howie: president trump still grappling with russia charges even as he urges the investigation of hillary clinton. >> the president says this is all fake news. this serious stuff. it's not false. manafort and gates are charged with enough to put them in jail for the rest of their lives. >> there is no evidence of russian collusion or no evidence of russian collusion yet. >> the president of the united states tried to pretend paul

manafort's conspiracy against the united states all happened before he was involved in the trump campaign. >> nothing in the indictment had to do with the trump campaign or donald trump. the third man, george papadopoulos is looking more dangerous even with the president's claim this morning there was no collusion. howie: the media divide on whether the president should be urging the justice department to investigate his former opponent. are the media fueling the polarization? is "house of cards" collapsing? netflix cutting ties with kevin

spacey after sexual allegations against the actor. an absolutely awful attack on new fox host laura ingraham for being too catholic. this is "mediabuzz." even as the media keeps digging into robert mueller's indictment, they take aim the president trump for his claims the justice department should go after hillary clinton. president trump: i'm not involved with the justice department. i would like to let it run itself. but they should be looking at podesta and a lot of things. a lot of people are disappointed in the justice department, including me.

>> president trump's shocking statements on the investigation. >> presidents don't have the power to individually prosecute for good reason. that's what authoritarian regimes do. >> i saw a headline that says trump wants to go after political enemies. no, president trump wants the truth. howie: mollie hemingway, ed henry, and marie harf. a bunch of front page stories about the path insisting the doj investigate. ed: he's charting into territory

that's dangerous for him. the mueller investigation may be winding down. why kick up a storm where it looks like you are influencing the justice department. hands off, stay away. where the president is right is a week and a half or so ago when fox and odders were talking about uranium one and there was mocking in the media and then the dossier and donna brazile's book. nancy pelosi and check schumer said we don't want to relitigate the 2016 election. are you kidding me? they have relitigated this election for 12 months now. howie: they are saying president trump is out of bounds and he's trying to bring a case against

his former opponent. larry elders said it's too bad he can't tell the justice department what to do. mollie: one of the things about donald trump is he says something that might be a little bit extreme and then the media reaction is overstated and hyped. he's making a typical donald trump statement. a lot of people are frustrated because the justice department seems to have no eyes for justice with it's a democrat. article ii of the constitution says it's the president's job to see that the laws are executed. we have an active bureaucracy that acts unactable. howie: it's an unusual

situation. there has been a lot of criticism of fox commentators and shows for focusing on hillary clinton and her controversies as though she were president. marie: the press has covered a president who breaks norms. but the press is trying to cover a president who doesn't behave like any other president and who pushes the boundaries. you had a fellow republican, bob corker, say in a democracy you don't go after your former opponent. mollie: it's not true this is a norm broken by president trump. in the previous administration you had a president endorsing hillary clinton when she was under investigation.

or him saying she didn't have intent. ed: on "60 minutes" president obama said he didn't think there was a problem with hillary clinton's private server. just because you lose an election, and if -- i'm not saying she broke the law -- if you broke the law, the laws should still be faithfully executed. howie: in donna brazile's book, the former acting chair of the democratic party said the process was rigged. in her view the hillary clinton campaign essentially controlled the day to day financing of the dnc. the day that was published on politico there was nothing on the evening newscasts or the "new york times."

there was very little other and jake tapper doing an interview with elizabeth warren. what explains this? mollie: there is outside interest in any republican dysfunction. if bob corker or jeff flake belch we get massive coverage. but you have the former dnc chair accusing the former nominee of shenanigans and how it affected the democratic race. howie: it has exploded now. going back to the indictments. you have the media switching from manafort to this guilty plea by george papadopoulos with the inconvenient detail that he was an unpaid they say low-level advisor who didn't seem to get much attention by his bosses.

ed: i was on the show last week and said the media was getting out of control with what the indictments may be. i said it could be jay-walking. you can't say anything without people saying -- you can't be indicted for jay-walk. i'm talking about political jay-walking. judge napolitano said these are serious charges against paul manafort and his associate. i am not saying president trump is off the hook. but if this is what they have, money laundering going back to 2005 and 2006. serious crime? yes. will it take down the president, unlikely. howie: papadopoulos is a cooperating witness. papadopoulos was interested in when he was told allegedly that

the russians had dirt on hillary clinton. but nothing ever happened. it's like the don junior story with the meeting with the rugs. marie: we don't know that yet. the trump people said there were no discussions with russians. their story keeps changing. this week we had a plea deal where there was a signed document that said the trump campaign knew the russians had hillary clinton's emails. this is actually a serious thing. this investigation may not get to the oval office, ed, you are absolutely right. but this is only a beginning. this is evidence that the trump campaign knew they had hillary's emails. mollie: we have had the story going on for a year saying we

