channel. and that's it for today, have a great week and we will see you next fox news sunday. ♪ howard: the president's son speaks out on his battle with the media during the russia investigation. the personal toll, why he thinks the coverage is biased, whether he and his dad go too far on twitter, and his father's enemy of the people rhetoric against the press. >> it is a terrible disservice to this country, to journalism as a profession. i think they've done irreparable damage to the faith that the average american is going to have in terms of mainstream journalism. howard: a wide-ranging conversation on media, politics and culture with donald trump jr. the mainstream media launches a counterattack that

their coverage of the mueller probe has been overdone, overhyped and overwrought. >> this is the greatest journalistic challenge of the modern era, to report on a malignant presidency. what we are watching in the trump presidency is worse than watergate. >> the president of the united states has been lying to the american people for years now, lying that he was ever doing any business with with a foreign power which was, at the same time, committing criminal acts to help get him elected president. >> this is the first time since watergate -- and perhaps even before watergate -- that we have had a president of the united states, while in office, implicated in committing crimes. >> i am outraged by the behavior of these networks. >> okay. >> collusion, collusion. collusion, collusion. collusion, collusion. >> okay, here's my, here's my case -- >> apolo jielz. >> never. >> don't knock reporters at new york times or "the washington post" or "the wall street journal" or the broadcast

networks for doing their job right. howard: is the press, after two years of investigations, tone deaf to these complaints? a former democratic candidate who says joe biden made her cringe with an unwanted kiss take toss the airwaves this morning. are the media giving the former vp presidential-level statutemy? if. plus, jussie smollett who fooled much of the media with his hate crime hoax gets off scot-free. i'm howard kurtz, and this is "mediabuzz." ♪ ♪ howard: donald trump jr. has become a highly charged political presence in his own right. controversial, he really mixes it up on twitter, a fierce defender of his father, naturally, and until robert mueller ended his investigation, a constant target of media scrutiny and speculation in the russia probe. i sat down with the president's

eldest son in new york. donald trump jr., welcome. >> good to be with you, howard. howard: with robert mueller bringing no further charges, this question: how did it feel to hear yourself with constantly described as being in deep trouble and possibly facing indictment? >> listen, it was less than fun. i mean, i guess the reality is i knew what had happened because i was actually there. while i may have been the catalyst for this, i also realized this was a lot of nonsense that was perpetrated by the democrats and the media and pushed mostly because they wanted it to be true -- howard: but there was an investigation. >> there was. and without question, and when you see the gamesmanship that's been played over these last few years and the ambiguity as to how it all started and why, you certainly have to wonder. there was an element of, you know, relief from that because as a pretty tried and true american, you don't want to hear those kind of things, you know? your father is a russian agent. you know, i'm going to jail for treason. i mean, it was all nonsense and

sound bites, but you don't want to hear it, and it's been, you know, a pretty disgusting road. howard: i can see where it would take a toll. you see the democrats are collusion-pushers, i don't necessarily agree with that language, but isn't that a pretty broad brush? every reporter, every commentator, nobody tried to be fair? >> i think there were some people that tried to actually be fair. when they were actually fair, you'd see the other side just try to obliterate them, even their own following. i think there were a couple people who did good reporting, and m i don't mean conservative reporters. i mean people on the other side. they were at least unbiased -- howard: you're saying it was dangerous for them to try to be -- >> oh, they lost their followings, they get ratiod to heck. it became a business model for most media to attack donald trump, and if you didn't, you upset a lot of people and risked your career, other things. and so, you know, the people who just bought into this hook, line

and sinker who were selling it day in and day out, every day, this must be the truth, we've seen the evidence -- they lied to the american public for two years, howie. there's no ramifications, there's no nothing. but they did a major disservice to the people who did do a good job, a small group of people who were, you know, reasonably objective and did a good job. and more importantly, they did a terrible disservice to this country, to journalism as a profession. i think they've done irreparable damage to the faith that the average american is going to have in terms of main stream journalism. mainstream journalism. i think it's a blight on our republic, on democracy and on our constitution that's not going to come undone very quickly. howard: you said recently bob mueller was using an old stalinist tactic, you show me the men, i'll show you the crime. now that he's closing up shop, do you want to revise that assessment? >> listen, my statements stand as to how all of this started.

