♪ ♪ howard: it was at this hour last sunday that i delivered the breaking news that an award-winning photojournalist working for "time" had been killed by russian fire. this week brought more tragic losses. a veteran cameraman for fox news was killed by russian bullets in a separate attack. tributes poured in not just from his fox colleagues, but from other journalists such as cnn's clarissa ward. >> he's one of the most

extraordinarily kind, generous, talented, gracious people you could ever imagine working with. he really was the real deal here. howard: also sadly are killed in that attack was a 24-year-old ukrainian producer, a wonderful person by all accounts wolfs working with our team. who was working with our team. fox correspondent benjamin hall, an incredible reporter, was wounded in the attack but is now out of the ukraine, getting medical treatment and, thank ifully, described as being in good spirits. >> we will redouble our efforts to honor these colleagues and all reporters in harm's way tonight. if. howard: these are chilling reminders of the sheer courage of journalists who are drawn to telling the story of war, the story of civilian casualties, the story of refugees. yes, it's just as depressing when a pregnant mother or baby die in ukraine or soldiers, but journalists carry a special burden of bearing witness in taking these risks, especially

against a brutal autocrat like vladimir putin, which is why we should never forget our fallen colleagues. i'm howard kurtz, and this is "mediabuzz." ♪ howard: and first, joining us from lviv, ukraine, is fox news correspondent mike tobin. mike. if. >> reporter: and, howie, civilian casualties are part of every day's coverage as the town of mariupol takes an unmerciful pounding from russian aircraft and artillery. most of the residential structures in the town of mariupol have been destroyed by, according to mariupol's number, two buildings, a school and a theater that were used as a bomb shelter took direct hits from the sky. there were around 1500 people in those bomb shelters, we only know of 130 who got out alive. a local police officer pleaded with world leaders for help.

>> translator: you have promised that there will be help. give us that help. biden, macron, you are great leaders. be them to the end, save the civilian population. children, elderly people are dying. this city is destroyeded, and it is wiped off the face of the earth. >> reporter: now, amid reports that russian soldiers have pushed into mariupol, we know the next town over russian military vehicles are moving through the center of town, a town they claimed to have taken control of early in the invasion. russia says it is tightening the noose around mariupol. further west a town near the black sea and controlling a bridge, barracks for ukrainian naval indiana -- infantry was hit. the barracks were hit while the marines were sleeping, the number of dead could be as high as 40. howie, back to you. howard: mike tobin, thanks very much and stay safe. ahead we'll talk to former

attorney general bill barr about the media and his tumultuous tenure. it was, by any measure, a powerful speech by volodymyr zelenskyy, hailing the shared values between ukraine and america and pleading with the united states to give him a no-fly zone, and that is fueling the media debate. >> the people are descending, not only praying, we are fighting for europe and the world. >> we're going to give ukraine the arms to fight and defend themselves through all the difficult days ahead. >> you can't help but impressed by his courage. but as a practitioner, i'm just gob smack filed his oratorical skills and his sense of the movement. >> i thought he moved the needle. he said you shouldn't support us for sentimental reasons, you should support us because we're going to win. and i kind of believe him. >> there are some republicans, republican senators out there that are trying to turn this

into a political hit job against joe biden. and they're pushing him to do things that would trigger world war iii. >> you have someone like putin that is saying if you shoot my planes down during my war, i will consider that an act of war. we're already in a war with him. >> the generals of "the view" want more than migs. the greatest military minds on daytime television want american pilots to shoot down the russian air force. the most trigger-happy people in this country seem to be journalists. howard: joining us now to analyze the cover, ben domenech, and in los angeles, leslie marshall, radio talk show host. both are fox news contributors. ben, zelenskyy's acting background drew enormous sympathy not just from congress, but9 from the television audience. did he succeed in moving do --

the debate in giving him the weapons he thinks his country needs to survive? >> i think in the a continuation of it. what we really have seen here, i think, is a shift on the participant of the american people that happened -- on the part of the american people that can be seen in polling data that we have from a number of different sources including a lot of republicans who believe that there ought to be more support for ukraine than the biden administration is currently doing. one of the things, of course, that they're going to run into is just the sheer challenge of getting these weapons systems and getting everything there in terms of material and resources in a situation that is increasingly chaotic. but i do think that we have, we should sort of step back and appreciate what's going on here which is that we've come out of a period of a lot of war weariness in this country after the experience in iraq and afghanistan, something that was obviously exploited and used by donald trump as a candidate and was something that he emphasized

