>> it was just a few weeks ago that kevin mccarthy threw cold water on the idea pushed by marjorie taylor greene and over very conservative republicans of launching an impeachment investigation of president biden >> it would discredit if the american public sits back and looks, you just move something on the floor as serious as impeachment, and never going through a committee. >> but now, somethings changed, beyond hunter biden's sweetheart plea bargain deal falling apart while most of the media paying

little attention, new allegation s involving hunter and his father, some corroborated, some debunked, some disputed have surfaced and now the house speaker is actually embracing the idea of an impeachment probe and since there's no way the democratic senate would do that how should the press handle this? is it payback for the two trump impeachments? revenge for the trump indictment s? does it reflect a growing confidence that whistleblowers are correcting it to the white house miss deeds. it may just be an effort to damage joe biden before next year's election, in which case that will depend on just how much can be proven. i'm howard kurtz and this is " mediabuzz." >> president biden joked that with inflation declining, the republicans are going to have to find a new issue against

him. >> maybe it'll impeach me because it's coming down, i don't know. i love that one. >> but mccarthy shift on impeachment has totally reset the media conversation. >> i believe that we will follow this all the way to the end and this is going to rise to an impeachment inquiry the way the constitution tells us to do this and we have to get the answers to these questions. >> he's focused on the american family, but they want to focus on his family. >> i'm dumbfounded that all this growing body of evidence suggesting wrongdoing and certainly lies by joe biden about not doing business, not knowing about or talking to his son about business, is just yawn deaf by the mainstream media. >> this is sort of what they are trying to create. see the bidens do it there's some nefarious crime. >> it's a media blackout. we talked about it on cnn but they believe that this is information that warrants more investigation. >> i have a warning though at

the same time for the gop as tantalizing as all this is you've got to be careful of making joe biden out to be a victim, heading into 2024. >> mccarthy said an impeachment inquiry would help house republicans to investigate the president to which i ask have they not already been investigating for six months? >> howard: joining us to analyze the coverage ben domenech, fox news contributor and amisha cross, political analyst for sirius xm. most of the media view kevin mccarthy's sudden change of heart on impeachment as ludacris especially since he brushed it off last month. how serious is this? >> i think it's very serious and there's a difference between what he brushed off and what he's saying now. essentially what he brushed off was the idea that you should just bring impeachment to the floor automatically, that you should have a 48 hour period, basically, that goes right into impeaching the president. i think that what mccarthy is basically saying is we need to have an inquiry because we don't

trust the department of justice to be honest with us about all the different things that they have been looking at, based on both the commentary offered front-facing from these whistleblowers and what we've seen from the department of justice in terms of their treatment of the hunter biden affair in all different manners. one thing that i do want to point out here is we are underestimating the amount of support for impeaching the president that doesn't come from the far conservative wing of the party. in fact, it is becoming a mainstream republican issue, meaning that the majority of the party we're at a tipping point now is in favor of impeaching joe biden. joe biden is the least popular president at this point in list archdiocese his presidency going back for 50 years other than jimmy carter. he's not a popular president. he does not have the support of the american people and in fact if you poll in the question the vast majority of the american people including independents are actually convince that he's done unethical behavior that may rise to the criminal, so from my

perspective, this is something that we're, you know, mccarthy is basically responding not to the far right in his coalition. he's responding to the center. >> howard: an issue with many journalists criticizing the house speaker for taking this step and with ben saying well joe biden is unpopular that part is true but is your relative popularity something that should determine whether or not you're impeached or not? >> whether you're popular or not should never determine whether or not, you know, the house goes through with an impeachment but i do think that ben is right on at least one point here. this is no longer something that can be talked about as republicans. they are the majority of the party, those in leadership as well as those who may not have been the folks who were eroded against donald trump post the 2020 election are very much trying to make this happen. part of it, i believe, is because what we're watching with donald trump happen, all of the court cases that he's battl ing, the multiple states where charges have come up against him, the new news that we found out about the documents case, and the forthcoming

charges in georgia. this gives republicans a way to try to filter the media into something that is not donald trump, and it also gives them the opportunity to in some ways quell the momentum that joe biden has had in terms of the economy, in regards to interest rates, the staving off of what would have been a recession. there are a lot of great things this president has done and they are trying to shift blame. >> we assume the forthcoming charges. we don't month that for a fact. ben, hunter biden's former business partner, devin archer, i think we have a picture together who by the way has been convicted of fraud in another case says the president's son put his dad on speaker phone calls with lots of people like the top executive or a top executive i should say of the burisma and according to the new york post biden spoke only vague but doesn't this differ from the past white house denial s? >> of course it does and one of the things that joe biden is trapped by is that he was so definitive when it came to the