don't know. but you said that this signed document said russia had hillary clinton's deleted 30,000 emails. marie: stolen emails. mollie: they claimed they had 30,000 of her emails. we now know they didn't. marie: they thought they did. and it's not nothing. howie: we don't know what's going to happen, but we are going to deal with what we already have. one side says this is terrible for trump because manafort was such an important figure in the campaign. the other side says this is about offshore dealings and accounts that date back way before the campaign and have nothing to do with the white house. ed: i have talked with senior

people inside the administration. the president has been itching to go off on bob mueller. steve bannon and others are encouraging him to fight. then they saw the guilty pleas. he went to the helicopter friday to go to say shah. who did attack? he did not attack bob mueller. instead he attacked jeff sessions and the justice department. they could be wrong. but at this moment they don't think bob mueller is going to have anything that will seriously damage this administration. mollie: the media should not view bob mueller as beyond reproach. there are media stories that criticism of mueller is unacceptable. they should apply the same standards towards mueller's indictments as they do anybody else in a position of power. howie: bill bennett weighs in on

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howie: the morning after an uzbek i am granted used a truck to kill 8 and injure artest, the president said the dwirs test lottery is a chuck schumer beauty. i want merit based. it had only been a couple of

hours after the accident occurred. mollie: notify the next of kin, let people mourn the dead. but it's the height of hypocrisy for a media who immediately politicize every mass shooting and turn it into a conversation about gun rights. howie: i don't like it when either side plays the blame game. the fact is this was a bill on which chuck schumer was a house member. it was signed into law by george h.w. bush in 1990. marie: chuck schumer tried to get rid of it in a bill that went nowhere. to say you can't talk about gun

control but you can politicize when people are mowed down by a truck. there has to be a way to talk about how to prevent people from being killed whether by guns or trucks. howie: about a month ago jim acosta, how he reported on the las vegas attack and more recently after what happened in manhattan. >> he doesn't always wait for the facts before he weighs in on a crisis. but he's saying that's what he wants to do here in las vegas. >> we have the facts. someone used a lot of guns to kill a lot of people. those are all the facts you need. >> the president has the world record of injecting politics after a terror attack. ed: stick with the facts when

you are a correspondent or anyone in this debate. there were republicans jumping on hillary clinton after the las vegas attack because she was on twitter. but for republicans to jump over hillary clinton and say we can't have a debate and can't get into gun control. and the president wants to have a debate on the immigration. howie: you have newspaper stories saying president trump has complicated the prosecution of the truck attack. he said it should move fast. death penalty. mollie: i didn't see that kind of coverage when barack obama was trying to bring khalid

sheikh mohammad to the united states base said he would get the death penalty. i didn't see people talk that way about president obama. marie: i would like to be able to judge the trump administration without going back to what barack obama did. we are talking about donald trump. his tweets are official statements. if he made it a double standard. mole * media credibility is one of the biggest issues here. until they accept responsibility for their 8-year hibernation followed by this unbelievable overly expressive view they are taking now. howie ed: he's a different kind of

president man sheen needs to be missed with. but i do think he misses an opportunity to bring people together and not just jump in right away. howie: this an msnbc interview about the las vegas case. >> he did not react this way when a white person shot dozens of people in las vegas. he did not come and say we have to do an immediate policy change, we need to give this got it death penalty. howie: that might have something to do with the fact that the las vegas shooter is dead. "gq" magazine made the same mistake. "house of cards" on hold while kevin spacey battles sexual harassment allegations.

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howie: hillary clinton was finally asked about her campaign funding of the russian dossier on trump. he should have asked the follow-up that received a campaign pokesperson approved it. >> some of it i will say is media guilt. they now have to face the way they covered this campaign. and the fact that they didn't pay any attention to policies. they were so totally entranced by the reality tv of it and the entertainment value of it, i'm told by some members of the press who privately said to me,

they missed it. they thought it was going to win so they could beat up on me without consequence. howie: she said they adjusted the coverage on the outcome they wanted. media never do enough on issues. but donald trump drove the campaign dialogue because he did hundreds of interviews with journalists including half a dozen with me. while clinton did very few. cnn's jake tapper is accusing fox news of lying about something he said. >> jake tapper felt the need to remind viewer how beautiful the phrase allahu akbar can be. >> sometimes it's said under the most of beautiful circumstances. and too often we hear i'd being said in moments like this. howie: tapper has a point.

but the fox news insider labeled the comment as outrageous. fox deleted a tweet promoting that article and "the daily caller" ran a grudging correction. laura ingraham asked about a virginia church take down plaques on robert e. lee. >> men on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them stand. howie: i don't agree there could be any compromise in a war fought over slavery. but the media suggestions that the general is defending slavery today is absurd.

sarah huckabee-sanders was asked whether the president believes slavery is wrong. come on! bill bennett and the media and the cultural divide.

