howie: media are all geared for impeachment and that remains in limbo this holiday week and maybe beyond, this is media buzz. >> facing impeachment now president trump is stoking rage, of course, to fire up his base, forcing the argument it's us against them. >> nancy pelosi is demanding a political ransom in exchange.

>> that itself seems -- answer seems to be no and that's disturbing. >> speaker pelosi had another reason here beyond putting leverage on majority leader mcconnell and driving donald trump and every day goes by we have more incriminating and damaging information. >> democrats have been fantasizing about impeachment. they are holding back. howie: military to aid was frozen after president trump's call between president zelensky and mitch mcconnell with media flak refusing to budge. >> it's going to seem to most of the american people that it is a sham trial.

>> do you think chuck schumer is impartial? howie: president said democrats want a doover. >> they didn't give us anything, they come to the senate and want everything. they would leak selectively with schiff, corrupt politician. howie: joining us to analyze mollie hemingway, susan frerechio, washington examiner and clarence page for the chicago tribune, mollie are the media sympathetic for documents and witnesses which he says are needed for a fair trial? >> i think they are, they have been pushing impeachment for a long time, this is the impeachment battle, one i don't think they are doing particularly job of explaining

the situation, senator mcconnell's plan is to do it as they did it for previous impeachment, you hear the case being made and you hear response and you figure out what to do about it. >> might be there there needs to be more evidence, this is as weak as we thought it was and dismisses on. howie: clarence, the media is saying that he will work closely on white house strategy, doesn't he have a point when he schumere just as partisan as he is? >> pretty effective right now because the public is perceiving this as a political exercise, there's not been the and wrong n here, partly because the democrats are under a time clock problem that got to -- next

election campaign. howie: do you think that covers to media coverage, they watch different views depending on their political -- >> extends to viewership, they are already divided. the polls haven't budged much to the whole controversy. richard nixon's day once the house pursued the tapes an got the watergate tapes released nixon's resignation came days later. that's not happening this time because the house democrats don't have time to pursue the -- howie: set calendar for rushing impeachment, different era, different case. the press is kind of breaking with nancy pelosi on this strategy, by in large because they can't figure out what she's doing given her lack of cloud with the senate. >> we all gathered right after the gavel impeachment articles,

you can sense tension when pelosi said in sort of, you know, well, we are not necessarily going to send the articles right over right away, wait a minute, what are you going to do. howie: all dressed up and ready to go. >> i got the sense she thought that the press was going to be okay, impeachment is happening, let's see what happens next, they had the big cliff hanger here over christmas break, we just don't know whether democrats will move articles or hold onto them or a while, left was the new information. howie: right, you see that reflected in the sort of rehashes on holiday week, kim strassel said, well, maybe pelosi wants roll it off much of 2020. by and large, the story has been, i mean, this is the story has been the media's engine starting with russia, going onto ukraine, impeachment, you've made the point on occasion, is

impeachment in par, leaving aside tactics because public opinion is frozen. >> public opinion is frozen related to the quality of this particular issue, it's not just opinion has been frozen for a few weeks or a few months, it's been frozen the spring of this year, before the ukraine phone call even took place and it really is kind of a stunning show of the lack of power that the media have, if all the media decided that they were going to push a particular story it would have moved opinion and this is under covered because it's embarrassing for the media and they all have been pushing for many years, it's not moving public opinion. howie: doesn't that conflict with earlier observation that the media propertied -- pushed for impeachment? >> nancy pelosi didn't want

this, in order to be legitimate it had to be bipartisan, she was resistant to it, they were still able to make her do it. howie: clarence, the only person been doing news is president trump with 68 million followers, but that changed friday, joe biden spoke to des moines register said he wasn't going to show up if the senate trial subpoenaed him, quite frankly this would be a distraction, all the coverage would be about him and trump would get off the hook, there was backlash, he went on twitter, i would comply with a legal subpoena but i don't see a legal subpoena, i haven't seen much criticism of biden's original answer or the fact that he's backing off a bit. >> the answer that he gave was in an editorial board meeting where he was speaking off the cuff, i think he realized that -- realized rather quickly it's hard to charge president trump with lack of cooperation with an investigation if he doesn't cooperate with investigation on the senate side, so it's -- he's

going to fudge, let's butt it -- put it that way. howie: backtracking fudging and trying to coral the question. >> there's so many ways. howie: nobody in america or nobody will think he will testify, probably there may be well no witnesses. maybe with the pelosi maneuver and there's a cliff hanger turned into, well, we don't know what to stay tune for and when it's going to happen, seems to me that changed the story about process and people who do what we do for a living, for most of

