howie: this is media buzz. i'm howard kurtz. ahead we'll talk to campaign advisor jason miller and ed rendell. we're on the verge of this week's dominant media story, president trump's republican convention following the saturation coverage for the virtual democratic convention with joe biden, kamala harris and their allies getting largely positive reviews from the press. >> the current president's cloaked america in darkness for far too long. character is on the ballot. compassion is on the ballot. decency, science, democrat

circumstance they're all on the ballot. >> joe biden hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth. >> i've never seen a joe biden speech anywhere near as good as that. >> it may have been the best speech joe biden ever delivered. >> most people concluded that was the best speech they've ever seen joe biden give which undermines everything that donald trump and donald trump's campaign has been trying to say about his middle fit -- mental fitness. >> people were expecting him to flub every line and have a senior moment. he delivered a good speech. it was -- for what he was doing, very emotional. howie: kamala harris made her debut as running mate but what the pundits mainly wanted to talk about was barack obama's harsh attack on his successor. >> no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves. do not let them take away your power. do not let them take away your

democracy. >> it was an unprecedented speech to have the immediate past president speak at a convention and talk about basically this is a four alarm fire, you have to defeat this guy. >> president obama looked terrified. this is not an uplifting speech at all. it looked like he knows it's going to be a low turnout election. howie: joining us now to analyze the coverage, mollie hemingway, senior editor at the federalist and fox news contributor, gillian turner, a fox news correspondent, and ray suarez, host of kqed's world affairs. mollie, let's start with joe biden, when you have laura ingram and karl rove giving joe biden's speech pretty high marks and the lib br liberal ladies ac were over the moon. >> the media were over-the-top in their praise for joe biden. they acted like his ability to stand upright for 20 minutes is a huge accomplishment.

and i'm not sure if it quite merited that much. i thought he gave a better speech myself in 2008 when he accepted the vice presidential nomination. not known as being a particularly good speech giver. i think the over-the-top praise was part of what a lot of the media coverage was of the entire convention. as more and more media are being more open, they had to say this was a great convention, that everything was done perfectly, a washington post of person said that the tv coverage, which was so boring, was so good that it actually deserved awards. and that is just what happens when journalists replace their journalistic hat with their partisan activist hat and it was way over-the-top. howie: i was making the point that some conservatives credited the biden speech as well. with ratings down as much as 30% for the virtual convention, most of the country didn't watch the biden speech, there was 21 million on tv at least. they've been inundated with clips and mostly positive coverage in the days since that

speech. >> well, the dnc has put out their numbers. they're claiming that between television and streaming and online, they got about 122 million views over the course of those four days, so they're making the argument that it's pretty strong. howie, you're the exist o expern that. i defer to your analysis of those numbers. to a certain extent, every person who spoke at the convention had one job and one job only, and that was to keep the focus on president trump and make this direct hard-hitting case that he is unfit for office. everybody from president obama to kamala harris to the republicans who spoke in the first two nights stuck to that playbook. joe biden himself actually veered a little bit from that. i think his job according to the pundits now was to kind of make that case but then swiftly move on to what was really hope and change, looking forward to the future and reintroduce himself to the american public. that's what he was getting those

kudos for. i agree with jake tapper. president obama went all in. it was unprecedented the degree to which he -- howie: let me get ray in and we'll come back to obama. i take your point to the importance. howie:of streaming.has the trums constant criticism of biden's mental acuity, he refers to him as slow joe, did that help make the biden speech exceed expectations? >> well, almost by default, this if anything points out the perils of lowering expectations for your opponent for two months, implying he has dementia, is unable to speak, is unable to complete a coherent sentence, doesn't know where he is, then he gives a workman like, decent speech, and people are pleasantly surprised by it. that people should be tough on an incumbent president they're trying to beat during a

