now this program know to be sure to watch a fox news town hall with bernie sanders on monday at 6:30 p.m. eastern on fox news channel. and that is it for today have a great week. we >> media partisan crank up the volume as attorney general says he think there was spying but has no specific evidence. >> ashame to see bill barr, two-time attorney general. >> they were investigating russian interference. the fbi and doj were not spying on the trump campaign. >> attorney general barr dealing a major blow to liberals everywhere saying trump was right, the campaign was spied on. >> crucial debate or hot air as we wait bill barr to release

mueller report. denied by the white house that he may flood sanctuary cities with detainees, pushing out kirstjen nielsen. >> if the rest of her life, they will think that's the woman who put children in cages. >> if you go to prison you get separate from your family. >> we have never seen a president do systematic hurt to homeland security, won't tell him what is wrong or illegal. >> it's not like secretary nielesn couldn't have spoken up sooner. then, in fact, lie about the policy. >> but now they want to destroy her, make her perria, maddens,

it's venomous. >> the president slamming "the new york times" over immigration story and saying it'll be gone in 6 years. julian assange arrested, lawyers argue whistle-blowing journalist. behind the scenes, a whole lot of fighting and feuding but has the show become more relevant with strong conservative voice? i'm how wart kurtz -- howard kurtz and this is media buzz. ♪ >> 5 words on capitol hill, media explosion hitting those who believe mueller probe is legitimate to those improperly launched. that did nothing to cool things off.

>> i think there's spying did occur but the question is if it's properly predicated. i'm not saying that improper surveillance occurred, i'm saying that i am concerned about it and looking into it, that's all. >> president trump having declared himself exonerated wants to investigate the investigators. >> these were bad people and this was an attempted coup, this was an attempted takedown of a president and we beat them, we beat them. >> joining us to analyze the coverage, culture editor at the federalist. kristina partsinevelos, correspondent for fox business network and clarence page, columnist for chicago tribune. emily, spying, he's using trumpian language to favor.

>> trumpian language is the key. this is part of an effort to depict barr who may be hiding or aiding the president's efforts to being exonerated in mule e -- mueller probe. the dictionary definition of word spying to surveillance. if we can all agree that carter page was surveilled, spied on, make same exact thing but they mean the same thing, it's an effort to depict bill barr as someone who is bidding trump campaign. >> barr clarified that he does have concerns, so you think that some of the press oversimplified the story essentially turning sound bite in several days of coverage?

>> isn't what we see often? i think just to your point, emily, barr is not a novelist, he knew the words he would use, would get people loud, he did not supply any evidence and maybe he will in the future, the fact that he switched to surveillance, maybe i went too far, here we are debating it, maybe i looked up the definition that spy and surveillance, but overall, it was on silver platter and using it now to campaign, you see the text messages of spying, donate $28. >> but clarence, we have known all along that there was surveillance of carter page. [laughter] >> yeah. a lot of pages in the story. let's turn to page here, that was uncovering any proper ties to russia, not necessarily aimed

at the campaign, are conservatives seeing spy words, declare victory for their point of view. >> both sides are oversimplifying. our job is to simplify but you don't want to oversimplify, barr is a reputable man, high credentials, that's why he won praise initially. but this was really amusing, by the way, spying did go on, he didn't define it, against who, what actually happened and saying i'm very concerned about it. and then the possibility -- he said, he started fudging the whole thing. this was certainly very helpful for donald trump, promotion for future rallies he has but didn't answer any questions, just raised them. >> actually the way he framed

the conversation was the question whether it was adequately predicated or not which i think speaks to how much testimony was overall. [laughter] >> barr did say he is having justice department look fbi by media people on the right. >> his approach during testimony, again, i will use the word measured, he's not coming out with bluster, he's saying, we need to get to the bottom of it, there are fair and legitimate questions as to what happened and i'm pursuing them. he's saying we are raising questions and pursuing. >> to that point i agree with you and i think he's not going to show all of his cards just yet. the big question is should he have said that to begin with? why drop the bomb, spy, it's very sexy, we are all talking about it.

