including robert gates and secretary of state, george schultz. that's it for today. have a great week. and we will see you next "fox news sunday". howie: on our buzz meter, a media explosion as rudy giuliani goes on fox news and says trump repaid cohen for the stormy daniels payment. >> the $130,000 will turn out to be perfectly legal. it many not campaign money. no campaign finance violation. the president repaid it. >> i love rudy, but they better have an explanation for that. >> if rudy wants the public to

believe donald trump reimbursed michael cohen what it was for, didn't not was going to silence stormy daniels, that's unworthy of belief. >> it's unbelievable michael cohen would make this payment to stormy daniels and not tell donald trump. >> the american people don't care about the stormy daniels story. howie: the "new york times" scoop on leaked questions for president trump from the mueller prosecutors. >> i am told by my sources tonight that the "new york times" is full of crap. a lot of those questions are not the questions that the special counsel is asking. >> fox news obtaining a list of

questions for president trump from special counsel robert mueller. >> these questions look like they were prepared by a first year law student who flunked out by being patently stupid. >> robert mueller is the closest we are going to come to a god-like figure. howie: charlie rose facing new accusations of sexual misconduct month spoke to "the washington post." and cbs was warned on at least three occasions. >> when the story broke i said charlie was my friend. but you can't ignore what women are saying. howie: did cbs tolerate sexual misconduct from one of their biggest stars.

this is "mediabuzz." it was one month ago a reporter asked president trump on air force one about his lawyer michael cohen paying off a porn actress during the campaign. howie: michael cohen denied to me and other journalists that he wasn't reimbursed by trump. >> he didn't know about the specifics of it as far as i know. but he did know michael would take care of things like this. >> there were no campaign violations because it wasn't out of the campaign. >> it was to save their marriage

as much as his reputation. howie: joining us, mara liasson, emily jashinsky, and philippe reines. howie: the media says rudy giuliani triggered a credibility crisis. emily: it's hard to defend this. sarah and materials in the press briefing the next day said even she was not aware of what rudy giuliani was going on fox and talking about. if there is one thing, it's an ungoverned media strategy. howie: giuliani said he was talking about his own understanding of the president's

knowledge. philippe, you write that rudy's sin was telling the truth. you said it has something to do with being on fox. philippe: i think he feels comfortable when he's on fox. i voted for rudy three times, including his first failed mayoral race. he wants to be president. he still wants to be president. i don't mean he's going to run. this isn't a lawyer you are watching. this is someone who likes the sound of his voice. he said he thinks michael cohen probably did this other times which is not exactly on message. howie: george stephanopoulos said is it fair to lie to the

press. he said a few presidents have done that. i covered rudy when he was the head of the justice department and mayor. he said jared kushner is disposable as a man, but ivanka is a fine woman. martha: the thing that's so interesting about the media coverage is everybody took a break from their regular programming. there wasn't two corners saying giuliani did great. even sean hannity's reaction. he was stunned. people's mouths are on the table wondering what they are going to do next. but rudy is a giant figure in american politics and certainly new york. sometimes maybe he's not perfectly fit for this role

being the president's top legal strategist. howie: the ex season particular dr. bornstein came out this week. the editorial page saying mr. trump is compiling a record. emily: when you have a tape of the president saying no and you have the tape of rudy giuliani. rudy giuliani should have gone. howie: he wanted to make sure it wasn't seen as a campaign violation. trump supporters say the media is constantly nitpicking everything he says. and they say bill clinton lied

about this. and that's why you don't see the president dropping precipitously in the polls. philippe: on the podium where sarah sanders comes out or sean spicer on that first day. howie: he says a lot of this is fake news. martha: it might never catch up with him. there is a different between legal jeopardy and political consequences. you heard brian kilmeade say trump supporters don't care about this and he's right. but at some point he needs to go to the american people and the world and say here is the crisis and i need you to be with us. philippe: it might be an attack where the fbi other cia giving a

judgment after two years of him saying they don't know what they are talking about. howie: there is a bubble many journalists live in, and that bubble, president trump has trouble telling the truth. we have so little credibility with much of the country that is not universal across america. emily: probably about 30% of the country is impervious. there is little that can be done to chip away their support. howie: sarah huckabee sanders did take a lot of heat at the briefing after rudy's appearances. >> he denied and continued to deny the underlying claims. i gave the best information i had at the time. howie: the question was from jim

acosta, were you lying to us or were you in the dark? howie: is that fair? martha: i think she this the dark more than she is lying. i think press secretaries do not want to lie from the podium. they don't. she says often this is the information i have, or i haven't asked the president about this. i refer you to the lawyers. being in the dark is a better place for her to be than lying. but that also raises questions. howie: not a comfortable place to be. "new york times" has those 49 questions the mueller investigation wants to ask the questions. they were notes taken by trump's legal team. president trump tweeted this was so disgraceful. but the leak appeared to have