political convention shouldn't surprise anybody, just as the president speaking every night in the coming week will be tough on the democrats and question their ability to lead. iit's a convention, yes, it wasa novel one, it was an odd one but this is what they're like. howie: it's a convention. mollie, i think it's fair to say most of the media swooned over barack obama's harsh attack on his successor. michelle obama got rave reviews. some liberal journalists say the warning about democracy being at stake is a far cry from the hope and change message of 2008. >> president obama's very different now in 2020 than he was in 2008. and i think he's acutely aware that had he had a successful presidency an then a democrat wd have been elected last time and not president trump. back on july 3rd when president trump gave a speech at

mount rushmore, talked about his aspirations for the country and the threat he felt the left posed to america that was portrayed routinely in the media as dark and foreboding. president obama says democracy is at stake, he gives a see thing -- seething and angry speech and nobody loves obama like new york journalists. howie: here's a story from the atlantic magazine. barack obama didn't inspire americans, he tried to scare them. fear is not an unknown tactic in presidential politics. >> yeah, i think to a certain extent what ray was saying is true, which is this is a convention. what do you expect. it's going to be a hit job on the incumbent. but one thing that president obama did that garnered particular praise in the media was to make this case really introduce this case that president trump has not grown into this role in the oval

office. he has not become a better person or a better leader as a result of serving as the commander in chief, the leader of the free world for four years. i think that was something that resonated deeply with democrats, something that maybe nobody else had sort of put their finger on in the same way that president obama did until that night. it's something that a lot of journalists really like that he said. i think people aren't talking about that but i think that that was something that proved to be so popular and so powerful that you saw on the final fight biden picked up that ball and carried it across the finish line. howie: you've hit on a key point, what journalists say. i can see a lot of trump supporters saying of course the media hailed the obama speech because most of its members agree that donald trump is a danger to democracy. in other words, a partisan judgment. >> well, here i would split those people who write opinion for a living and the way we handle opinion and commentary in

newspapers and on-air is font mentally different -- fundamentally different from the way it used to be. it was made clear it was separate and opinion product. now analysis is right along side the news and is taken in the same way as the news. what we say is the media and what we say is coverage is often indistinguishable and by the institutions themselves not distinguished from the straight news coverage. the straight news coverage for the most part just said this is what he said. and noted that it was unprecedented for an incumbent to speak this way during -- not an incumbent, a predecessor to speak this way during a convention. howie: that is true. let me get to kamala harris who made her debut as the vp nominee. here's a clip of her speech. >> blacks, latinos and indigenous people are suffering and dying disproportionately. this is not a coincidence. it is the effect of structural

racism and let's be clear. there is no of vaccine for racism. howie: mollie, i think most journalists gave kamala harris a b plus, solid b plus. what's fascinating to me was the next 24 hours what they wanted to talk about was obama's speech, not the actual vp nominee. >> and president obama originally was going to give a speech last and he asked to go before kamala harris so he wouldn't overshadow here. the strength of his speech i guess did in any case. there is another issue which is enthusiasm is not high for the democratic ticket. i know people in the media think focusing on bad orange man is the way to cultivate voters. a missed story is the lack of enthusiasm, the biden, harris ticket has lessen news jam than either of the -- less enthusiasm than either of the prior two leeing tickets shall - losing tickets.

i think the convention missed an opportunity to reach out to those mod of res moderate voter. that's what having everyone in newsrooms having the same perspective causes you to miss in the analysis. they don't see what is good or bad about the democratic convention from the eyes of the average american who doesn't go to sleep at night seething with hatred for donald trump like they do. howie: ce senator harris praid her indian american mother. what got the most attention was the attack on systemic racism and whether the first black woman on a major party ticket should have had that focus. >> that's a style chose when you're in that unique historical position, you either don't mention it at all and let it be self-evident. you're the first mixed race, black and asian woman to accept a nomination from a major party or of you take it and run with it. she sort of split the difference. she mentioned it in some parts