you know, this was a witch hunt to end all witch hunts. howard: i've heard that phrase before. >> once or twice -- howard: as far as how mueller conducted himself. >> 19 lawyers, all of them happened to be hillary clinton donors? come on. you know, i think they could have done a much better job putting those teams together. they could have gotten rid of some of the flagrant bias that just screams to you when you look at the way this stuff was set up. howard: but in the end, was it fair? >> i think so because they didn't find anything, but the reality is there was nothing there to find. now, i don't believe for one second that there's not one person on that team whose dream it would not have been to take down donald trump. i stand by that 100%. and i think anyone who's a conservative who's seen it and anyone who's an independent and objective probably believes that. howard: as far as donald trump jr., with the benefit of hindsight, are there things you would have done differently? for example, taking the 2016

trump tower meeting with the russian lawyer. >> you know, you had a russian lawyer who was trying a case, earlier that day downtown in new york city. i'm in business. you take a hundred meetings for something that happened. you listen. you want all the information. so i don't. but what's frustrating to me though is that that was the basis of two, three years of investigations, nonstop this, traitor, all of the sound bites that you've heard. but the fact that that person was meeting with fusion gps before and after that meeting, that hundt and the dnc -- hillary clinton and the dnc were paying fusion gps for this information, that they paid foreign agents in foreign countries, that's no problem. that merits no investigation whatsoever -- howard: once that meeting was revealed by "the new york times," could you all have done a better job of getting the facts out? >> the reality is this, people say, oh, we lied -- they asked what the meeting was about. we have no obligation to tell "the new york times" in a kill piece more than we want to say.

but the reason they knew about it is this, we handed these e-mails over. it wasn't that "the new york times" magically discovered this. we handed it over, and someone leaked it, but we were being open and honest, as we have been. you don't think for one second that the, you know, the tinfoil hat brigade -- adam schiff -- you don't think that he gave my testimony, those seven or eight hours of the 27 hours on a 20-minute meeting, 27 hours, you don't think those guys were giving all of that to mueller to make sure let's see if he lied somewhere? we were open and honest from moment one. howard: you also called him slimy, but should we get to a point now the investigation's over where the white house and congress, democrats and republicans, could work together and to some things for the country, and wouldn't that require taking a little bit of the -- >> i said that the other night on tucker, actually. i'd lao to see -- love to see republicans and democrats get

together. how about we work on infrastructure? the reality's this. look at the numbers, howie. look at unemployment rates, look at your 401(k), look at the stock market, look at rising wages. you know, again, all-time low african-american unemployment. all-time low hispanic unemployment, female unemployment. my father's record is impeccable. howard: you're talking about your father's record. now, top aides and advisers to him have told me on many occasions sometimes he distracts from his own agenda with the twitter attacks and insults. you ever had that conversation with him? [laughter] >> this is a no-win answer, howie. howard: i think i've struck gold. >> i think there are times when that certainly happens. i'm guilty of it myself. he's a counterpuncher. but if we lived in a fair world where it was 50% left and right and people were trying to be objective, it'd be one thing. but we live in a world where 93% negative coverage. of what? of the record i just described? of all-time low unemployment

numbers, of bringing jobs back to america -- howard: that's on a number of networks, yeah. >> 93% negative on a winning record of getting things done and accomplishing things. so you have to hit back. he's got an incredible platform. he's created that for himself. i always say he plays monkey in the middle with the press, because if you leave it to them, they're only going to report their narrative. howard: okay, but right after we learned in further indictments, nothing on collusion, mueller didn't make any recommendation of obstruction, president tweeted that the msm is corrupt and the enemy of the people -- i always object to that, enemy of the people -- so he's still on offense. does that mean he's going to continue to run against journalism? >> i don't know that he's running against journalism, he's running against fake news. howard: he says all of mainstream media. >> most are still not reporting this quite that way. they're looking for the loophole. well, bill barr did this on the obstruction piece. no, no, bill barr and rod

rosenstein -- not exactly a trump fan -- howard: he's a republican appointed by the president. >> i don't think anyone actually believes that, okay? they leave those parts out. the mainstream media has been their own worst enemy in all of this because they can't help but push the narrative that they want. rather than the narrative -- howard: what i'm saying is if the president continues through november of 2020 to talk about the mueller investigation, how he feels he was mistreated, you know, that also drives the coverage. do you want to keep talking about, does your side want to keep talking about this? >> i think you have to keep talking about -- i think people heard about the deep state for decades. they read about it maybe a little bit. i don't think they gave it all that much credence. but when you look at the last two year, you know, that's a big part of it. and, again, i do believe that a lot in the media -- not all, but a lot, the vast majority, the biggest names -- are are totally complicit in this and in pushing that message. you can see, howie, i've never

