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tv   Media Buzz  FOX News  August 11, 2019 8:00am-9:00am PDT

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>> buzzfeed this sunday, president trump's facing the media's wrath as rhetoric escalates over mass shootings. >> east inciting hatred, inciting violence and inciting racism, this is a president who seems to want these things to happen. >> president trump must respond to these murders, mass murders or be damned by history, i'm serious, that's what should happen. >> using horrific criminal acts to condemn a sitting president and by implication to supporters
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wounds our body politic and just when it needs to heal. >> the president reading off of tale prompter, condemned racism and condemned white supremacy but he said things that fuel those things. >> i mean, seriously. a country where the average person is getting poorer, the suicide rate is spiking, white supremacy, that's the problem. this is a hoax. >> the president says it's the media that has contributed to rage in america, many journalists mounting blaming language for mass violence and why does the press trash president meeting the victims. favorable headline in the president's speech of the nation and new headline is trashed as well, why liberals do beating up on the media for being too
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favorable. media buzz exclusive, important details on federal investigation of jeff bezos allegation of blackmail over naked pictures which the companies denies and the saudis may have hacked his phone. the interview with bezos' girlfriend's brother. michael sánchez on what he did and didn't do in this tabloid mess, i'm howard kurtz and this is media buzz. ♪ >> after long complaining that he's soft on white supremacy, most of the media dismissed president trump's voice when he said this. >> in one voice, our nation must condemn, racism, bigotry and
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white supremacy. >> much of the focus has been on el paso gunman with journalisting says manifesto of hispanic invasioned some of trump's own words, the dayton was liberal has drawn less coverage. >> the dayton situation, he was a fan of antifa, a fan of bernie sanders, elizabeth warren, nothing to do with trump but nobody ever mentions that. i don't blame elizabeth warren and i don't blame bernie sanders and i don't blame anybody. i blame these are sick people. >> joining us to analyze holy hemmingway, kavanaugh confirmation, gillian turner, correspondent and white house official and richard fowler, fox news contributor. molly, journalists, commentators
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say as we just heard president trump is a racist, president trump is a white supremacist and maybe leap that he's condoning, directly responsible for violence. >> horrible what we saw this week, two horrible mass shootings and people in the media kind of absolve both of the shooters of their crimes in order to blame president trump and his voters for mass murder, this is completely beyond journalistic responsibility and a real turning point for the worst in american discourse. >> gillian, journalist who is do this and a lot of opinion people support president trump, but they kind of view themselves as fearless truth tellers, they will call out the president, is a point where the president can do nothing right and many journalists are basically become part of the resistance? >> president trump usually runs a foul of the mainstream media, gets on the wrong side when it comes to race and issues of race
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in america, when he uppers white nationalism and antifa, to me that was politically for him the lesson out of charlottesville, horrible tragic event, but if i was political adviser to the president at the time i would have said if you want to avoid that backlash from the media, keep those two things separate, he kind of fell this trap again, i went back and looked at the transcript from remarks just before heading out of the white house to go to el paso and he said any group of hate whether it's white supremacy, any group of hate i'm concerned about it. he started the trip, you know, off on the wrong foot with the media. there was a shooter who had antiimmigrant viewpoints and shooter who was support of antifa and elizabeth warren and what not it's not like he was saying out of thin air. >> again, it's not necessarily
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reality. >> i've said many times, richard, the divisive rhetoric is fair game for criticism, isn't it unfair leap to say he almost wants to to happen and the mass shootings are his -- >> there's a direct correlation between commentary and how things -- how this sort of played out here and i think i'm even -- >> direct correlation. >> there's a correlation and let me explain why. what you saw el paso, 2 weeks ago, you saw the president go after four women of color in the united states house of representatives, we saw him go after the city of baltimore, over and over again we see this rhetoric that's power charged, if you are somebody who is radicalized and become white supremacy and go to the president's tweets you see the same language that ewe see white supremacists use. >> of people who do crazy things are followers of the
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politicians. let me go to the president's trip to el paso and dayton because the press trashed it, new york times headline stories, the day to show compassion involved to anger-fuel, as if all partisanship comes from the media. >> you have blaming of donald trump for mass murder and supporters and when he responds to any of these things, he's acting unpresidential, it is not okay to not hold people accountable for being on one side going against trump but then hold trump for responding to it. >> here is a difference and let me make this point, we saw some of the same rhetoric during george w. bush during katrina, this is what george bush did and donald trump did not do, i will not pay attention to any critics, i will focus on the american people that elected me and i will send every day even though katrina was debacle, he sent the administration to ensure that people of new