of the speech. she talked about her mother and, you know, going after barack obama i think is a -- following him is a tough sell. i'm surprised they did that. howie: tough act to follow. gillian, i've got 20 seconds. >> i think the clinton factor here, both bill and hillary is very weak. a lot of the media didn't focus on the fact that nobody really cared about either of their speeches, didn't get a lot of pickup online or tv. the obamas were really the stars of this show. howie: i wrote a column saying the clinton era was over based on the way they were relegated to tape speeches earlier in the evening. ahead, jason miller of the trump campaign, when we come back, should the washington post have published secretly recorded tapes of the president's sister disparaging him? ♪ you must go and i must bide

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we have another media explosion that just happens to be time for the eve of the republican convention. the washington post published transcripts and audio secretly recorded by mary trump, the president's niece who wrote a book brutally attacking him. she admitted to taping for 15 hours the president's sister retired federal judge marianne trump barry. >> [bleep]. oh, my god. you know, it's the change of stories, the lack of preparation, the lying, the [bleep]. he's appealing to the base. what they're doing with the kids at the border. howie: mollie, mary trump despices her uncle.

she admits to secretly recording the president's sister over a two year period. should this sleazy tactic make the press discount these tapes? >> yes, there are three groups of people that look bad here. it's the niece, taping the aunt, part of an attempt to get more money. there's the aunt who appears ungrateful for the help she got from her brother for her first federal judgeship and there's the newspaper which has no business publishing this on the same weekend as another brother had his funeral. i know they're upset that the democrats didn't have as good of convention as they would have hoped and they're trying to hurt the republicans on the eve of their convention. as if the people don't hate the media enough, to do this type of opposition research, as if they're the democratic campaign itself. it hurts journalism when they behave this way. it didn't meet journalistic standards. howie: marianne trump barry was the source for the statement

that someone else took the asts in high school. let me pose the question. do you think the washington post having been presented with this stuff should have published these tapes? >> as salacious as they are, as much as it's inside baseball in the sense that this is the personal business of the trump family, as much as i don't like to hear information like this, because it makes everybody uncomfortable, i do think the washington post had the per roughinperogative to publish he. once they vetted that it was authentic, meaning it was marianne trump barry, they had an obligation to push it out. the difference here, though, is as a journalist there's not a whole lot i can really do with this aside from play the tape, if i so choose on the air. this is really one for the opinion folks to chew over and to use as they would like. meaning there's nothing indicting here.

it's just a personal opinion of somebody that's related to the president and is also angry at him for various reasons. howie: the president says in a statement every day it's something else. who cares. i missed my brother robert's funeral. i'll continue to work hard for the american people. does this news of the president's sister privately disparaging him change the minds of a single voter who didn't already think donald trump is a terrible person. >> i doubt it changes the mind of a single voter. i was surprised to see this. the washington post can use as a shield, i guess, that it is legal. new york is a single party authorization state which means only one of the parties being taped has to give assent to being so. back when i was a young reporter, that was not the case, both parties had to be aware. i was very surprised. it won't change anybody's mind. if you didn't like the president, this just confirms

what is in mary trump's book. if you like him, it's unlikely to distract you at all. it's just more grist for the mill. i was a little surprised. howie: i agree with the idea that it doesn't change any minds. mollie, i've got about half a minute here. i find this betrayal extremely distasteful. many conservatives didn't object when monica lewinsky was taped by linda tripp leading to the impeachment of bill clinton. the press doesn't care about motive when they see good stuff to push out there. >> i think 20 or 30 years ago it might have been a different story itself. it is distasteful. it does make people uncomfortable. it doesn't have particular news value. it already seems like the media are behaving as if they were political operatives. for them to continue doing this, particularly given the time, leading into the republican convention which normally right before the convention you're

talking about what's going of to happen and whatnot. i'll be curious to see if the media are effusive in their praise of the republican as they were with the democrats. howie: all right, ray, mollie, gillian, thank you so much. up next, steve ban i don' bannod witin a fraud case. but does that affect the campaign? ♪