not as sexy as surveillance. we are talking about it. >> two media narratives, polar opposites, you have the mueller investigation which as we now know no further criminal charges but nevertheless many people defend legitimate and you have the flawed steele dossier, lisa page and peter strzok, illegitimate investigation and conservative press keeps promoting that. it's amazing that it's the same i leftant -- elephant and people are seeing it in a different way. >> everybody will take the story and put it to reflect their own echo chamber which is often the case, we, doesn't have to be lie that, it'll be a continuous story, we spoke about this 3 years, 22 months of investigation, fbi people were involved, they're saying that there was no criminal collusion within this report, read it --

may be corruption, maybe other things going on, i don't know, but what we do know it's not collusion, you can infer whatever you want but that's not the job of a journalist. >> evidence did not rise to a level to be able to charge collusion and that there were inconclusive over obstruction of justice charges. a lot languaging. >> okay, but when the president says attempted coup as we heard moments ago, the language sometimes, conservative to liberal media plays attack on law enforcement. >> i've been in place that is they had coups, this is not a coup. i'm just marveled at donald trump's vocabulary. he continues to argue positions without bother to do any actual research to back him up or make an argument other than to call

out inflammatory words like conspiracy, like a collusion. >> his spin on it like everybody does. trump claiming exoneration, we haven't seen the report, mission accomplished moment, george w. bush landing on the aircraft carrier. historical power you would endorse? >> there's one key thing, we know that there was no collusion. actually i'm very willing, we've had a white house aid speaking to press, months with a special counsel team, of course, negative assessment and i'm willing to wait, there's no way around it, that's mission

accomplished and cleared of collusion. >> mission accomplished, i agree with no collusion, there still could be a lot coming from liberal point of view, they are looking for something, that something could be really, really bad and -- >> in terms -- obviously the mission accomplished reference was not done as complement to the current president, but in terms of looking for something, once report comes out in coming days endless media demands echoing the democratic subpoena, well, let's see the redacted portions of grand jury, does that reflect that there's always something, as soon as we find out one more thing -- >> isn't that the basis of journalism, you are trying to dig in and spy on something that's not there at face value. redacted paper when it's black every, where i can understand anybody from either side, you are going to wonder, i can't read this at all, what does it even say if this is all black. >> the basis of journalism and

should not be done, we haven't proven it yet. >> you're biased and you are going there with a mission, you have to go there with open eyes and unfortunately it doesn't happen all of the time. half a minute. how much of the whole debate is media filling air time and the way we actually see 400 page report? >> it is interesting that we are able to argue for a report that we haven't seen. but didn't rise for level for charge. that's district federal court case, fellow prosecutor cases doing 20 investigations happening, this was narrow investigation about russia and the russian government. >> we will all await the report, shake in homeland security

sparks and many have changed view whether he's somehow acting like a journalist

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from showtime, hbo, epix... jesus, what happened? ...and more. it's just the tip of the iceberg. upgrade now to get more into what you're into. thanks! just say "watchathon" into your x1 voice remote to upgrade and keep getting more of what you love. >> the images were just stunning, british police arresting jillian assange leading out of ecuadoran embassy in london where he's been for 7 years, facing u.s. criminal charges tie today leaking to military and diplomatic material back in 2010. president trump deflected reporter's question on the arrest. >> i know nothing about wikileaks, that's not my thing. >> assange trying to make the case that he was operating,

well, like a reporter. >> any journalist can be extradited for prosecution in the united states for having published truthful information about the united states. >> everything i've document, videos of killing of innocent civilians, war crimes, this is journalism. >> kristina, jillian assange who help chelsea manning reveal diplomatic information in 2010, manning got 35-year sentence, helped them hack in pentagon computer saying he's acting like a journalist, really? >> they teach you that you cannot do anything for the active journalism and if that involves doing criminal activities, paying someone, does that involve violence, bribery, that's not the justified way to pursue journalism and pursue a story and other situations with this case that could indirectly have heard a lot of activists in