2020 conversation about this , where he said nothing ever happened. there were no conversations. i've never talked to my son about, you know, never is a big word and when you say never, if you find one example of it, even one, and now it turns out that there are potentially dozens of examples, the question that i had and i think i've said this to you before, howie, is what was joe biden saying on these calls? maybe they just were pleasant ares. maybe they were just a sign that hey, i'm connected at the top level from hunter. maybe nothing ever came of them, but we need to know what he was saying, and what was promised. what was conveyed to these different clients in terms of any kind of outcome that was promised to them regarding what they were paying for it. they were paying for something from their perspective. what did they believe and what was promised to them is something i think we need to have resolved. >> howie: from a media perspective it seems to me the press has to be careful here

, because sometimes, the members go on tv and they say $10 million bribe and when i see evidence of that, that will be the overriding story in the united states of america. on the other hand, the lack of interest, amisha in the mainstream media for these allegations, which by the way, one of the main republican sources, is a fugitive from justice so that hasn't always panned out but most of the media just don't seem very interested in pursuing this as they would if maybe donald trump was involved. >> well part of that i think is because as you know the media is a business. there has been no legitimate fer ver across the nation around chasing these stories and there's conversation amongst republicans trying to connect hunter biden to joe biden and nefarious crime family for years and none of it turned up to anything. >> wait a second. you're saying the media are business and therefore, most of their customers, their consumers aren't that interested in this or don't believe it, and therefore, that's why they aren't pursuing it? that doesn't speak very well of

the press. >> well i never said that it did but i do think that there's something to be said about people changing the channel, when this type of information comes up and acknowledging it's not something that breeds audience concern. they don't really care. >> but let me just suggest to you that just because the pictures of hunter doing all sorts of ridiculous and illegal things do great numbers for the daily mail does not suggest that we should ignore these things, which are actually more significant, you know? >> but do we know they are more significant? a lot of it is conjecture at this point. >> it's certainly more significant if you get $5 million or $10 million from one of america's adversar ies with the idea of affecting policy. >> if there is some bit of evidence that points to that being the case that there was a direct line between president biden and an affect equation of policy that's a different conversation. >> but why do you think, is there a rational reason? is there a not nefarious reason

for him to get millions of dollars from these places? >> i don't know what the reasoning was, and quite frankly, neither do the republicans trying to push this story and it sounds like we could not act as the blame -- >> i've got to disagree with you there. i think it's obvious they paid millions of dollars because they thought it would affect a change in policy. >> what they thought versus a president promising are two very different things. >> those are different things. >> i would like to make a distinction which is we know hunter biden did a lot of unethical things and because he used the biden family name, he did get a lot of money that he never would have got. how much his dad was involved is the question that remains to be seen but i would like to see more reporting on that, as opposed to only certain publications. >> yeah, i think, you know, the point that i would just say is this. there is no explanation that i have heard, no reasonable explanation, that suggests that this money was in any way directed at hunter biden other than trying to influence

american policy toward these companies and toward these nations. the question is, what did joe biden do that went along with that? what did joe biden say, what did he promise? what did he affect in order to respond to that or was this just hunter is the greatest con-man in the history of the world promising people things he could never deliver? >> no, that is a good argument. i don't think that hunter is the greatest con-man or businessman in general. i can't argue that point. >> great artist though. >> i do believe there's something to be said about a majority of industries but also, somebody having the last name biden when your father is president and talking about it and being able to wield that whether or not and in this case we don't know that the president was involved and i think that that is the crux here. >> howie: before we go, joe biden finally acknowledged his seventh grandchild on friday night, hunter's four-year-old daughter navy. friday night, statement to people -- >> his friday night news dumps go, i find this completely abhorrent. i don't know why the president of the united states, who is

supposed to be a man of empathy and of kindness, cannot simply have embraced this granddaughter along with the rest of his grandchildren, invited them to the white house, met them, et cetera. the idea that we're going to announce okay, now we're going to say that there's seven. it should have come, it shouldn't have been something that was even a question. it should have been something that was automatic and it has nothing to reflect in terms of anything positive about this family. it took the pressure of a more even dowd column in the new york times three weeks ago to make this happen. >> howie: right i'm glad you mentioned that because other liberal commentators pummeled the president over this and now he's trying to rectify it. when we come back hunter biden's highly favorable plea bargain turns into a fiasco. you can find us in big cities and small towns across the us, where our focus is to always support the people who live and work there. because you call these communities home, and we do too. pnc bank.