the people out there they don't care about process. >> no, they don't, there have been good story about how the process does work, they don't get the headlines but it is going to be a critical step once we hit january about what the process is that the chief justice runs it, do republicans really control it because they are in the majority, are they supposed to be impartial jurors, are we going to hear questions live in the senate, the public isn't familiar how this operate, clinton was 1999, 2 years ago, a lot of people don't remember that. howie: the media talk about ukraine and the witnesses and what happened, abuse of power, it's all about who is going to testify when and subpoenas and all of that and i just think it's a more boring story. there's one other person who has been making news this week and that's rudy giuliani who had somewhat wild and rather rambling interview with new york magazine olivia which started in

a limousine and upper east side restaurant and bloody mary's. >> rudy giuliani is a step away from imprisoning himself. >> i don't get why he did the interview that he did, i don't get why he's having drinks during the interview, doesn't make sense to me. howie: southern district of new york, if they're investigating me they are a-holes and if they are idiots. sounded like he's taunting the prosecutors. >> well, i do agree that it's odd that he would have an interview with someone who is so partisan and who writes in such a creative way to make it sound like he had said something nefarious. >> if you read the quotes rudy

giuliani -- howie: little bit unplugged. >> he's transparent on what he's trying to do in ukraine and what he's trying to do as the president's attorney, doesn't not seem afraid of anything he's saying. howie: what really made news, clarence, george soros, don't tell me i'm antisemitic if i oppose him, i'm more of a you than soros. he's a holocaust survivor. >> the larger narrative here is the decline of rudy giuliani's image from 911. howie: america's mayor. >> like a really great candidate of an election, he bombed out as the candidate and now we are seeing him try to outtrump trump when it comes to outrageous quotes and seems like deranged

interviews, if you will, i don't know if it russiagate scandal. howie: he's the president's personal lawyer, the more flak that he gets, the more he's directing it away from the client, some of this is deliberate. high-profile figure as rudy should be doing on the record sit-downs with bloody mary's? >> he feels that he can win over the mainstream media, i see that a lot personally with politicians that i've worked as a reporter, i don't think they quite believe that they truly will be treated unfairly by these news organization groups where they are going to take

what they say and it continues -- howie: he wants to convince people starting with reporters. later a look at the life of don imus who thrived on controversy and sometimes absolutely crossed

howie: we haven't heard from john bolton on impeachment but criticizing on north korea.

if kim keeps thumbing his nose, we tried, the policies fail and dem crate with allies that fully nuclear north korea is unacceptable. >> john bolton coming out saying that the white house hasn't been doing us right. another slap on the face. >> when you say it's perfect and i get love notes from kim jong un, there's nothing to be concerned about, that's a lie. feels like the president's bluster is much like the big bad wolf and hasn't worked and sounds like john bolton is compelling him to say so. >> maybe it's a nice present, maybe a present where he sends me a beautiful vase. maybe nice present. you never know. howie: media certainly playing john bolton's comments and other

critics of the president's approach to north korea, personal diplomacy, isn't it fair to ask what the president has to show after years with kim? >> when you look at the media coverage, of course, they will take the former national security advisers comments and play them up and donald trump has no one but himself to blame, if he has had any failure in presidency, it is his personnel choices and putting someone like bolton, that was his own decision to do that and so to have the person complaining how would the media not pay attention to it, it is funny that they used to hate him and now love him because critical of the president. howie: this is not a case with private luncheon, he made decision to speak on the record

at the time when there's concerns on north korea? >> when he left the administration it was not flattering terms for john bolton i thought the interview was fascinating, gave you inside look at how the president attempted to really go outside the box on the usual way of attempting foreign policy in dealing with kim jong un that was important but i think for the media to just clearly ignore the fact that none of trump's predecessor haven't had success and he tried something different, 3 years in they are not closer to denuclearizing north korea, that's not a balanced approach, look, trump failed again and i think that's for the media that's a real mistake. howie: some pundits

say kim was never serious and buying time to develop the country's weapons and that's the question for the media whether or not missile test this week or not. >> other questions about the media pointing to president trump's failures on north korea come after he had -- he's been mr. sunny about relations. howie: rocket man. >> they fall in love. you can't flip around like that. president trump called attention to it. >> north korea has been a failure even president clinton although i would blame carter for clinton. should we keep having the policy of denuclearization, how best to accomplish the peace and rather