other countries and things like that and also the other point too, data dump, he threw a lot of information in wikileaks, is that considered journalism when you are putting documents on. >> classified information, they talked to u.s. officials, redacting, hold things back, jeopardize somebody's life. he didn't do any of that. let's talk about shifting, during this time in iraq war media conservatives denounced assange and when president obama commuted manning sentence after 7 years very critical, fast-forward to 2017, hacking dnc emails and repeatedly trump said this. >> wikileaks has provided things that is unbelievable. wikileaks has new stuff, brutal stuff, wikileaks, i love wikileaks and sean hannity says

that assange is more credible than media mob. >> absolutely, there's no way around that. that's the case in so many different stories. julian assange not a good actor, bad actor in politics, i think kristina point there critical point, data dump, difference between journalism and conspiring with people which he's alleged to have done. alleged to have done, exactly. but there's a question about the precedent here, we don't have gatekeepers in the media. there's reason to be concerned. >> right, that's that's a fair point. he wasn't charged conspiracy, espionage, clarence, the opposite view, media liberals are sympathetic, whistle blower against bush's iraq war, so which is it? >> people believe what they want to believe.

[laughter] >> not consistent. >> when the media opened up, when fox and cable tv news, other alternative media, delighted at new diversity, brace yourselves, buyer be ware. he was a very responsible journalist like very said, he didn't care about that, conduit for leakers. >> i think that's the selling point. not the best house guest, described as spreading feces as far as ecuadorans. >> the cat. >> 2010 when he was distributing all of these stuff, he's working with distributing through

guardian, publications were sort of -- >> yeah. >> so is that you think affect the way there's media for him even now? >> i think there's a little bit because they did work back then. character is not a reflection of what's going on, what happened in 2010, will they go back and say they were wrong in working with them, no, they got the information, we don't know the means. so if he allegedly did engage in criminal activity to get that, then it could be an issue. >> pentagon password is not something -- he uses journalism to cover what he does and sometimes it damages america. great to see you all this sunday clarence page, kristina partsinevelos, emily.

the ladies of the view, the mayor swoon over mayor

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>> the hottest candidate of the race, basically compared you to barack obama himself. how does it feel -- >> it feels great. i'm trying not to let it go to my head. >> media are swooning over a guy we never heard of, pete buttigieg, new beto o'rourke, exclusively on the left. ben shapiro calls him nice and refreshing. smart, modest and self-facing.

mayor, road scholar, afghanistan war veteran who is formerly announcing today calls the flood of reaction after appearing on morning joe, now on the cover of new york magazine and la times called him the hottest thing in politics. so pete buttigieg largely unknown outside of political junkies has made a real impression, he's a very impressive guy. >> gushing coverage, huge boost, $7 million more than beto, passing kamala in new hampshire poll as well. that kind of traction has generated a bunch of pieces asking if america ready for gay president. pete buttigieg talks about his his that's active on twitter and gushing praise from journalisms since mayor speak at lgbt of his early struggles with his sexuality. >> if you had offered me a pill to make me straight i would have swallowed it before you had time

to get sip of water. there were times in my life when if you had shown me exactly what it was inside that made me gay, i would have cut it out with a knife. >> not your typical scripted candidate, left-leaning media love that pete buttigieg is a liberal and speaks openly about faith and religious right is terrified of him but there was fight painting the vice president who turned the other cheek and never said a bad word about him as antigay and hardly seemed christian when pete buttigieg said it was difficult to imagine that president trump believes in god, for all the journalistic type, pete buttigieg a total long shot for the democratic nomination, his unique status, have to prove that he's more than media flavor of the month. on media buzz, national inquire emerged about scandals about to

be solved. first president trump kicks out secretary nielsen and get

>> the washington post reported friday that the trump team had pushed a plan to send detainees to sanctuary cities sending a message for democratic strongholds like nancy pelosi san francisco district, the white house dismissive in statement saying this was a suggestion that was floated and rejected, but hours later, seriously considering such a plan. >> california certainly is always saying, we want more people and a lot of people in sanctuary cities, let's see if they have open arms. >> joining us kat kemp.