come from his hide. emily who is strategically leaking. it's like playing clue. you try to pick up the clues. howie: the reaction from many on the left is these questions are so broad, there is no way any president should sit down from him. very different takes on the questions. philippe: the first thing that struck me is hillary clinton had been given the questions before her fbi interview it would have rained hell down on us. howie: it's not unusual for prosecutors to say these are the areas we want to concentrate on. philippe: the questions themselves show the severity of what's happening. we don't know what we don't know

about what bob mueller is doing. i imagine the lawyers who sat there taking notes were probably thinking he's air underred in areas we -- he's interested in areas we thought were closed. howie: there was an nbc story about michael cohen, stormy daniels hush money. >> an nbc exclusive investigation. we are learning that federal investigators wiretapped the phone lined of michael cohen, the president's long-time lawyer. howie: there was no wiretap. it was a pen register. how bad is this? martha: it's bad.

the press is under scrutiny it was bad. it was a basic you be forced error. just check. yes they had a register of the called, no, they didn't have a wiretap of the content. but it was corrected. i'm not saying that as a defense. npr didn't go near it because we didn't have it. howie: i gave the president the opportunity to tweet nbc is wrong again. let me get a break here. if you live in the washington area i'll be speaking at a luncheon today. i'll be signing copies of media mamade -- of "media madness." and coming up, reince priebus.

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and thanks to these xfi pods, the signal reaches down here, too. so sophie, i have an xfi password, and it's "daditude". simple. easy. awesome. xfinity. the future of awesome. howie: john kelly is calling total b.k. that he has repeated lid called the president an idiot. >> i don't think we have ever seen a chief of staff deriding the president's intellect. >> there is a cottage industry both within the white house and outside of it out to get general kelly. >> the highest level principles reported lid called kel the president a moron. howie: shouldn't more

journalists be asking whether nbc's four anonymous sources are out to get john kelly and get him out of the white house? emily: we had john kelly come out on the record and john kelly coming out and denying it. it shows how seriously they took this story. martha: i was sitting down with larry kudlow about economics and he said he wanted to go on the record. he knows who leaked it. they are trump people outside of the white house who leaked it. howie: . a report said it does help people understand. the chief of staff questions. it says rex tillerson called the

president a moron. martha: which he never denied. howie: if you were in the white house press office. if that had happened -- philippe: i would like to think i would not be calling my boss an idiot. but i think the problem is as they touched on it, this is not a coherent group. they are out to get each other. this isn't so much to me about the sourcing. it's about which one them is out to get the other. that's why i believe all these sources. the theme for 15 months is they all hate each other and they all want each other gone. howie: there are a lot of feuds in the white house and sometimes

the press is used by people who have an agenda. philippe: if i had said it i think people would have closed ranks. emily: it doesn't matter what the motivation is if it's true. the motor vague goes to whether the story is true. howie: you have to consider it about making that judgment about veracity. if he goes, the president has talked to corey lewandowski about him becoming the chief of staff. not likely to happen because he likes making money in the private sector and he has a lot of enemies in the white house. thanks for coming by this sunday. reince priebus an informal

advisor to the president. sweeping allegations of sexual misconduct by charlie rose.

>> i don't know what more we can do to at least two occasions and did nothing.

doesn't the network owe the network an accounting of what happened and why it was allowed to go on for so was anonymous. the second instance with chris said chris went to charlie directly. the third instance is disputing "the washington post." but you can see it's nuanced on all these issues.

howie: a 3-year-old said she walked down the hall, rose grabbed her butt. she said people said what they wanted and did what they wanted. you have another woman who was the source for the original "washington post" story on charlie. apparently there is a lot of chatter about this. they continue to say they did not know and they were not aware. upon the time of his firing there were no h.r. complaints filed. one could assume the reason there were no h.r. complaints filed because it was not part of the companies protocol to bring it to h.r. at the time. top executives said they had no idea. howie: throw of these women

have -- three of these women have filed suit. so it's so graphic and this guy was up a big star for so long, isn't it -- doesn't cbs have to do more to restore confidence, have an outside investigation rather than just saying we fired the guy, now we are moving on. ways your reaction as a woman to reading some of this? >> it's hard. you want to know if you are a woman and bring this up to your employer that they will be able to help walk you through to address this. i think some of the previous reporting about the pbs executive who says she regrets not doing more. some of these girls are 21, 22, alleging misconduct by someone