as president. but now we have this kind of new formation of a foreign policy toward russia and china happening before our eyes and the shifting attitudes, i think, are very interesting. howard: leslie, the biden white house was worried enough to leak word that morning the $8ing 00 million weapons package for ukraine. i would have been happier if he'd done that three weeks ago. so he tried to reframe the media coverage now knowing that zelenskyy would have an impact. >> well, certainly. i mean, i think a lot of people have said it before, look at president zelenskyy almost like david in the biblical david and goliath, and i think the world is rooting for what we look at as the underdog because russia was supposed to turn ukraine into a parking lot in 24-72 hours and, clearly, that hasn't happened. yes, obviously, the white house put that out ahead. but when you hear president zelenskyy talking about a no-fry zone -- no-fly zone, the

military experts that i i have talked to have said you can't have have a no-fly zone light. a no-fly zone is a no-fly zone. if a plane is shot down, the concern is vladimir putin -- because he's like a bear in the corner with his claws out -- would respond with a nuclear attack. and they also said there's no light nuclear attack even though there are varying crees of the -- degrees of severity of weapons, even the lightest, smallest nuclear weapon is going to have a severe amount of damage. so that is not just the united states' position, that's the world's position right now -- howard: right. >> -- and the fear of a world war. howard: it sounds tempting, but a no-fly zone is an act of war. ben, the big debate seems to be on the right, your publication, the federalist, ran a piece that republican lawmakers are pushing for a more sophisticated package as part of a bipartisan or effort in washington, but other

conservatives say we have to do more or ukraine will be crushed. >> well, i think this is a very interesting argument that's playing out on the right because different people have taken different lessons from the past two decades, different people that have taken different lessons from four years of donald trump, and i think they're trying to figure out what the foreign policy of the right looks like going forward. a very interesting interview this weekend with matt pottenner this week in the -- pottennier in the "wall street journal," and i think it's going to be one that a lot of people are navigating, senate candidates in this current election year year are certainly going to have to talk about what they would prefer in terms of moving forward, and that back and forth is one that needs to happen. i think one of the big lessons that ought to have been taken away from the 2016 experience is that there was a 15-year period where the debate on the right about the future of foreign policy was largely squelched. it didn't actually happen the way that it needed to. and then you ended up having a candidate come along and make

hay out of it, you know, really exploit it to his benefit. i think it's a good thing to have those debates raging right now on the right, it's a healthy thing. howard: leslie, the journalist consensus is that vladimir putin is committing war crimes every single day and may not stop with ukraine. so they say, well, we can't needlessly to to voc putin, you made reference to the no-fly zone, but he's indiscriminately slaughtering civilians every day. >> nuclear weapons, making this into a third world war. look, he is just miles from the polish border. they are a nato nation. they're a nay -- there are nato troops hard surrounding in our nato ally nations so, you know, people already account, one. two, i don't think -- and i don't think they should, the white house and the pentagon and our allies -- are sharing everything that is going on or everything that we're giving or doing to ukraine. but we do have to be careful because, you know, this is and

should not be about democrat, republican, left or right. this should be about the united states and the world fighting for the freedom of one nation who happened to be an ally of our nation, and, you know, we have fighting within our own party, democrats, you know, ben with the republicans, i mean, ben as -- people like madison caw thorn and marjorie taylor green who have painted president zelenskyy in a negative right, we had lindsey graham call for the outright assassination of vladimir putin, and then we have our qabls as well on the. [laughter] the conversation and debate is good, but because of the time and sensitivity of this matter, the world needs to be togetherrings the party needs to be togetherring and, obviously, in support of -- but carefully. because vladimir putin is desperate, and somebody in this position like him who is desperate can be far more dangerous than he already is. howard: ben, you have this constant tension between journalists every single day reporting these heart-rending scenes, the maternity hospital

mom bombing, the bombing of a theater where children were known to be sheltering, killing people on a bread line not to mention kidnapping mayors and killing, now, journalists. and up against that you have journalists coming on, perfectly reasonable you've made the point, about how far should the u.s. go. volodymyr zelenskyy's told nbc's lester holt that world war iii may already have started. >> you know, this is a proxy war, it's become a proxy war, and i think that we should acknowledge that, and zelenskyy is behaving the way9 that the leader of a nation locked in a proxy war ought to behave. he's trying to shift over to all these different things to consider much more severe acts. that's his job, and i understand it, but also the united states needs to respond, as leslie has said, without taking a step, you know, with our allies or alone that would lead us in the direction of having a real nuclear threat, having the real possibility of it which is a very real possibility and not