as an american experienced a time where i would have thought that the democrats would be visibly upset that the president of the united states did not actually collude with the russians. howard: right. partisanship aside, that's a been. >> that ice kind of a winning thing. oh, it didn't happen. you would think they'd be happy about it. they're not. they wanted it to be true. that's what's scary. howard: let me ask you about an n if pr story about you late last year, i'm sure you remember this, that michael colm's testimony raised questions about your truthfulness in congressional testimony. turns out the wrong project, you actually had talked about the other cohen-related project, npr retracted the story, said it had moved too quickly. >> correct. they were one of the few that did a good job of that. they actually retracted it because there were two different things, and if they read paragraph further in my testimony, they would have realized it.

but that's the problem. oh, here it is, hit it. hit send. we've got to attack. if they would have taken fife seconds longer -- five seconds longer, they would have realized it was very clear and on the same page that they were referring to that it was two different things. hey, there's other institutions that didn't do that. cnn did the thing where michael cohen testified donald trump jr. told his father about the meeting -- howard: in advance. >> right. and rainy davis was the source -- lanny davis was the source. howard: that's somewhat in dispute, according to lanny. >> retracted it, said it wasn't true -- howard: said he didn't know whether it was true. now cohen's testified -- >> correct. so they know it's false. they have people on both sides saying it's false, and they just leave it out there as gospel because it was the narrative they wanted. howard: more of my interview with the president's son right after this as we get into his battles on twitter and his dad's

testy relationship with "the new york times". and later, the media is starting the scrutinize joe biden on how uncomfortable a woman made her feel with a kiss on the head.

♪ ♪ howard: more now of my conversation with donald trump jr. in new york. i often say that your father has a love/hate relationship with the press. not that much love lately. so, for example -- >> you can understand that, i think. howard: okay. >> if you took what he took -- howard: he's always railing against the failing new york times, and yet he continues to give the paper interviews, he talks to maggie haberman. does he want the paper's approval even as he criticizes? >> i think the reality is he's going to criticize people when

he feels he's mistreated, but he's going to give them the opportunity to make it right. in this case perhaps he's given them too many occasions to make it right. howard: you're a bit of a brawler, why do you dive into those other controversies? for example, when lori loughlin and felicity huffman were charged in that college admissions scam -- >> because they seem to have an opinion about everything that relates to us. it's always nice to -- again, i've got a bit of the counterpunching gene. it probably took politics for me to realize i was more like my father than i perhaps thought before this. [laughter] again, it's more about rallying against a lot of the hypocrisy that's out there. everyone has an opinion on this. the second something happens on that side, it's not news, it's covered up -- howard: sometimes maybe i should have let that one go? >> i don't know that i've ever regretted sending one. i've regretted perhaps the response to it.

you know, but again i think, you know, there's what you intend to say and the message and then there's the way it's sort of contorted and twisted and turned. you put something in writing and, you know, certainly i've seen it in interviews, and i've seen this with my father. he'll be at a speech, and he'll say donald trump said this. really? when? yesterday. in pennsylvania. but i was there with him, he didn't say that. well, no, but if you take minute number 1 and minute number 15 and minute number 43 of a speech and you combine it into one thought even though it wasn't, he said it. i'm like there's just a lot of dishonesty in terms of the way -- i mean, the best is when you see him when he's clearly, he's got a sense of humor. howard: yes. >> oh, my god, he literally asked the russians to -- like, really? like they make it seem he did that in some sort of private meeting as opposed to in front of 27,000 people -- it's a joke,

and you can't pretend it's not. again, this is a place where the media does themselves a great disservice because any reasonable individual watching knows that he's just having a good time. howard: you grew up in business here in new york. did you -- now you're very much in the political arena. did you ever envision that kind of life for yourself before 2016? >> not really. it was really before we announced, i guess june 16, 2015, i probably never envisioned it. and i sort of figured on november 9th that i'd get back to work. i had a lot of e-mails that day, congratulations, buddy, we were with you all along. of. [laughter] i don't think so. funny, i haven't heard from you in two years, but now you're with us. that's also sort of when the attacks started coming and, you know, the reality is i'm a fighter, i'm willing to fight -- howard: did you enlisted or were you drafted? >> i enlisted.