howie: the breaking news banners came out of nowhere. federal prosecutors charge steve bannon, former white house senior advisor with fraud. bannon and three associates who raised $25 million to raise a border wall were accused of diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars for their personal use, bannon pleading not guilty and defended himself on his podcast. >> i am not going to back down. this is a political hit job. this was to stop and intimidate

people that want to talk about the wall. >> i know nothing about the project other than i didn't like, when i read about it, i didn't like it. i said this is for government. this isn't for private people. and it sounded to me like show boating. i think it's a sad thing for mr. bannon. i think it's surprising. howie: joining us now, griff jenkins, a fox news correspondent in washington. i know steve bannon. it was kind of stunning. when you look at what they are charged with, skimming off money, seems like a garden variety fraud case. >> let's look at what he's charged with, charging him with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. this was a nonprofit organization, set up by bannon and three other individuals charged to raise funds for the wall. remember at the time democrats were not giving the administration the money they needed. but in this case, some hundreds of thousands of donors raised more than $25 million and this indictment says bannon took more

than a million for personal expenses and brian kolfage some $350,000, not good news for the administration, coming up completing soon the miles of the wall that the administration did despite the backing by democrats. howie: let me challenge you on that. i get the symbolism of it with the planned celebration of building some of the wall but since this had nothing to do with the 2016 campaign, nothing to do with the president and happened well after bannon left the white house under pressure back in 2017, is it fair tore the media to portray this as hurting president trump? >> they're going to make the case, critics of the president and obviously i would think the biden campaign will say that the same donors for whom they perhaps elected donald trump, voted for him because of the wall issue, are you now being taken for suckers by guys like

bannon, because they were told that all of their money that they would give them would go to this wall instead if it is proven true that they used it for personal expenses, it's an old tale in washington that if you capitalize on the political expediency of a politician, the voters won't put up for it. i think that's the connection that is potentially in trouble. now that probably would go away as you mentioned, we haven't heard as much after the big headlines. however, once the administration this week tries to make note of this accomplishment of the 300th mile built, that's an opportunity perhaps for the biden campaign to strike. howie: all right. griff, i've got about half a minute by the way, one reporter asked the president in light of other people like paul ma paul , like michael cohen going to prison, if this reflects a culture of corruption at the white house. is that fair game? >> i'm not sure if it's fair game or not. it's certainly a legitimate question. let's not forget the optics of

steve bannon being arrested on a super yacht belonging to a chinese billionaire certainly doesn't help to that end. howie: certainly doesn't help and i would just say that you can certainly question the president's judgment in terms of people he hires but nothing even remotely tying him to this. we'll see you a little later. coming up, jason miller of the trump campaign on the coverage of the dnc, the president and plans for the gop convention, and later, former pennsylvania governor ed rendell. ta-da! did you know liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need? given my unique lifestyle, that'd be perfect! let me grab a pen and some paper. know what? i'm gonna switch now. just need my desk... my chair... and my phone. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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and 96% of all the news coverage being negative towards the president. but i do think that the democrats fell into a little bit of a trap last week. i think that they went down the hillary clinton road of what they tried to accomplish with their convention. it was basically a whole bunch of empty nothings, a bunch of platitudes, a grievance fest and attack on president trump at a personal level. what they failed to do, just like crooked hillary forgot to do four years ago was lay out the case for their candidate. you're going to see a big difference between last week and what the president's going to do this week. howie: the president and his allies openly questioned joe biden mental acuity. you're the only one i've seen that says hey, this guy is a pretty good and experienced debater based on his record. didn't biden's widely praised speech -- it was scripted on a teleprompter, delivered live -- knock down the notion that this is a confused and doderring guy. >> not entirely. joe biden shows up to play,