one that that we should underestimate. howard: ben, what do you make of republican congressman dan crenshaw saying on "fox & friends" that some on the right are repeating putin's talking points and, unfortunately, it gives the left something to latch on to which is an inaccurate description of how the right feels. >> i do think there is a very slim faction of people who do repeat a lot of these things and do soar irresponsibly. but i do think that is a very small number. and i think when you have a high level of single digits that show up many polling evidence of the -- in polling evidence of the like that people say we're doing too much to support ukraine, that certainly exists on the right, and there is a fringe on the left as well that, you know, definitely makes the same mistake. but they are the fringes, and we shouldn't pretend that they're not. howard: leslie, 20 seconds left right now. >> i would agree with ben, they're fringes. the problem is who has the bigger platform whether it be

social media. you know, you can be one person with a megaphone and be louder than 300 people, and that is the danger because some of the people in the united states are buying that, and we certainly see the people of russia with negative and outright lies in the propaganda buying that as well as we've seen from the stadium where there were actors bussed in, apparently, as well when vladimir putin -- howard: well, not necessarily actors, but people who were paid or pressuredded to be there. >> yes, correct. howard: when we come back, the russian tv producer who went rogue, and later why the hunter biden story is making a comeback. ♪ ♪

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howe marina, a producer for channel one, interrupted a live broadcast with a protest sign, no war, russians against war, and was promptly detained. she also posted an earlier video apologizing for being a cog in the moscow media machine. >> translator: badly during thest past years i worked at channel 1. i've spread the propaganda, and i'm very ashame of this. i'm ashamed i allowed lies to be told on tv screens, i'm ashamed i allowed the russian people to lengthy interrogation, she was fined $280 at a court hearing and spoke out today on abc. if. >> i want to say everyone, the russian people are really against the war. it's putin's war, not russian people's war. howard: ben domenech, it was a

stunt, to be sure, but to do that in vladimir putin's totalitarian regime and nature of complicity, i think, takes passion and courage, and that's why i believe it resonated around the world. >> it takes guts, and i think it was a sign of someone who wants to be a citizen, not a subject, doesn't want to have to bend the knee to the state narrative and is doing so in a capacity that is genuinely dangerous. and i just want to make the point, howie, that within the last several years we had all these different journal isists who got mad about angry tweets from the president of the united states, got, you know, tried to play up the idea that they were under constant attack and fear. this is someone who's actually taking on real risk in doing what she did, and she would obviously are respect that. howard: right. because we do have a free press here for all its flaws. leslie, four other top journalists have is since resigned, but despite the small fine, it seems to me there's every chance the kremlin will

use this draconian anti-press law to go after marina. a moscow spokesman's accused her of denigrating the armed forces and could try to jail her for up to 15 years. >> you know, howie, that's what makes this even more incredible and her bravery even bigger with a capital b. she knows that the point of vladimir putin is still in jail. she knows there are stories of how far reaching the russian arm can go. nerve agents in london, for example. she was risking not just her job, not just her reputation, but her life. and that is incredible bravery, because, you know, remember, she disappeared and then she was in court, and then some people say she got a slap on the wrist, but there are a lot of people going, hmm, is it over, and it may not be over. and she knew that when she did this. this was the mountain she was willing to die on, and i certainly hope and pray to god that won't be the case for her or anyone else that has bravery to speak out not just in favor

of ukraine, but for themselves and their own freedoms. howard: i totally agree with that. now, before we go, what's gotten a lot of attention is this video by arnold. >> is warts negativer, obviously, international movie star, former california governor, addressing the russian people and russian soldiers. take a look. >> when my father arrived on leningrad, he was pumped up on the lies of his government. when he left, he was broken physically and mentally. i don't want you to be broken like my father. howard: what struck me about this video was his willingness to voc his own nazi father, a guy who served the nazi military, which must have been painful. >> you know, this is arnold at his best in the sense that he was delivering a message that was both kind but very respectful. he made every effort to respect kind of the national pride of the russian people, to establish his own connection with russians that he admired and to send a