howard: thank you very much for sitting down with us. when we come back, michael avenatti facing criminal charges in two cases. and later, major media leaders fighting back against an onslaught of criticism over their mueller coverage. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ howard: with michael -- when michael avenatti burst onto our television screams, it was as stormy daniels' lawyer. in the space of two months, cnn and msnbc put him on the air more than 100 times, several times a day as he spouted his anti-trump message and sometimes hurled unsubstantiated chargings. these two networks helped create a folk hero. >> there's been some questions about how often i've been on can

cnn and other networks, etc., okay? it's all a bunch of nonsense. howard: the fame-hungry attorney soon convinced himself he should run for the democratic presidential nomination, and some anchors and hosts encouraged that delusion. >> someone said to me, do you think it would be odd if you were all of a sudden in a few years, do you think you'll be saying, you know, i used to interview that guy as stormy dan yeses' attorney, and now -- daniels' attorney and now he's president of the united states? >> how do you think your potential competitors stack um when it comes to taking on the president? >> well, i've been traveling around the country raising money for democrats, and and i've received an incredible response every state that i've gone to. howard: during the brett kavanaugh hearings when avenatti represented the third accuser, julie swetnick, he made outlandish allegations and still got a platform. now avenatti is in the news for a very different reason. he was arrested in one case for allegedly embezzling big bucks

from a client and in another for trying to extort $20 million from nike. >> a suit and tie doesn't mask the fact that, at its core, this was an old-fashioned shakedown. howard: so avenatti, who says he was exposing wrongdoing at nike, showed up in a tv studio. >> i am nervous, i'm concerned, i'm scared. >> but you also seem confident. >> i am confident because i believe the facts are on my side. howard: now even stormy daniels says avenatti was extremely dishonest with her. let's face it, the media were complicit in building up michael avenue gnat9ty because they couldn't resist the combination of his anti-trump fervor and showing pictures of his porn star client. we showed the picture. ahead, why did many in the press buy jussie smollett's horrible hoax in the first place? >> but up next, two liberal

pundits say they're been banned from msnbc for

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unleash your potential in the bedroom, with score!. ♪ ♪ howard: facing stinging criticism about their coverage of the mueller investigation, some top media executives are pushing back with including in a new york times interview jeff zucker, we are journalists, and and our role is to report the facts as we know them, which is exactly what we did. washington post editor marty baron, others make determinations about criminal offenses. and "the new york times," we yo a lot about russia, it's not our job to determine when it was illegality. meanwhile, two liberal comment caters -- glenn greenwald and alan dershowitz -- say they were booted aft other cable news channels for defending trump. >> it was continuously on msnbc which, let me just say, should have their top host on prime time go before the cameras and

hang their head in shame and apologize for lying to people for three the straight years, exploiting their fears to great profit. >> it's time for cnn to issue an a apology. cnn banned me from their air because i was being too fair. howard: joining us now to analyze the coverage, the culture editor at the federal list, and clarence page, columnist for the chicago tribune. so alan dershowitz, who voted for hillary, wrote in "the hill" he was ordered not to be booked for six months. the brass didn't want their viewers' minds to be confused by the law or the facts. strong charge. >> well, the notion that cnn was trafficking purely in facts over the last two years is absolutely laughable. and same was true of msnbc, so either of them would have absolutely disrupted that narrative, and there was very little disruption as someone who watched both of those airwaves.

it was all narrative, narrative driven purely for two years and very few people willing to disrupt it. howard: it's also true that dershowitz got a lot more invitations from fox news when he started defending president trump in this case. given the thousands of segments, thousands of stories, millions of online posts about russian collusion and obstruction -- which now there'll be no more challenges -- should journalists do a little soul searching about whether they went too far? >> i don't think our souls need to be searched. it's what you look at in order to return if you're being ethical, if you being moral, if you're being balanced and fair -- howard: you believe the coverage was balanced and fair for two years? >> there's a difference between news coverage and opinion analysis, and that's what has been mixed up, unfortunately, in our media in this era. a lot of folks look at a commentator or anchor like we have in prime time on cable these days and say, well, he's not being objective. no, he's a commentator.