than having it as got-you for trump, people should take seriously, a nuclear power led by somebody who is a threat. howie: when president trump was setting up meeting with kim, look, we will try this, if it doesn't work, we will try something else, tougher approach. the media might credit him, we tried it, other administrations haven't worked, hasn't worked, we will toughen sanctions or take steps with allies. >> that's what i would hope for. howie: okay. >> not going to do because it sounds like he's reversing himself, changing his mind, giving up, donald trump can't conceive that much and that's what john bolton is asking him to do an donald trump seem capable of doing that. >> bolton is being too much want to go accelerate the situation there. >> this is something that we

need to be careful about, the media seem to love conflict including global conflict. >> really? >> extremely concerned about in handling as delicately. >> he's part of the media too now. >> he does have a big book. i don't necessarily think the media would brand it a failure because you can say changing circumstances, kim said he wasn't going to test and we have to respond. i understand the skepticism here about whether the president would get any contract all for that, clarence page, susan ferrechio, thanks, mollie, we will see you later. up next my thoughts on the passing of don imus, how he changed the radio landscape

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howie: don imus had plenty of flaws, had long time battling alcohol and cocaine addicts sometimes on the air. cbs radio show was carried on msnbc and later fox business was a pioneer who changed the face of broadcasting by melding politics, culture, country music and humor. >> do we have to put the morons on the radio? howie: he got presidential candidates, prominent senators, 100 times people heard him on imus than face the nation. he had epic feuds including one

with howard stern and bipartisan which is to say he hated everyone, he called bill clinton fat and hillary clinton satan and dick cheney a war criminal. imus caused a storm about making sexual jokes of president clinton as the first couple sat their glaring. >> is it a good idea to do this in front of the first lady? >> absolutely. had i been a -- howie: four hours on the radio gripping me, that was imus, angry announcer always pushing boundaries sometimes too far. but as i got to know don, his gang and his wife over the years, i also saw a man of compassion, new mexico ranch to create camp for kids with

cancer, he was complicated, contradictory and radio legend. these people didn't sleep well last night.

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howie: president trump in a war of words with the media, you can pick just about any day, harsh exchange with political rivals which sometimes leaves to journalists scolded. look at the tweets, why should crazy nancy pelosi just because she has a slight majority follow the house be allowed to impeach the president of the united states, crazy nancy should clean up dirty district and the president talking to reporters at his palm beach estate challenged her motives and made a prediction. >> she hates the republican party, she hates all of the people that voted for me and the

republican party and desperate, she got thrown out as speaker, i think it will happen again. howie: joining us from new york ed henry who is leaving "fox & friends" and taking over america's news room. >> thank you very much. howie: fascinating to me he says nancy pelosi shouldn't be allowed to impeach, used to call her nervous nancy and now crazy nancy, does that have much impact on public opinion? >> doesn't look like it has so far, part of what he's responded people paint as year of nancy, she's driving the agenda in washington when in fact, in recent weeks the president despite impeachment has begun getting a bunch of things done, number 2, it's not clear that she has a smart strategy on

impeachment because when you have steven and collins, they had online conversation a few days back, they were saying wait a second, does this make political sense to hold back articles of impeach rent and the bottom line is she does have vast power in the house but she has no power over the senate. howie: zero. >> yeah, trying to figure out what her strategy is, the president has joked about her teeth falling out, 79-year-old speaker and he made the joke about debbi dingell, doesn't seem like it affects the portion of the country that strongly supports donald trump. >> continues to double down on and public officials of all political stripes should be raising the discourse in the country but we are probably past

the point of no return on that in some respects, i think in terms of political health, when you talk about his base and how some of this impacts them, the bottom line is that his base steams stronger than ever, don't take it from me, take it from michael moore on the left, in the last couple of days said he thinks the president's base has hardened and maybe very likely that he wins reelection, i think the left is very nervous that impeachment maybe backfiring number 1, and number 2, let's not leave out the backdrop of a very strong economy. howie: right, i think invites negative media because that turns him into 2 or 3 or 4-day story. let me ask you about new controversy, many have been hitting the president for retweeting a washington story that named the whistleblower and then also just on friday i guess he retweeted an account by someone, a woman called surfer mom 77 and named the alleged