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♪ traveling our own highway, ♪ ♪ no matter where it leads us ♪ ♪ we can smile, ♪ 'cuz there's meaning in the miles. ♪ ♪ howie: president trump enjoying substantially negative media scrutiny. joining us is bill bennett. bill, you served in the white house and cabinet jobs in the reagan and first bush administration. when you have read these stories that say president trump is improperly pressuring the attorney general to prosecute democrats. do they have a point? >> not a real point, not a major point. to echo president carter.

at no time in history has anybody been treated so badly by the press as donald trump. that was jimmy carter and i think that's right. the president needs to be careful what he says about bob mueller and the investigation. but as one of your guests earlier came out in the conversation said, he seems to be being careful. he's talking more about the justice department and less about bob mueller. in light of the fact they believe this thing may be coming to a close, but that won't stop the press from being who they are. howie: the pro-trump spin is this is all about manafort before he joined the campaign and nothing to do with the white house. is that true? or is it also true when there are huge controversies, the iran can extra scandal in the reagan

administration, it's a distraction for those working for the president. >> of course it's a distraction. it's huge. every time something happens they have to drop what they are doing, go to the oval office, have a meeting. you asked the question and it's a great question. is it view? i will give you have the answer everybody should give. i don't know. neither does anybody else at this point except bob mueller and some of his associates. but we'll find out. there is reason to believe this thing may be drawing to a close. it looks at this point, the indictments upon gates and papadopoulos a minor player that it may not reach the president. if i were a betting man, my guess is it won't reach the president. howie: there is so much we just speculate about.

jimmy carter said it's the worst coverage he has seen of a modern president. but because you worked for george h.w. bush and you are on the advisory council for this president. bush is calling the president a blowhard. it's not fake news. this is what they said to the author. your thoughts on that? >> i think it was most of inappropriate of the two presidents, both of whom i like very much. these guys shouldn't have done that. the simple answer is, where were they during obama? for pete's sake, 8 years of obama taking the country down the hill, and we heard nothing because of this pledge of not speak ill of former presidents. one of the founders wrote when presidents leave office they should disappear.

they should go to europe or asia and not be ghosts haunting the incumbent. i think that's probably a good idea. i think it was totally inappropriate and unfair given their silence on obama who is doing a lot more damage to the country. howie: given the deep divide between pro-trump and anti-trump coverage. does this go beyond the left-right divide in the country. the president going after the nfl on an tomorrow protests. >> the nfl thing is interesting and his reaction to the truck murder in new york. he has a way of touching the nerves that these contours and divides in american culture in a way that exiets both sides

positively and negatively. he has an instinct. somebody said it's uncle harry for president. you know the guy who comes to thanksgiving dinner and says i'm going to tell you what's wrong with this country. now he's president and he's telling us. it is a larger cultural divide. daniel patrick moynihan said culture is more important than politics. i used to work at cnn. the culture at cnn and fox are very different places. but if you have a lot of journalists nurtured on the great story that inspires so many of them. once upon a time there were two reporters named bob woodward and carl bernstein and they brought down a president. and maybe some day you can, too. i think that's still the aspiration of. >of -- of some of

these guys. howie: if it limits them? does it both help him and hurt him? >> if you keep getting hammered. even if people don't trust. people wielding the hammers. it makes a difference. the dust gets in the airways and people. i think when people see this economy coming home to their pocketbook, i think it numbers will go up. i think the future is numbers up. howie: thanks very much for joining us. a crisis for netflix as allegations against kevin spacey threaten to topple the