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orleans got what they needed. >> let me go back to coverage of the president's remark this is week, he did tweet against beto o'rourke, beto phoney name to indicate hispanic heritage, beto o'rourke has been out there in front of cameras trying to revive campaign calling donald trump a supremacists, he went after joe biden, joe biden gave speech in which he said the president is fanning the flames of white supremacy, trump hits back at sleepy joe, he's boring and so forth. why do we see such a focus on the president's remarks and not those critics when it comes to question of discourse? >> well, there is in unarguably greater burden that falls on the leader of the free world, beto o'rourke, you may think he's great and not know about him or not care about him, he's a one-term congressman. >> former 3-term congressman. >> excuse me. >> the president should hold himself to higher standard and the media hold himself to a
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higher standard as well? >> yeah, the media holds the president with good reason to a higher standard but the point -- i've worked with the planning staff in bush and obama administrations in the aftermath of tragedies, there's very clear rules of the road, you know, you visit hospitals, you visit first responders, you talk to the victims and their families, i think there are a lot of unforced errors and -- >> they have been participants that donald trump and his supporters are racists. goes back to charlottesville incident when there are people on both sides of the issue of whether to tear down monuments of founding father and other people, key figures in history and falsery reported that nazis were good people. from that false claim has risen just years of really bad media coverage and then democrats follow that bad media coverage, the media are partly to blame for that information that has gotten out there.
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>> why not avoid it? why fall into the same -- >> how can you avoid people making up lice about you? >> what i said earlier, don't talk about white supremacists and antifa at the same time. two shootings on the same weekend. >> i want to play sound for you and you can make your point. one last point is the president made the decision not to allow to hospitals, patient's privacy but cell phone video surfaced of one of the trips and they got a lot of play on news channels from cnn. >> this other video now where just not even in a public setting one-on-one with people he's yammering on about crowd sizes, i would say unbelievable but it's completely believable and pathetic. >> fair or unfair? >> listen, i think that's a fair criticism to make, that you are there for those victims and what
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is more telling is that after the el paso shooting victim who is did not want to meet the president, they didn't want the president in their hospital choice. >> that's their choice. >> people don't want the president to be here and everything to do with the rhetoric that he pushes out there because people who are -- >> they're brown victims who said very clearly. >> we think the president is racist. >> i will give you that point. >> i have another bit of sound bite. >> i want to turn to question of gun control, one to have things the president said this week. >> i think we could have some really meaningful background check, we don't want people that are mentally ill, people that are sick, we don't want them having guns, who does? >> molly, rather than frame this as the president unusual for republican president is actually trying to work a compromise with both sides, he did ban bump stocks and now he wants
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background checks, any one in the press that said he's rising to the occasion here? >> no, there's immediate pressure to do something on taking away gun rights and one form or another way. >> it is fair, richard, for the press to be skeptical that nothing will happen given that congress almost never acts on this and given that the president last year at parkland high school shootings in florida, called members of congress, he said he will take on the nra and take the heat but journalists acknowledge he's attempt to go reach across the aisle. >> i will give you that, the effectiveness is what everybody -- what the conversation we are having around guns is one of the conversations we've always had on guns, what this president is sort of suffering from is the fact that the media as well as gun activists as well as many victims expect nothing to happen from washington when it comes to curtailing the spread and use of high-capacity weapons and
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weapons of war. >> washington is good at doing nothing. the president's speech i played at the top when he condemned white supremacy and racists, oh, he didn't really mean it, oh, he's reading someone else's words but he did give the speech. >> i looked up headlines and one washington post headline was trump speech like a hostage video and included criticism of him speaking like, implication of hostage video, somebody pointing a gun on your back forcing you to say stuff. it was an opinion piece, the point is even when he says the right thing to mollie's point he doesn't get credit. >> i have to go to break, sorry, we will have a another segment in a moment, when we come back uproar over new york times headlines show how liberals are disgusted with the president, what can we do to stop sites populated by online extremism.