message to them about the truth. i find this to be so much more -- this is a model for effective celebrity engagement with this problem. stop singing "imagine" songs. do something like this. howard: and, leslie, i don't know how many russians this'll actually reach, but arnold has a unique voice because of his family history and growing up in if austria. >> and because he's a movie star, more i think to russians than a former governor. and if he had endone that, maybe i would are have voted for him back in the day. this was not acting. this was genuine. this was real. he deserves an academy award for the genuine, real message that he was giving, and, yeah, i have to say it brought a tear to my eye, mentioning his father who had been a nazi. i applaud what he has done and, you know what? if it changes one mind howard, then he did the right thing. howe we're agreed. honorary oscar for donald. thanks so much. up next, the hunter biden story downplayed and in some

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howard: the press went to great lengths at the end of the campaign to mock and minimize allegations against hunter biden which were literally censored by twitter, and now "the new york times" has confirmed major details of the investigation. joining us now, griff jenkins, fox news correspondent and anchor. you had twitter block anyone from sharing that original story, politico and others dismissing the story as russian disinformation. npr's managing ed editor said we don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories. how does all that look in relate are prospect? >> well, i'm not sure, howie, that the new york post will get a pulitzer prize, but i do think these guys feel pretty stupid this morning. this is some of the nearly 50 intelligence officials under the obama administration that pushed that narrative of the russian disinformation.

and, look, there is no greater confirmation that a story is no longer confined to the right-wing media circles than to have "the new york times" come out and not only confirm the laptop and e-mails, but advance the story with the tax loan that hunter biden got. and i think there's a lot of questions morning. one, what will twitter and facebook have to say because they, obviously, didn't share -- howard: well, i'll tell you what they say, now it's okay. now it's been launderedded through customs. now the new york times says it's a story, but it wasn't a story at the end of 020. in that story the times reported that hunter biden took out a a loan to repay more than a million dollars in back taxes and try to avoid prosecution, but what else is urn investigation according to that piece? >> well, for our viewers that are new to this story if they haven't been following it, because we've been covering it on fox. and, by the way, fox also confirmed the story that the new york post broke 17 months ago. but there is an active grand jury, an investigation into his tax affairs, and he could face

criminal prosecution not just for tax evasion, but also for possibly lobbying violations under the foreign agents registration act. we don't know exactly what happened there, or possibly even money laundering. in fairness, we should point out hunter biden said that he handled his affairs legally and appropriately, but the grand jury will have the final word. howard: yeah. hunter biden has denied wrongdoing, and it's a 3-year-old investigation, hasn't been charged with anything. but even after the times story, the other networks are not covering it, broadcast and cable. you wonder if that would be the case if this was the son of a president of a different party. but the times does say it's a difficult prosecution to make. given that this was, again, looking back to 2020, the democratic nominee's son, is it surprising that so many conservatives look at this episode and say they don't trust the major media and big tech? >> surprising, but i'm not shocked insofar as a hunter biden was untouchable. we saw that. there was a no-go zone.

you couldn't go after him. it was inappropriate,-radioactive for anybody to go after him -- howard: if you did, you got attacked from journalists on the left. >> of course. there's no shortage of examples. number one, why did the times decide to do this when the president is at the most important part of his presidency with the war in ukraine? and number two, when will others in the media start to advance the story, because it's not going anywhere. howard: yeah. sometimes reporters just confirm when they confirm, but i think all the organizations thatting ignored it really need to step up and at least tell their readers and viewers about it. griff jenkins, great to see you. next up, the dangerous of covering ukraine. the dangerous assigning signment that has claims the arrives of three dedicated journalists. and later, bill barr sounds off on the controversies of the trump years. ♪ but he was busy working from home... ...so he scheduled with safelite in just a few clicks. we came to his house...