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sexual harassment allegations. netflix cutting ties with spacey after an uproar after actor anthony rapp told "buzzfeed" that a spacey made sexual. he says i have loved and had romantic encounters with men my whole life and now choose to live as a gay man. marisa, how is netflix handling this? originally netflix said it would end after his season but that was decided long ago. marisa: this can be a lesson to

other media companies. maybe just put the hammer down immediately and kind of do this drip drip drip, we are suspending. we are ending the show. which again which was as you know, the decision to end the show after the next season was already made. making this announcement that they were ending it was seen as opportunistic. howie: trying to take credit for something that had already been done. other men have made these allegations of sexual harassment against kevin spacey and said they were under age at the time. howie: how about the way he used the allegation by anthony rapp. marisa: anthony rapp was 14 years old at the time. spacey was trying to use his struggle to come out and admit

his sexuality as an excuse for doing this and it buys into the worst stereotypes that drives the gay community kritsy that people do that. he was trying to use this. he was trying to deflect from the accusations by coming out as gay. initially. publications did that with the head lines. kevin spacey comes out. howie: i agree with that. he hasn't had much to say since he said he was undergoing treatment. in the aftermath of all the exploding accusations, how has it changed the reporting climate at the "hollywood reporter."

marisa: a lot of these people we have been looking at for years. we have been hearing rumors about these people for years. people would reach out to our reporters. i had people reaching out to me last week about kevin spacey. rumors had been circulating and we had people coming to us because a friend had something happen to them or the person reaching out had. and for us it was always a struggle to get these people to be on the record. and when you are make an accusation like that, you want somebody to actually be on the record. somebody does have a right to face their accuser and know who is accusing them of what. now with the harvey weinstein situation, the floodgates are open and you are seeing a lot of anonymous claims and journalists are publishing them.

what we are doing is publishing a mix of anonymous and on the record. and it's interesting how difficult that still is, by the way. howie: even decades later it's difficult for people to go public. along those lines anna hunter wrote a column alleges dustin hoffman sexually harassed her when she was 17. six women told the "l.a. times" that ratner sexually harassed them. is it difficult to keep up with all these allegations? marisa: it's incredible, and there is still more to come. we get allegations from people all the time about other people that -- this has not been published about yet. it's a combination of people we never heard these rumors about

and people we have heard these rumors about. a lot of media companies are bracing for the next shoe to drop. they are bracing for their star to be outed. social media helped spread these accusations and fuel them. and enabled women to feel like they can come out. that there are other women speaking of. howie: npr's executive was forced to resign over inappropriate behavior. "the washington post" reported two unnamed women said he unexpectedly kissed them and in one case romantically pursued them when they were applying for jobs at the paper.

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>> every man must be free to become whatever god intend he should become. howie: laura ingraham has been attacked for being catholic. she was referred to as church

lady laura ingraham and criticized her for wearing a cross. he called her a fundamentalist catholic extremists. and she said immigration policy helps very few christians. mollie: it was fascinated to read. it shows how the media is so used to. i go to church weekly, that's a very normal thing for a big part of the country. you never see people asked questions about religion or how religion influences stories. when someone does it's treated as if it's something very bizarre. howie: this guy is in the keith

own oberman cam. how does he call her a fundamentalist extremist? mollie: there is a hostility. it's such a serious hostility, you take someone in a typical catholic and christian church and treat them as though they are fundamentalists. howie: shannon bream was also in the story be they didn't like her new program. mollie: this is a man who worked for the "new york times" for 20 years. he lists in his bio he taught journalism at nyu. you wonder what are journalism students learning from people like this. we have journalists who have

been trained not to think how religion is brought into stories. there will be a list of the top 10 stories of the year. and not one of them has a religion angle. howie: hardly any media reaction to this column. i wonder what people would have said if the person was jewish or muslim. if you feel this in your own lifetime as a journalist who goes to church. mollie: if this were written about a practicing muslim woman who had a show, you would see more reaction against it. is there not a religious knowledge and people have a surprisingly low understanding of religious understanding. they see how basic factual point

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howie: it's been all too common for entertainers to wish death on president trump. now there is snoop dogg. standing over a dead body with a toe tag that says trump. if we reach a point where this cultural vitriol is routine, it's because most of of the

mainstream media don't express outrage. david horsy of the "l.a. times" wrote that sanders looks more like a slightly chunky soccer mom rather than the fake eyelashes and formal dresses she puts on for news briefings. she looks like she would be more comfortable in sweats and running shoes. he said he failed to meet his own standard. who approved the sexist stereotypes? what happened to the editor. just remarkable. i'm howard kurtz. thanks for joining us. give us a like. we post a lot of original content on our facebook page. mediabuzz@foxnews.com. remember to dvr us if you have other plans on sunday morning.

but we'll be back next sunday morning. [♪] eric: president trump kicking off his first tour of asia as president. the president preparing for critical meeting with the leaders of japan, south korea and china. arthel: the president is already stressing his close ties with japan prime minister shinzo abe. and the need to build a united front