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>> liberal revolt against "the new york times" where front page headline capture what the president said in address to the nation, trump urges unity versus racism after denunciations by twitter, following the first to this, sailing hate but not guns. the nation's john walsh, the only headline, they should be ashamed of putting this crap, gillian, first headline was accurate, second arguably broader but the people who denounce even the second headline, sounds like they don't really want theirs.
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>> maybe "the new york times" should pull their readers for the next headline and that's where we are. i think you said it really well, you called the folks that attacked "the new york times" on twitter that day, twitter mob and it really was, you know, headline by anarchy. it was a very unfortunate, i think, event for "the new york times" which is ironic about it that president trump has been calling the new york times fake for years, liberals are helping him fulfill- >> we are used to it from the right, growing concerns from the bernie, bernie sanders' campaign says it's getting unfair coverage and all that and chief complaints that the media aren't tough enough on donald trump and don't call him a liar and racist in every story. >> there's problem with coverage of the left where the media tend to favor candidates over others, that's legitimate, this is about the issue that a lot of people on the left view "the new york times" not as newspaper that
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reports facts but as news letter of resistance, every headline and we know unfortunately that most people only read headlines and not much more has to be activists in nature, so the first headline was completely accurate, the second headline didn't even say who were the sailing hate but not done, nobody noticed there was no subject in the headline, less factual, what was important that didn't go after trump enough, it is the purpose of a partisan -- >> the paper wasn't responding to the democratic criticism, bad headline and told politico, we conducted all the investigations of trump and has to be defensive of the coverage. >> yeah, it's clear that you have headline and "the new york times" should pull and we should have larger conversation, the
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media, american people and elected leaders, we are in interesting place in country's history where we have to cool the rhetoric, rhetoric in dayton or in el paso and causing bodily harm. he's the leader of free world to be part of how we cool the temperature down here. >> i think those in news business have a responsibility to cool the rhetoric down and there's been a lot of inflammatory on both sides, the president pointed that out contribute to go hatred and anger and i don't think we can only pointed to politicians. beto o'rourke cornered by reporter and began to say, members of the press, and then he said. >> what the fuck, hold on a second. you know, it's these -- it's these questions that you know the answers to, connect the dots about what he's been doing in this country. >> so that wtf moment beto seems to be saying, why don't you just say it press and don't ask me if
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the president is racist. >> it's all we are talking about for candidates on the left they view the media as allies who should be helping them make assertions about their opponents. the republican 2020 message that their opponents are socialists and democrats that republicans are racist, bigoted and evil, the media taking the message and running with it or in fact, leading the charge on that, more separation between the media and the democratic party. >> there's media scapegoating, what universe must you live in today to believe that the media at large is not critical enough of this administration. >> yeah, that's a pretty good point. if anything, we spent a lot of time on this program talking about how the revulsion that many feel, resentment, anger against president trump, we can debate that, but you're right, what universe, quick thought? >> mollie brings up the good point, the argument of republicans that democrats are socialists and the argument from
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democrat, you know, all republicans are white supremacists, that's not true, we have to be very clear but one call out socialism for what it is and call out white supremacy and racism when we see it and hear it, what made this past week coverage so hard is republicans were so -- they had a hard time calling the president out for his rhetoric and what his rhetoric led to. >> and the important thing not to make disagreeing with liberal policies white nationalism. >> but when you see white nationalism you have to speak out on it. >> i was struck by beto o'rourke sort of chiding the press for not agreeing with him. great discussion both segments richard fowler, gillian turner and mollie hemingway. prosecutors ramp up jeff bezos allegation that is the national inquirer blackmailed him, some calling president trump accessory to mass murder, how much of this is driven by
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>> things are getting really ugly after latest mass shootings, some people in the media feel free to make the most heinous charges against president trump, even going to far to call him accomplice to mass murder, nbc host wallace. >> we are one of his favorite targets. >> talking about exterminating latinos. >> right. >> exterminating an entire ethnic group, what? apologized but only on twitter, i misspoke for call calling extermination of latinos, my mistake was unintentional and i'm sorry. half apology as she added trump intentionally assaults people of color. here a joe regular, donnie.