50 years their senior. you want to know that you are employer is taking it seriously. howie: they were in low-level jobs and charlie rose was a superstar there. we talk about allegations from linda vester. and another woman writing in a new york newspaper "the villager." she says brokaw was embracing me, giving me a french kiss. i pulled away reminding him he is married. tom is an icon in the industry. and it's not receiving much coverage. >> there is a backlash against the reporting. there was a letter signed by 50 women.

some of the women who signed that letter were high-level. when there is that much backlash it's hard for the media to confront the story. any time there are allegations of sexual misconduct the media should be reporting it. howie: sara fischer thanks for coming by. the "new york times" considers itself a crusaders against sexual misconduct. but they said very little about their own editor. the executive editor told the metro staff according to "vanity fair," i feel like s as a leader and journalist that i have sarah huckabee sanders answer. to his credit the next time a letter was run that said at least three staffers accuse him

of sexual misconduct. coming up, reince priebus and why the white house is such a leaky place.

howie: the media are awash in investigations, and his success yiewrnd fire, i sat down with reince priebus the former chief of staff. the press is on fire over giuliani * going on fox news and saying the president reimbursed the hush money. ryan lines money. >> i don't know what the truth

is. whether there was a payment made. i believe the mayor. i know he wouldn't go on tv and say anything that wasn't true. but in today's world with so many different people saying different things. i'm not sure if we know the truth of it. i myself didn't know anything about it. howie: the "new york times" saying the string of factual misstatements have come back to haunt him. >> i come from wisconsin and i can tell you this is not something are sitting around the dinner table talking about. when you look at what president trump has done and the accomplishments of what he put in place. when he's running in 2020 he'll talk about isis, the supreme

court, the federal bench. howie: if it's true the people of wisconsin are not sitting around talking about this sort of thing. why does it get so much coverage? is he frustrated by this? >> i think the frustration of someone like me or trump supporters, you name it, if you look at the accomplishments which is what most of presidents should be judged by, it's fair to say he's on a trajectory to be successful. i'm not spinning for the president. i don't work for the president anymore. but i think laying out the facts what he has done as president, regulations, judges, isis. look at north korea. we are on the brink of something extraordinarily historic. trump is money. howie: trump is money for the media? >> for the media.

everybody is making money. whether people love or hate trump, they are obsessed with trump. there is a reason why the cable networks are 24/trump. either trump d24/7 trump. cable companies are making more money now than they made in decade, and it's because of one person. it's because of president trump. it makes money. howie: he feels like he's accomplishing a lot more ordinary americans. the coverage is about mueller and stormy. how much does that frustrate him? >> i don't want to speak to the president about whether he's frustrated or not. but i have never seen a politician cape be of take more incoming and more issues and more bombs coming at him that would have sunk almost any other

politicians, and they do, one of them. he can take 20-30 at a time and keep going. it's never good. howie: your successor john kelly is calling b.s. to a report that he repeatedly called trump an idiot. what does it tell you that several sources are bad mouthing john kelly? >> i don't think quotes are made up, but i think there are nefarious people out there who make trouble. maybe people with agendas and for whatever reason they are not happy with the chief of staff and maybe they weren't happy with me when i was there. and i was going to be fired every three weeks. howie: three days. do you think the pressure to publish those stories --

>> i think the press should discern a little bit more as to whetherrer. >> not a particular story has value to the reader. and i think there is such a rush and i go back to the money statement. there is such interest, money and intrigue over any little thing that's published that involves president trump that there is enormous pressure to whatever anyone says, or the gossip of four people. and now we are going to write an article about it, and it gets tremendous coverage. what do you value success. coverage, clicks, interest or success writing a thoughtful article about a chief of staff. howie: coming back to general kelly, it was amid a wave of admiring press. he was going to impose discipline in the white house and i think he did.

do you think the press under estimates how difficult it is to be chief of staff under president trump. >> i don't think they underestimate it, i think you just go where the interest is. you go where the clicks are. there is so much competition in the media. and so look, the other thing is the president is basically the chief of staff. i used to joke that i was the chief of stuff. the president is the chief of staff. howie: it's a way of saying he didn't empower you to run the show. >> i'm not saying that. i knew and general kelly knows we worked for a very intense, hands-on person that wasn't going to be satisfied out of the loop on certain aspects of the job. he doesn't like being out of the loop. that's not a bad thing.

howie: but you don't say the reports are fake news -- >> i think some of it is probably fake. but i can't figure out what's fake and what isn't. reince priebus also talked about who might give him a primary challenge in 2020. vo: gopi's found a way to keep her receipts tidy, even when nothing else is. brand vo: snap and sort your expenses with quickbooks and find, on average, $4,340 in tax savings. quickbooks. backing you.