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>> the media respecting a routine hearing in delaware that the judge would simply bless hunter biden's sweetheart plea deal that spared him any jail time on two tax charges but it was the other charge pleading guilty to lying about illegal drug use on a gun purchase form which would later be expunged from his record that caused the deal to fall apart prompting the president's son to plead not guilty in the overall case. media conservatives seem pretty happy, ben, that hunter's plea deal fell apart and i think many media liberals aren't that comfortable defending it either. >> i don't think they are comfortable defending it in part because it seems clear that there were sort of underhanded moves going on here on the part of the doj, that they didn't necessarily want to put in this agreement. it was very odd that this agreement was not given to the press before the actual hear ing, because if they had had it, i think that they would have analyzed it to a degree that would have made it far less popular. it would have been something that be considered look, what's

going on with this , this seems very vague in certain spaces, and obviously, the crux of this is whether hunter is going to be prosecuted for failing to register as a foreign agent, and that's something that has been emphasized far more in recent years than it was prior to that. it's something that sort of was taken as an area of law that wasn't as emphasized in washington for a long time, but you know, clearly, here, the doj had some agreements, some hand shake agreements that came out in court basically, and the whole thing blew up in a way that frankly, embarrassed every lawyer in the room to a significant degree. >> how come they couldn't work this out? >> exactly. >> i think the skeptical tone of the coverage by the media is because there's a lot of people assume that the president's son got preferential treatment and many defendants facing just a similar tax charges would have gotten some jail time. >> yeah, this was a conversation amongst lawyers, and i do think that the diversion side of this , because remembering that a lot

of this occurred while he was in the throws of addiction, that large portion of this was him agreeing to a program. that typically is not given towards an individual who also has a weapons charge so i think that in and of itself is going to make this one a little bit more difficult to have a conversation around because no matter who you are that ones kind of hard to get around. the taxes were largely seen as they were quantified as misdemeanors but the weapons in and of itself is a different story and i do think that that one raised level of attention by media it probably should have from both sides because i will say this no matter what side of the aisle you were on it was covered. specifically because of some of the details and once the deal fell apart exactly what laid into the deal to begin with and i questioned how we got here, because quite frankly, i don't know any judge, trump-appointed or not, would have been fine with that type of deal. >> howard: i do want to put up a picture when we talk about the possible connections of hunter and joe of devin archer who by the way convicted him in

an unrelated fraud case but there you see him with the president and hunter and he's a source of a lot of allegations about president biden joining some of these phone calls, and he's supposed to testify this week, we'll see , ben, we have the whistleblower allegations about being constrained by prosecutors and not being able to pursue these accusations. why has that gotten so little traction in the press? >> look, i have a very skeptical view of the legacy media when it comes to their ability to react to things based entirely on what they think the political wins are, the direction the political winds are blowing. the president is unpopular, but i think that had the mid-term elections gone worse for him, i think that we would have seen a lot more interest on the part of a lot of these media entities in this story. it was because he overperformed or its viewed as his approach overperforming. they backed off it.

they pumped the brakes a little bit and i think that's because they thought, you know, maybe if joe biden is not going to be somebody who can win re-election , then, you know, we should be aggressive on this and push him out. now, i think they're more dubious. they don't necessarily feel like they should pursue these stories if they are going to damage him in front of what is going to be a very significant presidential -- >> the flip side of this coin is that journalists would love to see donald trump as the republican nominee because they think that with all these criminal cases and of course he's presumed innocent, he is the best person for joe biden to run against. >> is he though? [laughter] >> well that's a good question but i'm talking about a assumption which may be totally wrong on the part of the democrats but on the other hand if biden runs against somebody much younger then you have a different dynamic. >> this may sound very odd to your audience but i do agree very much with what ben just said. >> okay. >> with the understanding that

the mid-terms pretty much changed the calculation. biden overperformed or the democrats overperformed in a way that i don't think was necessarily expected by many on the right, just because of history and tradition when it comes to the flipping of the house, but i do think that going into this next election cycle things are going to be different and a lot harder and i think the biden administration recognizes those who are on the campaign recognize this , some republicans are giving them assist, we see desantis, you know, culture warring as much as he possibly can but for the most part, the democrats have a much steeper hill to climb. this go-around than they did before unless we see republicans not taking lessons from the mid-terms running again on things like abortion rights. that was unfortunate for them and pretty much an achilles heel. >> the other problem democrats have the president has very low numbers and their question about his age, so thanks so much. up next twitter is out, x is in. what is elon musk thinking?