whistleblower. most of the mainstream media including fox news have policy of not naming the whistleblower, under law it's supposed to be entitled of -- >> we haven't been able to confirm that number 1, number 2, you want to be sensitive and care about, i know that you agree with that howie, the bottom line is, i don't think that's the focus of all this, it's obviously moved beyond the whistleblower, but they ended upbringing the whistleblower, the president is the one who wants testimony, they moved forward on impeachment, it turned out not to be and they moved on without the whistleblower when it's now the

president who has turned and said, let's hear from hunter biden, joe biden, did you notice in the last 24 hours joe biden has flip-flopped, he said a couple of days he could not comply and now he's saying obviously that doesn't make sense, he would comply with the subpoena, bottom line i don't think they'll be a subpoena of the bidens because it's looking like there won't be a trial. howie: i agree with you but the biden back and forth deserves more coverage even though it's a holiday week. the president got media mockery, spoke against windmills, filthy and noisy and kills birds and people not being able to get enough water from toilets and showers and diswashers, criticized led lightbulbs, what does he gain from these? >> folks, the media end up talking about the side issues

and tweeting about in social media, can you believe the president said this about dishwashers and i think, a, most americans don't care, and, b, publishes strange article about how the hallmark channel has mostly white movies over the holidays and how horrible this is. howie: fascist propaganda. come on. >> here is my point, if people in the media are debating whether or not the hallmark channel is fascist or whether or not the president should be talking about flushing toilets, they are not talking about a bad economy, howie, they are not talking about the president's political problems, i think the point is that if these are controversy that have popped up over the holidays, the president is in political shape. howie: speaking of movies, home alone had scene with donald trump, cut recently reairing

classic, before i go on, let's take a look at the scene. >> excuse me, where is the lobby? >> down the hall into the left. >> thanks. howie: the president decided to take a shot at prime minister trudeau saying i guess justin t doesn't like paying him up on nato or trade as if he ordered not to do this. cbs says not only was this done for time to air more commercials which i thought like you, come on, but also this was done back in 2014 before donald trump -- >> before he was president. howie: did you all jump the gun on this? >> a if it was really in 2014, we don't know for sure, that's what the bbc, the cbsi should jason:s, fine, i will take that, if i will take the hit on it, the segment i made on "fox & friends" is similar to hallmark

channel, why is any time being spent on whether the hallmark channel is fascist or whether or not donald trump is in or out of a movie, i think people guess obsessed whether donald trump was with -- who cares, let's get on with the nation's business. i apologize. howie: light issue, you were giving your opinion based on what we knew at the time. i wanted to get cbs's denial in there. got to go, ed henry, great to see you, after the break the washington post reports that elizabeth warren despite criticism of pete buttigieg used to hold the same fat-cat fundraisers, stay with what'd we decide on the flyers again? uh, "fifteen minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance." i think we're gonna swap over to "over seventy-five

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>> the press has pounced on the wine-cave debate, it's been fermenting since elizabeth warren's attack on pete buttigieg for daring to raise money at a billionaire's winery with mayor fighting back setting purity test that she herself cannot past, the washington post report that is warren raised many millions of dollars with the same kind of fundraisers, cash transfer today her presidential campaign including one at a san francisco restaurant where diners can eat in a wine vault and includes 3,800-dollar bottle of pinongt.

joining us from manchester, political reporter, paul, i think it's been eclipsed by the coverage of her own fundraising, wine or no wine sometime last year, do you think the latest wave of stories is hurting her? >> definitely takes away from policies, yes, it hurts her and you mentioned in san francisco, also a fundraiser at winery place that she held in boston in the summer of 2018 when she was raising all the money for her senate reelection, she didn't need much of it, she didn't have much of an opposition, transferred over $10 million, howie from the senate campaign to presidential campaign so backs up in a way pete buttigieg's argument at debate in los angeles.

>> i love the story, gave maximum $2,800, she sent him a wonderful thank you note, months later i'm a fat cat, but the larger question here, paul, is why are democrats and the liberal precincts of the media so obsessed with this issue of money and how you raise it, the president is raising a gazillion dollars and takes big bucks to compete with that. >> there's a passion from the left to get rid of big bucks out of politics and so when you have the closed-doors fundraisers with top dollar donors and doing all the secret things that the media can't have any access to, that's something that a lot of progressives want to get rid of, it's something that now elizabeth warren and bernie sanders are obviously abstaining from, they are using grassroots donations, online, mostly