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>> stop complaining, get the people together, the media will cover it and say you cannot be a cause of a problem and come down and wrap your arms around us. >> blood on his hands that was wrong when some conservatives said it or barack obama after police killings and i said at the time, it's just as wrong now, wait, there's more. >> these people feel that they are the foot soldiers and executors of what the disenfranchisement that the white racist feeling and donald trump is giving them orders in their head. >> this is crazy. the media rightly challenged the president when he uses language, how about calling their own for these expressions of hatred? meanwhile the president last night turned on former communication's director who has often defended him on this and other programs but has criticized language about minorities, anthony scaramucci, the tweet, quickly terminated in
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11 days from position that he was totally incapable of handling now seems to do nothing but television as all-time expert on president trump, he should remember the only reason he is on tv and it's not for being the mooch, the mooch responded that he backed up trump for 3 years but said things that divides the country that's unacceptable. i didn't make the 100% litmus test. this sounds very much like a political divorce. it's absolutely astounding that sex trafficker epstein committed suicide, i don't feel sympathy for predator of girls but questions on why prison officials allow this to happen, i'm not doing a whole segment because i don't want to add conspiracy theories, i don't
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people with that insanity when they get guns it's dangerous. >> we talked a little bit about the gun control debate which comes after every mass shooting and president trump, he's brought this up repeatedly now talking about meaningful background checks, that's his word and pushing republicans to come up with some compromise, we will see what happens, but does the president have an opportunity here and why aren't the media giving him credit for tackling that? >> he does have an opportunity and i will say here today i think he will do something, something that may be even something that the others disagree, he will go to china on this, he put out early on, everything is on the table and seriously looking at it, something like background checks on red flags, violent offenders, extend some of this and, of course, also call for enforcement of the laws that are on the books, i think he will.
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>> do you think the media will give him credit? >> i don't think they will give him credit, they'll say he didn't go far enough because they don't give him credit for anything. >> sometimes i notice that, he may get credit for this if it happens and hard for congress to do anything now the president tweeted this week and i want to get your thoughts among other things in light of shootings, fake news has contributed to anger and rage that has built up over many years, does he have a point? >> yes, he has a point, your last segment mollie brought up charlottesville which has become iconic for the left, the president didn't make it clear enough, i will say that, but made it clear eventually that he was talking about people in charlottesville who oppose taking down statutes, civil-era war statutes and people who wanted to take the statutes, those were the people on both side, he never said ku kluz klan, people.
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>> it has to do with polarized, hot extreme talk from both sides is good for clips and ratings but not necessarily god for the country. >> there's a division in the country and arguably you could say this is the greatest division we've seen since the civil war, possible that you divide is great. if people are saying about president trump now, what are they going to be saying in 12 months. >> yeah, when we get to general election. let's switch topics because universal studios yesterday canceled the film called the hunt, a little bit up there, uproar over the supposedly plan of elite liberals hunting down deplorables, the conservatives called deplorables and shooting them for sport, about a day that the president trump called dangerous and called hollywood racist, how does the film like this get green-lighted.
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>> well, all sorts of films get green-lighted, we have been talking for 20 years, 30 years, you're not old enough, happens all of the time, i don't know how the movie turns out, but another problem in the culture, hollywood pushes so far it pushes people far. >> joe biden has gotten a lot of gaffes over the years for his attention for his gaffes i should say and there was a particularly bad one, i think, and i want to play this and the president's response. >> we have this notion that somehow if you're poor you cannot do it, poor kids are just as great and just as talent as white kids, wealthy kids, black kids, asian kids. >> joe biden is not playing, this is not somebody you can have at your president. >> do biden's missteps get enough media attention and was the president's comments, does anyone really believe he's mentally fit to be president, is that below the belt? >> he's a counterpuncher and
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people have taken shots at him and a lot of the reporter doesn't point out what proceeds president trump saying something. biden is gaffe prone and is making more gaffes, not so much that he has things wrong and question of how steady he is and will we see more. i'm not against anybody 76 doing anything. absolutely. it's only fair because i asked you how old you are. >> boycott movement against soul cycle and equinox because steven ross, chairman of parent companies hosted a hampton fundraiser for donald trump, let me play to you what ellie said, above the law vlog on msnbc. >> pitch fork and torches outside this man's house in the hamptons, there's no reason to have party.