[laughter] he's, you know, whether you're talking about sean hannity or talking about rachel maddow or others who mix up their analysis with their reporting -- howard: but even in daytime news coverage or newspapers, forget about op-eds, it seems everyone's saying, well, no regrets, we did everything right. that's not how much of the country sees it. >> actually, when you look at this, brian shelter himself of cnn said speculation has its place in the news media, and what cnn was doing was with speculating for two years, and even some of the reporting wasn't based on fact. they had had to retract several stories because what they wanted to be true is what they were pushing. it was difference between just the pure truth and what they wanted to be true, and that's why we saw all this narrative be pushed across their network for two years -- >> there wasn't smoke out there though. there was a lot of smoke, and you've got to follow that smoke,

and who knows where the fire is. we haven't even opened up the mueller report yet. >> yes. >> we've only looked at a cover letter about the mueller report. howard: we haven't seen the report. nobody is saying there shouldn't have been coverage, i'm talking about the nonstop nature of it, the overwhelmingly negative tone. and, by the way, the president demanding that "the new york times" and washington post return pulitzer prizes they received for this coverage. the fact that nobody, the fact that there are no further indictments doesn't mean the stories were inaccurate, but there were a lot of high profile blunders made. emily, let me play something that the president said at the rally in grand rapids the other night going off on the media and the ratings. >> the crooked journalists, the totally dishonest tv pundits -- and, by the way, they know it's not true. they justot great ratings. by the way, their ratings dropped through the floor last night, did you see that? [cheers and applause] howard: president went on to say that the ratings surge for our

friends, sean hannity, laura ingraham and tucker carlson. so he's boasting on twitter that the ratings for cnn, msnbv, morning joe went down -- msnbc. joe scarborough says, mr. president, you're 34% in new hampshire. does trump measure the success of everything he does by ratings? >> absolutely. and i think his background speaks to that. he comes from the television world. he los media attention to, of course, that's absolutely true. but cnn's ratings were up, and when we're looking at motivations for pushing this narrative, it's because they did see an uptick in ratings when they started to focus on russian collusion. rachel maddow's ratings were up bigtime, and she discover discovered it. the dramatic fashion every night. >> we don't want to be dull in our business. [laughter] howard: i asked this question to donald trump jr., is he going to keep talking about mueller and keep talking about it until

election day? >> who -- howard: is the president of the united states going to keep making -- >> trump isn't talking about mueller, he's talking about us, the media, you know? i wish he would talk about mueller. if he had talked more about the russia collusion charge early on, we wouldn't have had all these suspicions. the fact is when you gather what facts you've got and then you start to draw some conclusions, when you start speculating excessively, you're absolutely right, there was too much of that mixed up with news coverage, however -- howard: let me -- >> returning prettier prizes, that's grandstanding. pulitzer prizes. they're still true. howard: now, just breaking more this morning, lucy flores, she was the democratic nominee in nevada for lieutenant governor, has written a chilling piece in the new york magazine about how joe biden -- who came to campaign for her, i'll let her tell the story. she's out there saying how uncomfortable the former vice president made her. here she is on cnn. >> i feel joe biden put his hands on my shoulders, get up

very close to me from behind, lean in, smell my hair and then plant a slow kiss on the temperature top of my head. it was just -- on the top of my head. it was just shocking because you don't expect that kind of intimate behavior. you don't expect that kind of intimacy from someone so powerful. howard: emily, is the press starting to give joe biden presidential-level scrutiny? >> yeah. i think he's polling at the top of the list, and i think it's warranted. i think it's potential that there are some allies of the other candidates in this race that are leaking this -- howard: but in the case of lucy flores, she says she felt compelled to speak. here's another quote from that interview, the reason why i felt compelled to finally say something was over the years this behavior was documented as it was, frankly, dismissed by the media and not taken seriously. >> right. she absolutely has a good point. if joe biden, for instance --

and i don't want hike to play the what about game -- if he were a conservative, he would not have gotten a pass from the media for years and years because this is evidence of him behaving like this, photographic evidence going back years. howard: clarence, biden put out a statement this morning, not once, never, did i believe i acted inappropriately, but someone suggests i did, so i will listen respectfully, but it was never my intention. would all this negative attention affect the his decision to run? >> it certainly already has, i'm sure. remember, howie, we would not be talking about this in these terms if it hadn't been for al franken being forced to resign, and then there was a backlash against kristin gillibrand, why are you purpling our wonderful candidate? -- purging our wonderful candidate? biden knows this, he knew it for a while, so i don't think that'll stop him. howard: yeah. i think he had to figure out some of this would come out, but the media at least doing their

