liberal. it's harder to deal with them when you are a republican. howie: thanks very much for joining us. after the break, msnbc bailing on who are these people?

the energy conscious people among us say small actions can add up to something... humongous. a little thing here. a little thing there. starts to feel like a badge maybe millions can wear. who are all these caretakers, advocates too? turns out, it's californians it's me and it's you. don't stop now, it's easy to add to the routine.

join energy upgrade california and do your thing.

howie: joe scarborough is constantly talking on his msnbc show about having been a republican congressman from florida. he sat down with stephen colbert and kissed the party good-bye. >> you have to ask yourself what

is the republican party willing to do. how much of our country and their values are they willing to sell out. >> aren't you a republican? >> i am a republican, but i am not going to be a republican anymore. i have got to become an independent. howie: joining me is carley shimkus. given the animosity between scarborough and his former friend, donald trump. is this about grabbing atechs or sticking it -- attention or sticking it to the president. carley: grabbing attention. i don't think the republican party is broken up about his leaving considering he called the party disgusting. making this announcement on a late-night show in front of an

audience who probably doesn't like the president either, it seems like a cheap way to get applause. howie: i can't imagine the msnbc boss are happy that joe scarborough made this announcement on another network. carley: it gave the stephen colbert show gave the show a two-month rating high. nbc execs isn't be too broken up about it. but it does prove he's loving this attention and feud he has with the president. howie: george will when he was

at fox last year also left the republican party. it could be joe scarborough is -- simply feels he doesn't want to be part of what is now donald trump's republican party. carley: you are right. who knows what's in his heart and mind. but you can make the argument it weakens the brand of their show. mika brzezinski plays a hard-core democrat and the fact that he's no longer associated with the party, that goes away. howie: let's show you the interview of the president with pat robertson. >> you have got to have a tax code for small businesses and healthcare. how far along are you. if you get healthcare and tax reform you are guaranteed

another four years if you wanted. there are thousands and thousands of people praying for you all the time. howie: i get that pat robertson is a friendly interest viewer. was that much of an interview? carley: it was a softball interview. the first line of the interview pat robertson said i'm so proud of everything you are doing. when was the last time we heard a member of the media say that to the president. i just about passed out. this did take the focus off russia and healthcare. it was a strategic move by the president and the administration, but kind of a softball interview. howie: still to come, a double fault by the "wall street

journal" at wimbledon.

howie: the "wall street journal" is regretting a tweet about the wimbledon tournament. here is what the "wall street journal" put up. a player failed his under garment check. putting a tweet of venus williams. it was a classic unforced error. way over the line. we talked about ivanka trump drawing media criticism for sitting in briefly for her father at the g-20 up it. but joan walsh an msnbc writer

said her dress was a cultural problem. >> she is sitting in for her father at the g-20. >> with big bows on her sleeves. the fact she sat in for her father in a dress that was so incredibly ornamental was such a contradiction in terms. daughters have great value. they are property. that's not a dress made to go out in the world and make a difference. that's a dress designed to show off your girliness. howie: it can be dangerous to comment on what women wear. that's it for this edition of "mediabuzz." i'm howard kurtz. check out our facebook page and give us a like, and consider the conversation on twitter.

you can dvr the show if you think you might be doing something else on sunday morning. we are back next sunday 11:00 a.m. eastern with the my . [♪] p. steve: everything is changing around you. old political divisions are shifting. across the globe, power is returning to the people. from outside the beltway you get a different perspective. i have seen it. from inside government while running campaigns. starting my own business. people are looking for a new brand of change. and positive populism is here. the next revolution starts right now. live from