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>> everyone like twitter's bluebird, everyone except elon musk who abruptly changed the company's logo to x, not only do many users hate the idea but the san francisco cops came out to prevent it from being erected on the headquarters. so what's more he didn't know that mark zuckerberg, whose just launched a copycat site threads holds a copyright on x. i took this up with kat timpf and author of the book "you can't joke about that." >> welcome. >> thank you. >> why has elon musk blown up the globally-recognized symbol of the twitter birds for a single alphabet letter, all the problems that twitter has, a d revenue cut in half, glitches, one more person going to sign up for x, because it's called x? >> no. i honestly, i don't think so. here is the thing.

i cope forgetting that it's even called x. when i go to it on my web browser i still type in twitter and see the bird and the app on my phone. i think obviously he's having fun with this. he really like the x thing and he and grimes call their son, but i still think when i talk about twitter and what i think about twitter i think of it again as twitter. >> so you're conscientious objective to the whole x thing. musk has great success, tesla, spacex, there's that letter again and he wants to create an everything app where you'll post, you'll do your banking, you'll buy stuff, things like that but wouldn't it make more sense to hold off until he had some service to rollout rather than just this name change out of the blue? >> yeah, i think that it probably would, because i haven't noticed anything different about it, as i've mentioned but obviously he's not a guy that plays by the rules, right? and he gets attention when he does this stuff. certainly might not be positive attention. i think that a lot of news

sources had a real heyday with writing entire articles about little bits of things that went wrong, like the daily beast did a whole piece just about how the x caused it to be blocked in indonesia because of associations with porn, or you know, issues with the sign changing, while they were trying to take the twitter sign down, so if you believe all press is good press, then this is a great thing, right? >> i think elon musk believes it and also kind of impulsive and likes being the center of attention. now mark zuckerberg got plenty of good press when he started his copycat site called "thread" 100 million people signed up in two or three days but since then, the level of engagement is down 70% and they openly say over at threads that they want to de-emphasize news and politic s, so maybe twitter is not quite dead yet? >> yeah, absolutely. i myself have not signed up for threads. i think the last thing that i need in my life is probably another social media app, but i think that a lot of people were complaining about twitter still

are complaining about it on twitter. no matter how much you complain about it i think there is still a place for it, and i don't think it's going to be that easy to destroy it. how many times people said that elon musk is going to destroy twitter or twitter is dead, haven't seen it yet. >> no, it's supposed to be toast but the reason that twitter still has a place for many of us is you go there when somethings happening, news, entertainment, culture, you get the latest stuff. it can also be very toxic, so that's why i think the obituaries are a little bit premature and by the way if elon wanted to project a friendlier image, he could have called it x o. so xo kat, and thanks very much for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> by the way, lebron james 18-year-old son is out of the hospital after going into cardiac arrest at a usc basketball practice. elon musk helped fuel a social media debate with this tweet. we can now describe everything to the vaccine but by the same token nothing myocarditis is a

known side effect, only question is whether it's rare or common but most medical experts say there's no evidence that vaccine recipients are at increased risk and are safer if they are vaccinated. next on mediabuzz the press still piling on ron desantis and now he says he'd like to hire rf k jr.. ♪ hit it ♪ ♪ it takes two to make a thing go right ♪ ♪ it takes two to make it outta sight ♪ ♪ one, two, get loose now ♪ ♪ it takes two to make a... ♪ stay two nights and get a $ 50 best western gift card. book now at bestwestern.com. this is your summer to smile. to raise your glass and reconnect. to reel in the fun and savor every bite. to help you get ready your aspen dental team is celebrating

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>> howard: joining us to analyze the coverage, robbie sua ve, senior editor at reason magazine and ron williams fox news senior political analyst. robbie the new york times writes desantis almost everyday, donors and allies remain skeptical about writing the ship, deep mistrust plaguing the highest levels not like he's doing great but it just seems like these and other news organizations just piling on. >> very lofty expectations were placed on desantis from the get- go and in some ways he's a victim of that, very positive attention he got and now he hasn't overtaken trump for first place in the context yet which he was never going to do easily or quickly. if this is going to be best case scenario is this is a bitter fight to the death. i think moving away from covid in the news cycle has been not good for him because honestly his best case to not just republican primary voters but eventually general election voters if we get to that point is that he handled covid very