small-dollar donors, important issue for the left, it's not nearly as important for moderates, pete buttigieg and joe biden and amy, but they are allowing the media to attend. howie: i didn't hear when barack obama decided to blow up public financing, he raised a gazillion dollars, you didn't hear money is corrupting politics so much when somebody who they like was doing it. pete buttigieg is in some polls ahead in iowa, with that comes scrutiny including he has to release clients he worked for when he was a consultant at mckenzie, do you think his coverage is starting to change and more critical now now that he's taken more seriously? >> very much so. in the spring and summer when he was starting to rise and wasn't

getting much scrutiny, that changed in autumn. you saw a lot of those types of stories in november, you see a lot more since then, as you mentioned, howie, it's natural, when you rise in the polls, you invite more scrutiny. howie: you're not seen as a real serious for the nomination in no way a sign of respect. we begin with joe biden as front runner and we begin by double digits, columnist frank says it's time to give biden due and so many have it and i'm as guilty as anyone and i urge him not to run, so all of the geniuses in the press who said biden will be a terrible candidate and everyone thinks he's a weak front runner, why do

you think so many journalists are so wrong about the former vice president. >> here is the thing, joe biden is not the shiny young thing and many in the field that are, third time he's running for the presidency, and same thing with bernie sanders running a second time as older candidate and neither of them got much credit for it. biden taking a lot of shots since late april when he jumped in the campaign even before declareing candidacy, top tier and reporters are looking for something different to report on and here we are with joe biden remaining at the top. howie: i also think many journalists think that the democrat party is more liberal, spend too much time spending and biden running as moderate, paul

steinghauser. >> thanks, howie. howie: christianity today turns on president

howie: fox news alert, man suspected in a brutal hanukkah stabbing, thomas grafton, you can see him in the courthouse, at least 5 people wounded in knife attack, which took place at rabbi's home last night. evangelical magazine christianity sparked furor calling for president trump's removal. >> although we've lost a number of -- you know, hundreds of

subscribers, let's be frank about it, we have gained 3 times as many subscribers. howie: evangelical leaders rallied around the president, ripped the magazine for disdainful dismissive elitist posture to fellow christians, choosing publication of joining team trump. you're a former religion reporter, you've written in the for christian magazine. >> it is not far-left magazine, it's not entirely surprising that they wrote something like this, they are people who said similar things about bill clinton when he was going through impeachment battle, at the same time i'm not sure how influential editorial was in terms of changing anyone's opinion because of the way it was written, first of all, required a belief democratic case of impeachment which a lot of people polls show never have

bought into and didn't deal with the situation, they are not confused in any way whether donald trump is the most moral man they've ever met, been married 3 times, he does not phrase things in the possible way, at the same time he has virtues that a lot of people overlook that christians have incorporated -- >> not necessarily proof of everything he's done in personal life. >> in a situation where a lot of people who are national office are extremely hostile to their views, extremely hostile to right to practice religion as they see fit, these are things not mentioned in the story. howie: is it fair for the christian post to call out editorial elitist to other christians? >> i would say it came from the good place, the last paragraph was disdainful to supporters of donald trump.

people can in good faith and in good conscious come to different political decisions on impeachment and who they are going to vote for and when you burden the conscious of people by saying you must support trump or demand his ouster either by impeachment or voting, this adds to scripture in a way that's not very evangelical. >> in a way retiring republican congressman who doesn't like trump taking his last shot, but, look, absolutely clear from some of the evangelical leaders that the president retains very strong, if not overwhelming support in the evangelical community for parts of the reasons you cited. >> i'm not sure, i think that that christianity today has editorial position and they have been consistent about it, what's interesting is how the media discovered christianity today only when they wrote the editorial and made it out to be something so influential without paying attention to all of its other writings and what not over

the years. howie: right, glad to have somebody who knows this, mollie hemingway, thank you very much. the fox news alert that we showed about the suspect being arraigned in stabbing attack at rabbi's home last night, fifth, sixth or seventh antisemitic incident and many happening in new york horrifying in this day and age that this is going on particularly during hanukkah and we will keep an eye on the coverage and happened to duck tail with the segment with mollie, that's it for this edition of media buzz, i'm howard kurtz, hope you had a great christmas and great hanukkah, check out my podcast, media buzz, you can subscribe at apple itunes, google play, amazon device, hope you also like facebook page, we post daily columns there, i don't think i have to tell you to continue the conversation on

twitter, as soon as i get off the show i check what people have pro and con, see you next sunday 11:00 eastern is the time with the