whether on a big speech or debates. i've said this a number of times. i believe joe biden will be the favorite heading into th the debates this fall. he's had 47 years of practice. as i've watched all of joe biden's debate performances going back to 1987, he gives the same answers over and over and over. they can put him up there and program him and he goes straight ahead. here's the thing with joe biden. it's the moments when he's not scripted, the moment when he gives his honest opinions such as the you ain't black or when he says he would be willing to shut down the country at a time when the country can't afford it and it's the unscripted moments that i think will be his undoing. howie: the media's going wild over a washington post story, his sister is disparaging the

president, secretly recorded by his niece who has written a book and despices the president. what do you make of the decision to publish the tapes? >> i think it was disturbing, particularly to publish the story literally the day after president trump and the rest of the trump family laid robert trump to rest after they had his funeral services at the white house and this is president trump and marianne's brother, robert and to run that immediately after the services, i really think is beyond the pale. i think there's something very wrong when the post would decide to go do something like that. i pray they find some peace in their hearts because there's clearly so much anger and bitterness towards president trump that i don't think is fair to robert trump and his family. howie: the timing by mary trump obviously no accident. barack obama got huge and mostly 30positive coverage for his speh

at the democratic convention, particularly not just the harshness of his attack but saying democracy is in jeopardy in donald trump wins a second term. your response? >> well, i was surprised that president obama wanted to tarnish his legacy like that, to try to get behind someone that he tried to convince not to run. president obama went all-out for hillary clinton four years ago and we now have president trump. you can say like the president does that the reason why president trump got elected is because obama and biden failed so spectacularly in the eight years running up. next week you're going to see a different story, you're going to see the great american story, a lot of new voices telling why -- how they've been benefiting from the past four years of the trump administration, how these policies helped their lives. you're going to see from president trump this forward vision, why people are excited to be on-board with him. here's the biggest thing since we're on media buzz, talking about media coverage. i think there's a misperception of who trump supporters are. i think the way the media likes

to typecast trump supporters or put them down, i will tell you, looking at some of these speeches and hearing some of these stories, every night there will be at least one point where there won't be a dry eye in the country as you hear these motivational and uplifting stories and the president's speech next thursday, you're going to want to tune in. howie: you're not setting low expectations. i know you work with steve bannon on a podcast before joining the campaign and i want to make sure you had absolutely nothing to do in this case which he's charged with fraud for private fund raising for a border wall. but is this a distraction for the campaign? >> i don't think so. i think president trump being out there pretty vocally owe posing this -- opposing this wall effort a month or two ago, i think made it clear for the media this was nothin not somete was on board with. i hope steve gets the opportunity to tell his side of the story and i pray there's some good answers for these very serious allegations. he's someone that showed me grace and kindness at various

points in my life. i hope he has a chance to get out there and clear this up because it's very serious. howie: all right. kamala harris of course giving her big speech at the convention as the vice presidential nominee. she and joe biden did a joint interview airing tonight with abc's david muir and robin roberts. let me play a little bit of this for you. >> president trump has referred to you as nasty, a sort of mad woman, disaster, the meanest, most horrible, most disrespectful of anybody in the u.s. senate. >> listen, i think that there is so much about what comes out of donald trump's mouth that is designed to distract the american people from what he is doing every day. howie: jason, is the president's record, is the president's accusations and rhetoric i should say toward senator harris overly harsh? >> no, not at all. if you look at how senator harris treated brett kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing, look at the way senator harris

treated former attorney general jeff sessions, i think president trump's criticisms are very well-warranted here. the fact of the matter is, what we didn't see from that brief clip that we're going to see tonight is that joe biden is willing to shut the entire country down in january. so think about that, howie, on day one of a biden administration he would, a, raise taxes by $4 trillion, and b, put the entire country into a shutdown when we can't afford it. that's what's coming at folks with the biden presidency. that's why we're working so hard to try to stop him. howie: i saw how you pivoted to that. it's always good to talk to you, jason miller. we'll look forward to the coverage and we'll see if you're right about the treatment of the president. thanks for joining us. >> thanks, howie. howie: next on media buzz, equal time with veteran democratic politician, ed rendell, and later, more on the harsh coverage of the president and q'anon. age-related macular degeneration may lead to severe vision loss.