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>> pitch forks and torches. >> this is my point where does it go next, this is where we are now, 15 months from the election and one of the turns that's taken here is not just trump who bad but anybody who supports trump is bad, therefore if you convince yourself that you're opposing nazis, anything is allowed. this can getting usually very, very fast. >> i think that's already started. bill bennett, thank you very much for coming out this sunday. the white house meets with tech companies as dark websites hold host to extremists like el paso, can anything be done? can you do more with less? can you raise the bar while reducing your footprint?
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>> has become a gathering place for violent extremists, that's with the infamous manifesto of el paso gunman was posted, knocked offline when web service provider pulled the plug, the white house summoned facebook, twitter, google and other tech companies to discuss the toxic message boards, joining from new york bret larson, anchor of fox news 24/7 on siriusxm 115, bret, can the government crack-down all the corporate crack-down get rid of dark sites? >> this is a really difficult side-effect of the internet, connected the entire world and what's great about it is there is a sense of community given to people in different parts of the
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world, if you like to cook chocolate chip cookies with brown butter as i'm fond of doing, you can exchange recipes with people all over the world about this stuff, unfortunately if you have extremist viewpoints, if you have unusual outlooks on the world, you will find people in other parts of the world that agree with you and with the internet you're able to meet and listen, one of my first jobs in tech media was moderating macro magazine, i had to keep my eyes open for foul language which thankfully had software that would flag that. >> let me drill this, how bad in your view is hm, this is a matter of free speech, unfairly blamed for el paso, the service provider that knocked it offline said multiple tragic deaths are its responsibility and even the founder says he feels guilty or regrets founding it, creating
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it. >> yeah, the original founder who himself was in the philippines who sold the site to current owners says he regrets not taking offline several years ago and this is always the fine line that we have to walk when we talk about free speech and in this instance the constitutional right to own these weapons, where do we draw the line, where does law enforcement step? , you know, we reported as you said going to the break the el paso shooter put his manifesto on the hn website 25 minutes before he carried out this attack, the problem that law enforcement faces is nothing in that manifesto said or gave them any indication that he was going to do it right now, that he was going to do it in the next 20 minutes, in new zealand, same situation, posted manifesto and streamed action online which we had a long conversation about that. this is a difficult situation for law enforcement and many instances as we have read throughout the week and hn, about their decision to take the
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sites down, law enforcement is saying we have very limited options in these situations and the reason that hn has become spot for these people is because it is not moderated, it is a free for all. >> right. >> i was poking this morning and all kinds of subject matter and comments were frankly, they were horrifying to read what some people say but safe place, oh, i'm just having fun. >> let me jump in if you get rid of hn, there could be -- >> exactly. >> other sites would pop up. let me move you this which is twitter suspended mitch mcconnell's campaign, back online now for posting videos of threats being made and shouted at the majority's' home in kentucky, let's roll it. >> this is his house. >> come out now. >> broken arm, he should have broke his wrinkled neck.
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>> does this seem fair, i have half a minute? >> you know, this is one of those situations where the rules that were meant to protect people were actually used against the victim and mcconnell campaign said that, we are just posting this video show show people this is what we are facing and posting that video was a violation of twitter's rules, again, this is one of those situations where algorithm makes the decision that a human who had the facts in front of them would say, oh, i understand what they are trying to do. >> very interesting. all right, thank you very much, the action came after trump and the republicans said they weren't going to spend any more ad on twitter, still to come, michael sánchez and how he handled his sister's love affair with amazon founder jeff bezos and my exclusive reporting on that includes allegations of saudi phone hacking. i switched to miralax for my constipation.
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♪ ♪ >> it was without question the biggest tabloid scandal in years, jeff bezos having affair that would ultimately cost half of his fortune and how the national inquirer broke the story remains under investigation, here is my report. federal prosecutors are escalating probe into two seriousalses stemming from the national inquirer disclosure of affair between amazon founder jeff bezos and los angeles tv personality lauren sánchez, one, charge by bezos that parent company american media inc try today blackmail to drop inquiry on how they obtained intimate texts which the company has strongly denied, bezos' belief that the saudi government obtained photos and texts by illegally getting access to his phone, claim that ami has called false and has also been denied by the saudi regime.