well. his message, his policies resonate with both republicans and the rest of the country on that stuff. he's kind of detoured from that into some of these very kind of online culture war battles, woke ness stuff the disney stuff. wokeness clearly still unpopular with voters but he likes it but how many new people is it bringing in? you can concentrate on that too much. he may have done that. >> howard: in that same time story desantis and his wife boarded a private jet underscor ing that the campaign spent too much money. well the campaign did spend too much money but then you're always focusing on that one detail or metaphor that makes him look bad. >> well i think, you know, for a lot of this , picking up on what robbie said the expectations were high that he would fill the non-trump lane in terms of the republican primaries, but the hope was that he would, in fact, appeal to the donor class in a way that because the republican establishment is not a trump base would appeal to those donor

s. what we've seen is the donors falling away. that's real news, and the airplane story is part of that story, howie, because of the expense involved and again at a time when he seems to be lacking sufficient support to continue his campaign. >> howie: so desantis was asked by a journalist whether he would consider robert kennedy jr. , has vp, which of course will never happen and desantis brushed that aside but then said this. >> it's like okay if you're president, you know, sick him on the fda if he be willing to serve or sick him on cdc. >> howie: robbie why would a republican say yeah, rfk running for the democratic nomination, i'd like him to be a wrecking ball at a major health agency. >> yeah, i think we have recognized that was a mistake. >> howie: in fairness he backed off the next day. >> yeah, which tells you he knew it was a mistake. you can recognize, you can thank rfk jr. for the kind of free speech stance he's making. he went before congress,

democrats tried to stop him from even speaking, you know, you can agree with him and should agree if you're a republican running for the election that opposing lockdowns and vaccine mandates is absolutely right and rfk is right about that but he is a democrat. his energy and regulatory policies, i mean, he wants more regulations on drugs and other things for the fda. person in charge would not be a free market conservative thing to do. >> howie: but the elephant in the room and the media have been mixed on this is he has a long history of conspire after it theories, about chemicals in the water, why would desantis want to take on that baggage? >> look, the only reason i can make sense of this in terms of political analysis is he sees it as culture wars bait, that in fact it plays to the republican base that says we feel as if the elites are against us. we think that the national media doesn't report fairly on things like covid and possible cures

that exist and he thinks outside the box. rfk does. i'm being nice here. >> you are. >> and therefore, says desantis , oh, he'll appeal to people and bring some on. i mean, but to me this is a lot like thinking oh, you know because trump said something nice about lgbtq rights i can play on that and make trump out to be a supporter of gay rights and that's going to bring voters it didn't work. >> howie: we'll get to trump later so robbie the press is hammering desantis against another one of the florida issues for a change in the african americans studies, curriculum in school that says slaves at least learn some skills that could be useful later. now the governor has always taken this way out of context. there are in no ways defending slavery but again is he playing into the audience rather than the national one? >> i read the standards and 99% be uncouldn't have verse quality even for people on the liberals and on the left. a slight tweak to the wording of this would have avoided you say

african americans, enslaved people, learned skills and trades and better themselves, despite slavery, not because of slavery despite and then we wouldn't fight over anything. >> howie: some black republicans are going after him. >> these are guidelines not just part of the text, the counter-argument coming from the desantis camp is oh, you know there's a whole litany of discussion of slavery here but it's the guidelines that say oh, no, the guideline is we're going to emphasize the idea that there was benefit to slavery for black people and i mean, it's unbelievable, so tim scott says there's no silver lining. >> yeah, some black republicans have gone after him. >> and that's very unusual. byron donalds who is a freedom caucus, you know, conservative said this is wrong. he's from florida. i think that lots of people have said this is so offensive just, i mean the analogy as jews in concentration camps, that's ridiculous. >> howie: its certainly been pounced on and blown up by the

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>> howie: the justice department stunned the media by issuing an expanded indictment in the classified documents case with donald trump accused of destroying evidence by asking aids to delete security camera footage at mar-a-lago.