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in milwaukee? >> i think so. i think a live convention probably would have given us more of a bounce but you've got to make consisten concessions ts going on. i think the democrats did a very good job reminding the country of how serious the covid-19 virus is and how we have to take precautions in everything we do. howie: yeah. we in the media are taking precautions as well the way we do our television. what should journalist does about these pretty repeated charges by the president and his allies that joe biden lost his step, that he's confused, doesn't have all his mental faculties and trying to pack into public concerns about his age, do you think the line of attack is fair game? >> first of all, he's not running against a guy who is 45 years of age. president trump is a few years younger, much worse physical condition, number one. number two, i think joe biden did a great job in his speech on thursday night. you can say it's on a

teleprompter but i can tell you this is very physically grueling task and he did it and he did it prilbrilliantly. he never stumbled. he was strong through the end, even more powerful at theen. if president trump keeps that line of attack he's going to have a tough time making it in view of what joe biden did at the convention. howie: you backed joe biden virtually from the beginning during the primary process. there were many pundits during the primaries, i was not one of them, i was one of the few, who said biden is going to implode, he is too old of, too out-of-touch, not liberal enough for this party, all of which turned out to be wrong. is there a danger now that biden is being pulled to the left by the bernie sanders faction and the more progressive people in your party? >> no, not at all. joe biden first of all knows of what he speaks. he's going to make his own decisions. like for example on the green

new deal, some parts of it are not very credible or workable at this point but he says the goals are good. i think every american would agree with the goals, but it's how we get there. number two, take pennsylvania, fracking has been a tremendous success. it's had a great help to the economy of pennsylvania. but bernie sanders, elizabeth warren said that they would ban fracking on day one. joe biden said no, fracking is going into the future, it's 50% less carbon producing than burning coal so fracking is something that has to stay. joe biden makes up his own mind. he's a solid and moderate, slightly left of center democrat like i am and like most of the party is. the media made a big mistake in

interpreting the '18 election as a shift to the far left. most of the democratic congress that took the republican seats were moderate democrats, took seats from the philadelphia suburbs, places like that were only moderate progressives to win the day. howie: i know some people would quarrel with your description, slightly left of center. i would take your point how we interpret the midterm elections. a presidential nominee usually shows up the next morning on the network morning shows. joe biden didn't do that. his recent interviews with cardi b and people magazine, a love fest a few weeks ago with joy reeve. he is doing a joint interview, he taped it with abc with kamala harris. would you advise him to do more interviews, hit more major league pitching as a way of

countering that we hear from the republicans that he basically lies low and stays in his basement. >> i think he has done what he had to do perfectly. look, he's nine and-a-half points up, the average of all the national polls. you can't do much better than that in a presidential election. when's the last presidential election that was decided by more than 3 or 4 points? so what he's doing is obviously working. he should keep doing it as long as it keeps working. and he's been out there. he gave five individual speeches about building back the economy better and they were covered a little bit, the media didn't give him as much coverage as they should have but they were covered and i think he did ex exceptionally well in laying out a vision. howie: as a journalist i would hope he would do more interviews. you were quoted as saying that kamala harris rubs some people the wrong way. that along with other people saying she's too ambitious are the kind of things that are said never about male politicians. didn't you rub some people the

wrong way as governor and mayor? >> well, ironically, in that interview what i said after that phrase was of course i rub a lot of people the wrong way and i got reelected by 21 points in a battleground state. so the point i was making is that kamala harris rubs people the wrong way because she's tough, because she tells the truth, and because she takes no prisoners when she's trying to establish a point and i think everyone saw that during her questioning, not just of kavanaugh but barr and all the republican witnesses. i think she will be a great asset to the ticket. and i said in the same interview, if hi to pick, i would pick her to be a running mate. howie: thank you for clarifying that. >> i always piss people off. [ laughter ] howie: on that note, governor, thank you for joining us. >> my pleasure. howie: alexandria ocasio-cortez is whacking nbc news and she's