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howard: as i reported at the top of the program, fox news foreign correspondent benjamin hall is

out of the hospital, has left ukraine after being injured by hostile russian fire. ben was traveling with a beloved fox cameraman who has been in many war zones for fox and who was killed in that attack. here he is years ago. >> we were just outside the refugee camp filming refugees, and we could hear gunfire in the background. howard: also tragically killed was a local ukrainian producer working with the team, 24 years old. joining us now from london, amy kellogg, fox's senior foreign affairs correspondent. amy, the journalists behind the cameras are often the unsung heros. tell the us what it was the like working with pierre. >> reporter: howard, pierre was a prince, he was a knight. he was one of a kind. i mean, he a had this boundless joy, energy, compassion and generosity. he was completely selfless, he loved what he did more than perhaps anyone i've met, and we

just can't get over the fact that he won't come bounding around the corner in this office again. i can't use past tense yet, it's still too raw, but pierre was someone near and dear to pretty much everyone who ever met him. it's hard. howard: yeah. as we look at pictures of him, he seems to have touched the lives of so many. now, for a couple days we didn't know the condition of ben hall who, thankfully, survived the attack that killed pierre and sasha. but he's out of ukraine, said to be in good spirits. what compels people like ben and pierre, and i guess at times you here, other news organizations, to risk their lives in covering war? >> reporter: i think it's a profound curiosity about the war, a concern about injustice in the world and a need to be where things are happening and impacting lives. i did not know sasha that. i heard incredible things about her, a young with up and coming

journalist who probably could have left kyiv and gone to safety. but who chose to remain. i know ben personally and, of course, pierre, and both of them are exquisite storytellers, very switched on and articulate about the main issues, and i just think it's in your blood, it gets under your skin. pierre used to like to tell a story about how he was born prematurely on a road trip his family was taking across europe, and i like to think he went on to be a larger than life character. but that on the road aspect of it too always resonated with me. howard: seems like it was in his dna. now, if more journalists pull out of ukraine for understandable reasons, because it is so unsafe, does that help vladimir putin who has done his own anti-press crackdown at home by dimming the spotlight on the terrible atrocities -- and many are saying war crimes -- that his russian forces are

committing in ukraine? >> reporter: i don't know, howard, the answer to that. obviously, the presence of journalists on the ground is indo dispensable -- din us dense bl, but lives do need to be protected, positions do need to be made as this unfolds. there are lots of images. i mean, i think that the damage to vladimir putin has been done, the atrocities have been well documented to date, and one is more shocking than the next. i think there are a lot of ukrainians on the ground who will continue to beam images via various channels such as telegram, instagram or facebook, and they're been good about that, and i -- they've been good about that, and i think we do have the advantage now of having access to social media to see what's going on. howard: yeah. the tiktok aspect of the war coverage, i think, has been indispensable. let's talk about putin's bizarre die diatribe -- diatribe the other day talking about spitting out whose he -- those he called

scum and traitors, self-purification of russia. isn't it ironic that he claims to want to de-gnatsfy the ukrainian government which is complete fiction is using that kind of third reich language, and how does that play at home? >> reporter: yeah. well, when you say cleanse society, which was the literal translation of his remarks the other day, the word purge comes to mind in russia, and people think about the '30s and they think about stall aen -- howard: yep. >> -- and they're very, very scared. so many independent journalists have fled russia shah in recent weeks and a lot of russians who are scared. but, yes, it sends chills down the spines of ordinary people that they simply don't know what is going to come next. i mean, this is someone who is really on a rampage to suppress if any sort of dissent. i just read something, howie, about a protester who was arrested today for having a little sign that just is said i

don't like it. so if you don't even need to use the words war or invasion which are, you know, criminal -- howard: even if it's implied. yeah. in the minute that we have left, the bbc interviewed a number of people, that big pro-war putin rally the other day who said they were either paid or forced to attended the, students were told to take the day off and come. what does that tell us, to the extent you can piece it together, about actual support for the ukraine invasion this russia -- in russia given that it's already killed by western estimates, you know, 7,000 or so russian soldiers? >> reporter: well, i'm not surprised that people to were pressured to go to that demonstration. when i saw the images, i was kind of shocked there were that many people in the stadium and then, of course, i thought this would are have happened, and now it's been documented. it's really difficult to know what public opinion is, because the only independent pollster in russia has put off doing polls

until this operation is over, howard. howe ohio i think it's fair to say there's not unanimous support, we saw that with the protests. thank you so much, amy kellogg, we appreciate your thoughts. >> reporter: thanks, howard. howard: after the break, bill barr sounds off on the media, donald trump, the election, january 6th and is whether he made mistakes as attorney general. ♪ ♪ usty team ♪ ♪ there's heather on the hedges ♪ ♪ and kenny on the koi ♪ ♪ and your truck's been demolished by the peterson boy ♪ ♪ yes -- ♪ wait, what was that? timber... [ sighs heavily ] when owning a small business gets real, progressive helps protect what you've built with affordable coverage. we're a different kind of dentistry. progressive helps protect what you've built one who believes in doing anything it takes to make dentistry work for your life. so we offer a complete exam and x-rays free