both are fox news contributors. kat, the washington post story says this, based on memos the white house dismissive, trump comes out, yes, i am considering it. didn't he undercut his own communication's office? >> yeah, which is why i've never been jealous of anybody who has to work in communication's office, let me just say because this is not the first time something like this has happened. they worked hard to minimize this and say, you know, we talked about it, kind of we wanted to make it go away and then he did the opposite ensuring that it didn't go away by tweeting about it and saying, actually, yeah, i'm very seriously considering this and he just -- kind of makes me wonder how lined the two are, he doesn't really care, he likes to go directly to the people on twitter, he wouldn't have a communication's office if he could. >> sometimes it seems that way. "the new york times" has the story saying that the president told the now acting homeland security secretary to close the borders and said he would pardon him if he got into any legal

trouble. the president denies this, new york star times story, knowingly wrong, never call today check the truth said the president, often don't exist, they lie and cheat, times and 6 years will be gone anyway. by the way, times reporter maggie tweeted, hey, you ought to check, we e-mailed 3 times for comments and didn't get any. >> yes, he often says that after the election "the new york times" was failing, they were about to go out of business and you have a times reporter saying, our subscriptions are actually way up. look, the president likes to operate this way, he's a party of one, he believes he's his own best communication adviser, he likes to talk to the press directly, he doesn't really want to vet his ideas, when he gets an idea, hey, let's send dems to san francisco, he blurts it out,

san francisco a place that they would be welcome and a bunch of mayors said fine. >> certainly something that he put out there as being provocative. the media consensus was the president decimating the department, making kirstjen nielsen scapegoat, playing politics at the border and what i would ask in terms of media story, he's entitled to have a staff that he wants. >> a lot of people said look at all this, people in, people out, i thought he hired the best people but i think everyone on the right and a lot of people, what, this is a businessman, not a typical politician, if he wants to fire someone and get someone knew, fine, he wasn't satisfied with the job he was doing, he's got to have her be out and that's the way business works and that's the way he's running the government and i don't see nothing wrong with that. >> it was sad and wanted to

thank the president for getting rid of her. a lot of leaks of her side saying she spent weeks resisting the family separation policy at the border, he argued he shouldn't close the border and generally she tried to steer away from things that might be questionable. >> she's a guardrail, agreed with his goal that she would push back against suggestion that is she thought wouldn't pass constitutional muster. what i think the real story is, when you see the headlines homeland security, sounds like he did something bad. president is frustrated because he can't get the department of homoland -- homeland security to carry out his vision and the career people and the people politically appointed doesn't feel comfortable to work -- but the bottom line, the way he should be measured or evaluated is not whether this is purge or not, he has the right to have anybody in his department or

nobody if he doesn't want to have anybody. but the measurement is he meeting goal from stopping people and asking for asylum. >> others would say democrats don't have a plan. >> he's not asking them to make a deal. >> i understand. fast-checkers out in force when president obama's was brought into this, this is what president trump said. >> president obama separated the children, those cages that were shown, i think they were very inappropriate. i'm the one that stopped it. >> in fact, while there were some family separations during obama administration, it really ramped up to well over 2,000 families when trump adopted the zero tolerance policy and then he reversed it through international outcry. >> right. he really does need to be more careful because i don't know if he knows this or not actually i know he knows it because he

talks about it all of the time, a lot of people in the media don't really like him so they are going to be carefully, very carefully listening to everything that he says and making sure that it's absolutely correct and even though president obama wasn't the friendliest on immigration either, plenty of things he could have pointed in terms of president obama supporting so -- deporting so many people and took it by far by saying that it was president obama leading to separation of families when it really was zero tolerance policy and anybody who did little googling could know that. >> many in the media don't like donald trump. mara to close off here, when kirstjen nielsen was pushed out, major news organizations saying the president was considering to bringing back the family separation policy, he denies that the next day. i didn't see anybody backing up the report. >> well, wait a minute, several places that explained he backed off as explicit policy, he said in the same breath it's deterrence.