howie: major news outlets threatening to boycott the white house correspondents dinner with the left attacking president trump who wasn't there and the right attacking michelle wolf. >> is it sarah sanders, cousin huckabee, what is uncle tom for white women who disappoint other white women. >> michelle should have had the decency not to comment on women's appearance in any way, shape or form. she is a median, for god's sake, not the president. howie: joining us from new york,

kat timpf, a "national review" writer and fox news contributor. there were personal, crude, harsh comments against sarah huckabee sanders, and kellyanne and ivanka. what would they have said if such jokes were made about barack and michelle or hillary? cat. kat: there wouldn't be the same reaction. a lot of people who are saying it's an outrage don't say that when president trump says something. howie: you feel -- you have written this, that those folks, many of those commentators give the president a pass for some of the things he says. kat: president trump made fun of

mika's looks and rosie o'donnell. but when a median who there is to roast people makes fun of sarah huckabee sanders then it's an outrage. either it's an outrage all the time or none of the time. it drives me nuts to see this. it's not consistent. i do think that michel wolf is a comedian, not the president. and the president should be held to a higher standard. and people who had problems with the way she treated sarah huckabee sanders should have problems with the way president trump treated women in the past. howie: the white house correspondents association hired michelle wolf knowing she has a history of crudeness and is

anti-trump. doesn't it play into the president's hands by showing the media to be the symbol of that dinner looks to be a lot of media bias. >> i think president trump came out of this looking like a nice guy. sarah huckabee sanders came out . . said this was inappropriate. the white house correspondents dinner knew what they were getting into. howie: do you see the same selective outrage and commentary? imagine when barack obama were under a special counsel investigation. when we see conservatives and liberals switching sides and some of the outrage or defense of the president that they have expressed. >> we know for a fact they will switch side. we saw that with president clinton. they said it's just sex, it

didn't hurt anybody. now we are seeing the same talking points on each side except they are flipped. howie: "saturday night live" did a stormy daniels skit and did not use an actress. >> it's just an act. >> i work in adult films, we are not known for our acting. howie: should we remove any last pretense this program is virulently anti-trump and not about comedy. kat: it's not as funny because of it because we know where the jokes are going. the punch line is going to be the president is an idiot, the president is a liar. the people watching it and enjoy

it will hate president trump no matter what. but the people who support him, they don't care about stormy daniels. howie: alec baldwin has made it clear he detests president trump. kat: have had enough stormy daniels. howie: the u.n. marked world press freedom day with an ad urging people to consume lots of media. don't just watch msnbc. watch cnn and read the journal. 25 news outlets. but america's biggest news outlet didn't make the cut. does the united nations have something against fox news?

howie: sarah huckabee sanders got pounded in the white house briefing room after giuliani said the president repaid michael cone for the stormy daniels payment. in asking that question were you trying to establish sarah sanders was out of the loop. >> i had been told white house officials were surprised by rudy

giuliani's comment. sarah and materials said she did not know about that payment until rudy giuliani's interview which tells you a lot about the communications strategy. howie: you can say the white house undercut her by sending her out to answer these questions without giving her the full story. >> it's not unique to this presidency for white house press secretaries to not in the loop on some of these things. it makes it easier for them to say i haven't spoken to the president about that matter. i can't tell you how many times in the obama administration josh earnest said that to us.

howie: i see a lot of commentators attacking sarah huckabee sanders as a liar, that she knew she was providing false information. >> she said in that briefing she was giving the best information she had at the time. and she admitted she had been 100% out of the loop. and the white house tried very hard to keep the president's personal matters away from what they see as white house matters. she is the white house spokeswoman and she is there to talk about the white house. that's how they are delineating it. she was not involved in that conversation with the president's personal attorney and was clearly left out of the strategy about what he was going to say on the television. howie: you see all this piling

on. cnn says she should resign. it's probably unfair to call her a liar, but does it make her less effective because there are things she has not been told? >> i think it will be difficult for anyone who is behind that podium. he's strategizing with his personal attorney and she is not in the room in that conversation. but another point i want to make. when sean spicer was in the chair, everybody wanted to get sean spicer in the chair and they wanted sara in. howie: that's it for this edition of "mediabuzz." i'm howard kurtz. glad you are watching. hope you like our facebook page, check it out. give us a like. i mentioned earlier the reince

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rob: monday may sixth, this is fox fox first i should say happening at 4:00 a.m. fox news alert. florida sheriff's deputy shot in the head and now clinging to life. what we learned overnight about the suspect's history of violence against police. >> john kerry is not negotiating on behalf of u.s. government and what he's doing is inappropriate. i hope john kerry stops. rob: john kerry accused of shadow diplomacy to salvage the nuclear deal that he help today broker as the president faces republican pressure to scrap the deal we are live in washington. >> i'm wondering if senator hall would feel the same if students walk