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howard: bill barr drew an enormous amount of negative if media coverage as donald trump's attorney general, but the relationship fell apart, mainly over barr's insistence the justice department could find no evidence of a phony election. now he's out with a new book, "one damn thing after another." i sat down with him here in the washington bureau. bill barr, welcome. >> thank you, howie. howard: for most of your tenure, you were eviscerated by the mainstream media for doing donald trump's bidding, politicizing the justice department and especially in cases where he publicly insisted you prosecute his opponents. did all that negative coverage bother you? >> not particularly. i expected it. and one of the reasons i felt i was maybe the best person to take the job at the time is that i was done with my career, and i wasn't worried about the next job with. but i expected that kind of criticism. and what really brought it about was, you know, that i dealt with

the false russiagate story which i think the president's opponents thought they had him on the ropes with that. it was a phony scandal, and i dealt with it, and they didn't like it. howard: obviously, it had to be covered by the press because of the appointment of a special counsel. but you concede in the book that donald trump's rhetoric and his tweets made it easier for the media and others to attack your decisions as politically motivated whether it was the roger stone case, the mike flynn case or something else. at one point you went on abc and said the president's making it impossible for me to do my job. explain. >> right. when i talked to him initially about job, i said, look, the criminal justice process has to be insulated from politics. that's the chief responsibility of the attorney general. so you have to stay out of it. and he agreed to that. but what he would do is, you know, he has to give comment if tear on everything -- howard: yes, i've noticed. [laughter] >> and when i would make a decision based on the merits, what i thought was the right

decision under the law, he would then tweet about it in a way that made it seem to people that i was doing his bidding or at least could give that impression. and he did that. it's a way of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. i felt responsibly with the sentencing of roger stone. howard: but it didn't necessarily look that way. you repeatedly slam the media in this book, but when it comes to trump's claims of election fraud, as everyone now knows, you write that the election wasn't stolen. the president denounced you for telling him that and said you must hate trump. but you and the media are actually on the same page in saying there was no widespread election fraud. >> well, you know, that's true. you know, even a broken clock is right -- [laughter] twice a day. yeah. i took a look at the evidence, and i was convinced that fraud did not play a role in the outcome of the election. howard: and once you went public with that finding in an ap

interview, i remember this day very well, no widespread fraud was found by the department of justice, some of the media that had reviled you for years suddenly started praising you. do you find that curious? >> i didn't hear the praise very much, and i went going for the praise. -- i wasn't going for the praise. howard: you you were an ally -- >> well, now i was an asset in their general position. howard: so you also agree with the media, turns out from read aing your book, that you write about the absurd length ares to which he took his stolen election claim led to the riot whering on capitol hill. is that one of the reasons you would rather that he did not run for his old job in 2024? >> not really, it's not the main reason i'm against it, i'm against him running. but i did feel that he act irresponsibly after the election, and he took things too far. you know, it's one thing to challenge the election, but to tell people that it was stolen

with a degree of cert feud -- certitude he was and suggesting there was some way he could fix it by going up to capitol hill, you know, went too far. howard: you now say that trump surround ised himself with sycophants and whack jobs, those are your words. [laughter] your detractors would say that you are using this book in an attempt to salvage your reputation and to distance yourself from a president who did, by your own account, try to politicize the doj and perhaps for his role in january 6th as well. you've heard that criticism. >> critics will always take that position. but i tried to write a fair and balanced account of what i saw with trump, and i give trump a lot of credit. i don't apologize at all for having served in that administration. there's no mea culpa from me. the question has been asked, well, why didn't you speak up earlier, speak up about what i thought, it was a good administration. yes, he was hard to deal with sometimes, yes, you had to

wrestle with him to keep things on track, but he basically listened to advice, and we accomplished a lot, and i think he was an historic president. but after the election is where things went off the rails. howard: off the rails was your phrase. >> yeah. howard: if his temper ifment is as potential as you say, and there are lots and lots of examples, which could suggest you misjudged him at the outset, why do you think most republicans still support donald trump? >> i think for the same reason they supported him originally. i felt -- i think that many in the middle class, the working class are disgusted by the excesses of the progressive wing of the democratic party and the elites and especially the media. they felt that the media with has been corrupted and is partisan, and he reflects that anger and that frustration, and he's gotten a lot of credit from them because he speaks plainly, he takes on the media directly.