think want the -- they want the deterrence without explicit policy and the news organizations including npr tried to that out. >> thank you very much for stopping by, inside look at how megan mccain changed the view and why the show primary conservative is target of verbal contact. face of national national enquir

>> no secret that the women on the view engage in bitter clashes and right now managerran mccain, strongest conservative voice often on receiving end. >> okay, so here is the deal, here is what's not going to happen today, we are not going to do that. >> new book says things are more heated off camera on increasingly polarized program. joining us from new york u new york bureau chief and author of the book ladies with punch inside the explosive inside story of the view, welcome, you say that megan mccain told you she turned down the job because of turnover but took it as father's urging and transformed the show, made it to saturday night live last night, take a quick look. >> can you let me talk. >> let me finish.

>> your job to listen to me. [laughter] >> so has megan transformed the show, often seen as the other panelists are beating up on her? >> that was really funny last night at snl, megan is the real first conservative since elizabeth hassleback, they brought in a number of conservatives like candice but for the most time agreeing and megan has gone back to elizabeth paradigm where you have conservative really talking about conservative ideals and as a result of that, ratings are up on the show, it's the most watched the view has been in the last 5 years. >> in reading your book seems like 3 pages, make-up ready to quit or ready to quit, rosy o'donnell complained that whoopi goldberg was mean to her, doctor said she was asking health crisis and made life hell for

everybody else? >> the show is very dramatic show. it's how the women are when the cameras aren't rolling but i was interested in the show because i've been covering it as a journalist for many years and there's a lot of interest about the view because it's such influential show and it really changed daytime tv and i would argue television in general because it provided this panel of women who didn't always see eye to eye debating about very serious political issues. >> yeah, when barbara walters created it did change daytime television but rosie o'donnell in response to your book says the negative stories about conflict, she's disappointed of you as human being, your response. >> i hope that rosy reads the book, the book also celebrates rosy and all that she has done in entertainment. talk show in 90's was incredibly popular, made daytime friendly to celebrities and i don't think she's actually read the book, i think she's looking

up pick-up and headlines but the book is accurate reflection of what it was like to be on the show and. >> difficult thing when she was the on show but also made the show successful the first time she was on it. >> you mentioned hassleback, worked at fox news, ganged up on as conservative, she was furious at times at barbara walters, she told her on the air that they had to have reasonable conversations and not all the clashes and then incident where you describe where she started cursing off the set and you have audiotape of that. >> i'm not going back out, i can't do the show like this, she reprimanded me. she knew exactly what she was doing. read about that in the new york post. i quit, i'm quitting. >> was that typical of what happens at the view, not just with hassleback but you say what's on the air is a reflection of the very personalities that really

sometimes don't seem to get along. >> right, most of the time the fights are real, elizabeth's audio shows how frustrated she was that she wasn't able to express her conservative point of view and barbara walters cut her off, in talking to mayingan, she said it's difficult zrrob, she decided to take the job because of her father and thought it would be a wonderful platform for her and it is, but it's hard sometime being the lone conservative in the panel and trying to represent all conservative point of views when the other women are liberal and frustrated and won't let you talk. >> jenni mcarthur was miserable. what about barbara walters, hold together the groups. >> barbara when she started the show never anticipated, she told me, she never anticipated that it would become so dramatic and contentious, she thought it would be a nice show with women talking about headlines to have

day. one of the things i uncovered in the book is how good barbara was as producer and keeping things running and masking some of the tension that is were happening backstage and barbara didn't really want to retire. si . . have to go but you said 20 publishers turned down this book, consistent in getting it published. >> and just made "the new york times" best seller list. >> all right. that's breaking news. great to see you, thanks so much. >> thank you, howie. >> still to come back, jeff bezos, why the owner now wants to sell the tabloid runs by donald trump's friend, the face of the national inquirer. ♪