jobs. all right, paneling stay put. -- panel, stay put. how economists smeared ben shapiro as an alt-right guy. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ >> let me just tell you exactly what my message is. the republican party will soon be known as the party of health care. howard: president trump drawing plenty of media criticism for moving yet again to abolish

obamacare with journalists arguing and quoting unnamed republicans as saying that he has no health care plan after three failed attempts to repeal and replace the program that he and his party ran against. i spoke earlier with ben shapiro, editor-in-chief of the daily wire and author of the new number one bestseller, the right side of history: how reason and moral purpose made the west great. ben shapiro, welcome. >> thanks so much for having me. howard: the pundits are nearly unanimous in saying that president trump, it's bad politics for him to again bring up getting rid of obamacare. he was riding high after the mueller report are. after three failed attempts to get it repealed through the republican congress. are the pundits wrong? >> no, i actually don't think they are. i think that the president suggesting there's a plan in the wings is, obviously, not the case. i've spoken to legislators in the senate and the house, there's no plan that is forthcoming. the only thing that might be true is that president trump is planning, essentially, for the

supreme court to uphold his former statements on obamacare, and then he can blame the democrats in congress for blocking any sort of reform, make them own the status quo as well as the possibility of medicare for all. that could be a clever political strategy. howard: right. but he is, of course, backing a lawsuit that would get rid of obamacare, pre-existing conditions and all, without any plan in place, as you just noted. >> right. and that, again, may be his lawyers betting that the supreme court -- which still has the same constituency, john roberts in the swing vote position -- will vote the same way they did before, and trump can say, listen, i did the best that we i could, i even sided with a lawsuit to -- that's not a terrible argument against the case. howard: blame it on john roberts. you were apologized to by a british magazine, what happened? >> i think a lot of people who don't know what the alt-right is, i'll attribute to arrogance

rather than mag lis. a bunch of folks on the left seem to think everybody who's conservative is alt-right. it is based solely on race. and western civilization is just about white people. oddly enough, folks on the left seem to think the same thing, but the alt-right believes what makes western civilization great is it is about white people. that is false and stupid. i was the number one recipient of the alt-right's hatred, so the economist was wrong on its face, and that's why they did the right thing, pulled down the head ryan and then called me -- headline and then called me a radical conservative. are in any non-radical conservatives in the opinion of the economist? [laughter] i guess i can take that, alt-right was not a thing i was going to allow to stand. howard: and you not the apology.

from your book you say: we are angry at each other. the anger is palpable, where did it come from? my question is you're an aggressive player in the partisan wars. do you, does cable news, do the media contribute to and fuel this anger? >> i mean, i do think that, obviously, strong political conversation is going to lead to polarization. but the question is you can have strong political conversations where you disagree and you discuss and still love the person you're arguing with at the end of the day if you feel you have the same shared goals, if you feel you have the same common base from which you are working. what seems to have happened is the sort of polarized battle we're seeing on cable news, i think, is a reflection of a deeper underlying unease with the fact that we don't have all that much in common anymore. the book really is an attempt to reminded us we have a 3,000-year developmental history in western civilization and that right, left and center, we all still should agree on freedom of speech, freedom of religion, a government that is not m powered to invade our lives.

these are concepts that we should all agree on, if we can't agree on those, then the arguments we're having right now actually carry an enormous amount of weight, and maybe we should be angry. howard: so you see yourself as sort of slamming other people's policy ideas or views of ideology and civilization but not demonizing them. is that the distinction here? >> absolutely. i hope that -- and i don't always succeed, but i certainly hope i'm attacking people's ideas and not them as human beings. howard: right. when you went to speak at berkeley, famously, protesters shouted speech is violence, which is an interesting twist of meaning. you also say that despite the fact that you're an orthodox jew, you're routinely castigated as a nazi. where does that come from and just personally, how hurtful is that to you? >> obviously, on a personal level it is deeply discomfiting. it is not a nice thing to be labeled a progenitor of the

worst mass murder in histories against people who shared a religion with me. [laughter] that's ridiculouses and silly and evil, frankly. the general polarization, we live in an era where it is very convenient to tear down your political opposition by labeling them lack, by labeling them morally insufficient, that they have hack of character. and that is a sign not only of bad politics, but bad underlying motivation. if you're slandering somebody's motivations without knowing the person, the idea is they are innately bad because we disagree on political partyies that we've -- matters that we've disagreed on for years and year, but my policies suggest white superiority? you're engaging in, effectively, character asaws a nation and a certain form of tribal warfare. howard: and there's way too much of that in on line sewer, i would agree with that. ben shapiro, congratulations on the book. thanks very much for joining us.