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in first television interview i spoke to michael sánchez, lauren sánchez's manager and talent manager denied being paid $200,000 in leak to inquirer. >> michael, i have credible reporting that the southern district of new york has convened grand jury taken testimony in jeff bezos's charged that he was blackmailed by american media and hacking by the saudi government, what can you tell me about the probe and have you testified in the investigation? >> i will cooperate with any of the investigations into the blackmail allegations against ami and hacking allegations against the saudis and one point that i want to make is that all of the investigations thus far have cleared me of any involvement in the below the belt selfies which is the center piece of all of the investigations. >> i've seen material indicating that sánchez has in fact, testified before the grand jury, i pressed him about his much debated role in the leak to the national enquirer.
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>> michael, did you strike some kind of secret deal with american media inc to sell photos of jeff bezos and lauren sánchez? >> howie, i never sold photo to national enquirer or any publication. let's cut to the chase, everything that i did was to protect jeff and lauren's love affair, anyone who thinks money is a motive is an idiot. >> you told me that you made a deal with the devil, devil being inquirer, you've been cagey of whether or not there was know contract or whether you accepted money from the national inquirer, did you or not? >> well, like i said, since cnn reported that there are federal investigations into the blackmail allegations against ami and hacking against the saudis, what i can say is very limited, in general all make deals with the devil. >> back in march, michael sánchez sold the billionaire secrets for $200,000 cost
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national enquirer, your response? >> the wall street journal got it wrong. >> bezos plan to meet with prosecutors and amazon spokesman declined to comment. i can also report that the top american media executives owner david pecker, president trump's pal have not been call today testify, prosecutors obtained evidence from the company that executives believe shows they were not extorting bezos but settling with his team, michael sánchez had rather low expectations when he first met the world's richest man. >> well, to be perfectly honest i didn't want to like him because it would have made all of our lives much simpler but when i met him he was charming, brilliant, loved flying and every one in our family is pilots so we had a lot to talk about and most importantly he was -- he was deeply in love with lauren. >> sánchez told me bezos asked for his help.
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>> absolutely, he said that he didn't think the amazon pr team was equipped to handle this kind of story. >> would jeff and lauren still married to spouses, michael sánchez said he advised them to lay low but as with lauren sánchez near bezos when the company launched rocket, the couple didn't always take his advice. >> i was definitely annoyed because the risk that they were taking made everything much more difficult in terms of keeping things contained. >> did it lead to any exposure or to any tab lid inquiry? >> yes, multiple tabloids were onto the story and so the plan was if they had credible information we would offer them the exclusive in terms of the super bowl commercial and the documentary to kind of get them
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off of the track. >> that was the super bowl ad featuring another bezos property, the washington post. sánchez says he got the inquirer to delay the expose for months by harmless photo of sister that ran in us weekly, the company said it published when the story was ready. bezos said that the post aggressive reporting on the saudi government's involvement in the brutal murder of post contributor jamal khashoggi may have led the country to hack his phone, ami published a magazine filled with prosaudi propaganda, the saudis say they were unfair of. twun inquirer story hit sánchez suggested a new plan. >> in terms of first public area they would go out for burgers wearing jeans and baseball caps and make it very low key and show the world that they're happy together. >> people magazine was tipped off for a photo of the new york outing but the couple last month made an extremely public
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appearance, 3 rows behind the royals in wimbledon. the new york post reporter that bezos met lauren's parents, mother was on vacation and didn't make the reported rendezvous. >> through the highest of highs and lowest of lows i've always been there to do what she needs and to protect her when she needs protection. >> we will keep you posted on the federal investigation and the coverage of this story, that's it for this edition of media buzz, i'm howard kurtz, check out my podcast if you have some few moments, media buzz meter where we kick around today's hottest stories and you can subscribe at apple itunes or fox news podcast.com, we hope you like facebook page, daily columns original videos for the web and i'm howard kurtz on twitter, i get off the air and take phone out and see what
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arthel: president trump and senate majority leader mitch mcconnell open the passing new gun laws this as 2020 democrats calling for legislative action after last week's back to back mass shootings, hello, everyone, welcome to america's news headquarters, i'm arthel neville. eric: hello, arthel, i'm eric sean, deadly shootings in el paso and dayton have put gun control front and center in race for the white house, the president saying he can unit republicans behind stronger background checks while easing concerns from the national rifle association, democratic presidential congressman tim ryan suggests that the gun lobby