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>> national enquirer days of being solved the story first by washington post, jeff bezos, subject of expose that led to divorce and accused the tabloid of blackmail. joining us to shed light on why

tabloid, charlie gasparino, charlie, they may not known that it's run by hedge fund, why is the inquirer right now on the verge -- >> the hedge fund guy is embarrassed and think of what happened here, the inquirer got into a death match with one of the richest people in the world, essentially, maybe not totally illegal but looks really sleazy, they tried to export jeff bezos. >> let me jump in and say that the inquirer's version of that is with us not extortion but part of settlement talks and they. >> going back and forth. >> right. >> i want to get that on the record. >> yeah, of course, a very fine line between extortion and a contract, i get that, legally but looks really bad and the guy

sat back and said, listen, the national inquirer accounts 5% of revenues here. >> plus losing money. >> and 100% of our problems, i've done freelance work for ami, this was his baby, he likes running the national enquirer. he essentially convinced to get rid of this, this is something he really liked, gave him some degree of power obviously. yeah, i mean, that's essentially what i'm hearing. they say he was on board. pecker is telling others not so. we should point out that the national inquirer had its moments, nobody is ever going to get the national inquirer confused with the washington post, they broke some stories over the years.

>> john edwards story. >> yeah. >> tiger woods and many other stories. let me provide political context here because as you know david pecker, close friend of president trump, the ceo of the company at ami, it was pecker and the company that struck inmuinty deal a few months ago admitting they were trying to influence the 2016 campaign by paying with former playboy model karen mcdoodle and made sure that the story never got out, part of immunity deal they can't break the law or they could be prosecuted for the first thing and then along comes the bezos controversy. >> right, one of the things people are talking about if you buy the national inquirer, the stories were over here. now legitimate question at cnn. howie, two things come to mind.

in some way all the books help it is sale but also really bad stench for this thing. i kind of wonder who really wants to buy this? >> it's very mirky, ron, california's super market magnet, friend of bill clinton was in talks to buy it and now we are not buying it, we were never in any talks. >> david pecker and becker are long-time friends. national enquirer is sold, makes sense are sold in super markets. listen, a hard sell. i can't imagine how much it's going to go for and it might be a good thing that this thing isn't around anymore based on what happened just recently. >> they still have the brand name, obviously publications are struggling but finally, charlie, assuming it is sold, david pecker no longer running, the president lose by virtual of

close friend selling this a publication that has very much been in his corner and during the campaign, you know, attacked the people who ran against him. >> yeah, this was like his -- the godfather, he wanted a hit done on ted cruz and i remember that ted cruz coverage which was absurd and disgusting but it might have won a few votes in the republican primary when he was saying ted cruz had multiple affairs and father may have killed jfk, these are stories that ran during the campaign and stuff on hillary. this is something that it's one less thing in donald trump's corner against media that essentially hates him. >> political player, got to having, charlie, thanks so much, that's it for this edition of media buzz, i'm howard kurtz, check out my new pad cast, we talk about the 5 hottest stories and you can subscribe for apple tunes, hope you like our facebook page you can read the

daily columns, original videos, let's continue the conversation on twitter at howard kurtz, they told me i'm out of time, i will just say we will see you next just say we will see you next sunday wit so, you're open all day, that's what 24/7 means, sugar. kind of like how you get 24/7 access to licensed agents with geico. hmm? yeah, you just go online, or give them a call anytime. you don't say. yep. now what will it take to get 24/7 access to that lemon meringue pie? pie! pie's coming! that's what it takes, baby. geico®. great service from licensed agents, 24/7.

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>> good morning, april 15th, this is "fox & friends first", happening right now at 4:00 a.m. on the east coast, fox news for you, deadly devastation, tornadoes touchdown and the fury of mother nature not done yet. why are democrats pushing back? >> here it is. [cheer