they like to see that. and he tries to keep his promises, and he can take, he can take a beating. i mean, he can take a shot and get up and keep on going. howard: yes. he's a counter-puncher. but when trump would say things like some of this predated your tenure, you know, the press is the enemy of the american people and traitorous and, you know, trying to turn the public against the press, you think that was part of his appeal. you think that's one of the reasons that republicans like donald trump so much. >> no. i think some republicans did, but i think, i think most of his base actually felt that he was of frequently excessive, and they wanted him to tone it back. and i talked to him several times about that, and i said, you know, when i go out in the country, i have yet to meet anybody who's come up to me from his base and hasn't said would you, please, tell the president to tone it down a little bit? if so i think a lot of his support was despite his pettiness and flaws, not because of it. howard: you had all a these

confrontations with trump and you lay out, for example, you say, dammit, mr. president, i am not going to talk to you about hunter biden, period. was it us from freighting to -- frustrating to stay quiet about such matters while the press portrayed you as a lackey? >> it was a little frustrating, but life is unfair, so i didn't expect much different. i learned when when you're a republican, this town is unfair. there's a double standard. the media has a double standard. it's gotten a lot worse. the media is sort of shameless about it, so i don't expect anything different. howard: in a moment, bill barr responds to some pretty harsh criticism from the if president he served. ♪ ♪ ould all take this trip together, son yeah. and kayak made getting here so easy- ♪ ♪ here we go. you know i'm a kayak denier! you can't possibly believe kayak compare hundreds of travel sites

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howard: more now of my conversation with former a.g. bill barr. are you surprised, having published this book, that trump has described you as a swamp creature, a rino, weak, pathetic, a broken man seeking the approval of the media? >> no, it doesn't surprise me at all. howard: a lot of people -- >> no, it doesn't bother me because he says these kinds of silly attacks on everybody who -- yeah, he is not capable of sustaining a durable relationship with someone unless they are, essentially, dependent on him, and i'm not. people who know me know that i went in to take the job at the department not really caring what people thought. i don't care what the media thought, what congress thought, what the president thoughtment on criminal justice matters, i'd make the decision based on what i thought was right, and that's what you need in an attorney general. howard: the media's favorite question now, and you alluded to this earlier, should you have

quit earlier and gone public with the greater concerns you describe in this book? any regrets on that? >> no, because i didn't have grave concerns before the election. he was a tough boss to deal with, but his policy -- things were worked out. his policies were sound. finish i thought we had a lot of accomplishments. it was his style, it was his style that was rankling, but you don't go out and say i think the president acts like a jerk a lot of the time. a lot of people already understood he acts like a jerk a lot of the time. howard: but saying publicly president obama, prosecute president obama, prosecute biden, step in on behalf of political allies. i know you say you have a kind of thick skin about this, but didn't it reflect poorly on you as attorney general? >> well, no, because that was in may where after i dealt with the flynn matter, he came out and he started talking about the need to are prosecute biden and obama. and i got -- gave a press

conference at that point where i laid out what i was going to do between then and the election. i said there's no way the department's going to be used as a political weapon in this election. the american people are going to have a free choice to make, and we're not going to use the criminal justice process. and then i said that from what i see, there's no basis to think that either biden or obama would be under investigation. howard: so for all the ballots, you're glad that you -- battles, you're glad that you worked for donald trump? he doesn't sound so glad -- >> i deemed myself as working for the country at a difficult time, and i'm glad that i did it, and i would do it again because i thought the circumstances were serious, and i thought i could contribute. howard: bill barr, thanks very much for joining us. >> thank you. howard: that's it for this edition of "mediabuzz." i'm howard kurtz. we're working as hard as we can to bring you the latest on the terrible war many ukraine while also dealing with hunter biden or a former attorney general.

we'll continue the conversation on facebook and twitter. check out my podcast, media buzz meter. you can subscribe apple itunes, google podcast or on your amazon device. back here next sunday, 11 eastern. we hope to see you hen with the late buzz. ♪ ♪ i'm amber, i've lost 128 pounds with golo, taking release. i have literally tried everything. i was on the verge of getting gastric bypass surgery, and i saw the golo commercial, and it was the last thing i tried 'cause it worked.

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