right. >> and thank you to everyone here today endeavoring towards a better, more just future for our country and our o world. howie: the geniuses at nbc tweeted that in one of the shortest speeches of the dnc, alexandria ocasio-cortez did not endorse joe biden. here's the -- she doesn't even mention in the speech. it sparked an enormous amount of hatred. aoc who had already endorsed biden was given 60 seconds to given a speech for bernie sanders. the biden campaign knew about it all along. nbc deleted the tweet and corrected the mistake. a report asked president trump about the conspiracy theorist of q'anon and are outraged by his response. hike!

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♪ howie: the media are on fire about president trump's comments on q'anon, a group of conspiracy theorists. >> i don't know much about the movement other than i understand they like me very much. which i appreciate. >> the crux of the theory is the belief that you are secretly saving the world from this satanic cult of fe bed pedophild cannibals. >> the president and validated, praised, maybe inspired about a group which the fbi has issued dire warnings. >> he ought to disavow. howie: take a second to explain what q'anon is and how it's

viewed by law enforcement. >> karl rove may have gotten it right, howie. this is an online conspiracy group for the fringes of the dark corners of the president it that believe president trump was -- we saw back in 2016 a q'anon supporter fired a shot here in a pizza restaurant in washington. in may, 30th last year, the fbi listed q'anon on a group of possible conspiracy theories that could motivate domestic terrorism. and the problem here and what the media is making a lot of noise about is that the president did not take the opportunity to disavow it, when you have had the vice president pence just on friday dismiss it out-of-hand. howie: the president said these are people who love our country. facebook and twitter banned some yq'anon content.

liz cheney said this is lune lu. this is not just liberal media types taking on the president. >> mccarthy said q'anon has no place in the republican party because a candidate down in georgia won the primary and she has espoused support for the q'anon theory. yonow that this online conspiray theory on the fringe has possibly made it into congress and if this woman in georgia wins and we expect she will it will give legitimacy to what obviously so many other republicans are trying to tip the president's hand and say don't get behind this, even though they support you, because it's dangerous. howie: right. now, white house chief of staff mark meadows telling chris wallaceing kind of flipped the

script, saying why are reporters asking about this. the president could have deflected the question. he likes to say nice things about those who support him, that's part of the president's pattern, whether the media like it or not. >> the media might stop asking questions if the president bodies miss it like he should. we'll see if it comes up this week. we know the president may have a press conference here this evening, perhaps there will be a question there as well. but pretty much everyone but the president is disavowing this conspiracy at this point. howie: or it may get washed away like so many couldn't versies with the republican convention beginning tomorrow. thanks for doing double duty for us. >> thank you. howie: and that is it for this edition of media buzz. i'm howard kurtz. hope you'll check out our facebook page. you can yell at me on twitter. check out my podcast, you can subscribe with apple i-tunes,

amazon device, fox news podcast, we try to look at the day's buzziest stories. i don't have to tell you we'll be back next sunday at 11:00 eastern. this time we'll focus on the republican convention. we'll see you then with the latest buzz.

eric: we heard from the democrats, joe biden last week, and now it's the republicans and president trump's term. his bid for a second term will come into a spotlight this week starting tomorrow as the republican party makes final preparations for their national convention, all this week. hello, everyone. welcome to america's news headquarters. i'm eric shawn. hi, arthel. arthel: hello, eric. hello, everyone. i'm arthel neville. from the nation's capital to charlotte, north carolina, the original site for the convention leading up to the president's acceptance speech at the white house, republicans are preparing for a four-night ex straff began began. >>