>> thanks for having me. howard: the dropping of charges against just citying smollett is indefensible, why the media are furious he didn't even apologize for h

♪ ♪ howard: jussie smollett claimed he had been beaten up by two pro-trump thugs. police charged that he staged the whole thing, and anger in chicago when cook county prosecutors suddenly and mysteriously dropped the charges. >> this is a whitewash of justice. you cannot have, because of a person's position, one set of rules apply to them and another set of rules apply to everybody else. >> when i look at similarly-situated people who are charged with the same level of felony without a background,

i believe in this case justice was appropriate. >> i've been truthful and consistent on every single level since day one. this has been an incredibly difficult time, honestly, one of the worst of my entire life. howard: i asked donald trump jr. in our interview about the media criticism he got for saying early on this sounded like a hoax. >> i had the guts -- and, again, i take a lot of heat for it, i'm willing to do that, but i had the guts to question it. howard: and how do you feel about prosecutors dropping the charges without any apologize from just city smollett? >> i think it's disgusting. howard: clarence page, your newspaper denounced the act. this racially-charged hoax generated such emotional coverage. >> first of all, there are a lot of questions that still need to be answered, and jussie smollett is still insisting on his incidence despite overwhelming -- innocence despite overwhelming evidence to

the contrary. this was handled badly. after all the money that's been spent trying to solve this case of smollett's alleged attack, suddenly it's dropped one morning without much in the way of explanation. there was such an uproar over it. the tribune's not alone -- howard: oh yeah. i wanted to cite the local paper. it was also a political scandal because trump saying the justice department and fbi will invest it. is that payback or perfectly appropriate? >> i think it's perfectly appropriate. what just happened this last week is baffling and reeks of corruption. the media did latch on to this narrative until the evidence became overhemmingly against jussie smollett, and it's kind of funny right now that so many people in the media aren't outraged or shocked by the situation that happened because it speaks to just how ridiculous the allegation was in the first

place. you had outlets tweeting things that, basically, the baked-in narrative, stars rally to smollett's side. the implication is the attack -- >> they were hollywood stars. >> right. [laughter] howard: they were two nigerian brothers, i misspoke. what's most galling from a media perspective is police gather all this evidence and, look, even if he'd gotten community service, i'm not saying he should have gone to prison for ten years, but prosecutors didn't even make him admit he was not telling the truth and this was a hoax. chicago justice? >> that means a lot to judges, contrition. former governor rob blagojevich got a big sentence because he was so gregarious about it. the fact is this was the state's attorney's office that decided to drop this before it ever got to court. that is another reason why people are griping about it. and why, we note that part of the problem was kim fox, the prosecutor, is a good friend of michelle obama's former chief of staff, so now the right-wing

press especially -- [laughter] sees conspiracy everywhere. the obamas probably knew nothing about this, but nevertheless, it's a big deal, and everybody wants to pay attention to it. howard: 20 seconds, emily, it's not clear whether smollett's coming back to the fox show "empire." harvey levin thinks the ratings might soar, but i'm thinking a lot of people aren't going to watch this guy. >> i think the public has zero appetite for him, and they should also be outraged the blame lies with jussie smollett, but they should be outraged by how the media treated this when it first came out. howard: and on that note -- >> i just want to say police sat on this for three weeks before they announced it was the a hoax. it wasn't just the media. howard: emily and clarence, thanks so much. that's it for this edition of "mediabuzz," hey, check out my new podcast, you can subscribe at apple itunes or google play or at fox news podcast.com. remember also to check out our facebook page, we post original

video and columns and continue the conversation on twitter. i like hearing from you most of the time. we're back here next sunday, 11 eastern. see you then with the l . .

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to also snag a bottle of score! our number one performance libido enhancer. that's the keyword on the screen to 809-809. >> good morning, monday april first, "fox & friends first". rob: president trump could shut border today. police versus prosecutors. jillian: message chicago's finest are sending after smullett cases dropped. >> i don't know anybody who got anything wrong. rob: jay tapper says cnn got it right with the mueller report. jillian: "fox & friends first" starts right