the original indictment charged that trump told his valet to move boxes of classified papers as a way of keeping them from federal investigators. now the property manager carlos deolivera also has been charged with going to the audio closet telling the boss wants the computer server deleted. after a 24 minute call with trump. >> does that stop your campaign for president, if you're sentenced? >> not at all. there's nothing in the constitution to say that it could and not at all, and even the radical left crazies are saying no, that wouldn't stop us >> howie: mediacom annotated or s on the right and left aimed at very different targets. >> two points of obstruction. these additional charges could carry more than 20 years in prison and i'm sure a parking tickets, jay walking, spitting on the sidewalk charges will be added any day now. it reads like something out of a

mob familial trying to please the boss. the boss wants the server deleted, kill the tapes, and then checking in on everyone's loyalty. >> they're obviously worried that a lot of the evidence against president did as it's laid out in the indictment comes from his lawyer. >> today's superseding indictment is a story of very willing and eager participation in donald trump's criminal conspiracy by some of the lowest level workers in donald trump's employ. >> howie: a lot of people find these multiple indictments confusing but if trump awarded aids to destroy the security camera footage as the indictment says that's pretty easy for voters to understand. >> yes, but first, we have to get through the republican primaries and the primary voters are finding out about this information and saying stop , stop, stop, i'm already convinced i'm voting for him right? the weaponization of the federal government is the number one thing uniting conservatives at this point, and in their view, donald trump is a victim of exactly that. exactly what he's railed about

exactly what his opponents the people running against him, most of them at least not chris cristi but most of the others are running on the same issue which is why they are never going to beat trump because if you believe in that if you think that's the most important thing donald trump is at the center of it being victimized by it so obviously, the various prosecutors investigators are going to put together very good cases and multiple jurisdictions and that's like going to happen, but it's not going to hurt him running for president in the primaries. >> howie: and the washington post reports trump has spent $40 million on legal fees that's what he's not spending on his campaign but even for republican to say oh, this is just a paperwork dispute, when you read the boss wants this done and so forth it's the old cliche from water gate is the potential alleged coverup worse than the crime? >> it's to the point where there's an accumulation of evidence here. if you're in the jury they will show you pictures of boxes of classified documents in bathrooms and closets and now

they have him, not only is he asking stuff to be deleted but they have people who are saying that's what he told me to do, so , you know, at some point, i see in the polls right now the most recent polls that there are more republicans who say well maybe he did do something wrong and you see a slight decline. he still has a tremendous lead but slight decline so you wonder is this the start of something bigger that's the worry for trump. >> howie: the indictment, robbie, says he's accused of destroy, mutilate or conceal evidence. i think the first two are really cruel, but look i see the parade of conservative pundits and republican lawmakers who will not address the indictment itself. they do these interviews and want to talk about joe biden's papers or hunter's plea deal anything that deflects the question. >> sure and it seems also need less, what was at stake here, especially with the keeping of boxes. he kept, he said he kept them because he just doesn't want to give them back. we all agree we wouldn't be here

and you know if you're a republican primary voter you should weigh that but when i hear from people, when i see the response, he's still a beloved figure. he's still the front of the pack and i don't think these indictments, again, just the raw political calculus, i don't think it's changing anything. in fact i think it's making him more likely he will be the nominee. >> howie: trump says in some of his all caps postings that the footage was not deleted and in fact was turned over to the doj. i want to congratulate you, you haven't brought up hillary clinton but democrats defended her for her private state department server which was an awful idea, and trump attacked her for 33,000 deleted e-mails, so is it a stand by your tribe no matter what and heck with any appearance of hypocrisy? >> lock her up? i mean, you know? >> democrats defended her republicans are defending -- >> i don't even see it's analagus in my mind because in one case, the government intervened and reviewed it and said they didn't see that there was a crime there

with trump, i think we have an indictment and so that's a bigger deal but i think that there is a lot of tribalism to your point, howie, and i think that, you know, i was listening to robbie and the thought that crossed my mind was people don't care about the specifics, the particulars of the indictment in some part because they are locked into the whole notion of grievance and he represents me against the elites, the establishment, and -- >> howie: coming after me instead of you. >> right he represents me in terms of my anger at the larger society and feeling as if someone doesn't care, that's a very dangerous thing because that is on cultism. >> howie: if trump ends up facing four indictments you don't think, you think if anything, this will convince, i mean, journalists will go crazy over every new superseding indictment. >> well i mean, big industry, what shawn hannity was bringing up animates the journalists. they have been out to get him from the beginning. >> howie: but you think multiple indictments just

persuades people already sympathetic to donald trump that the system is being rigged against him. >> yes, and remember, you know, due process. he's entitled to his defense we'll wait to hear what his people say. prosecutors, everyone that msnbc and cnn brings out to talk about this is a career prosecutor, used to constructing the argument. >> howie: some of them investigated trump in the past. >> so we don't hear from a lot of the defense attorney side of this so you're going to hear more compelling stuff from their side to complicate this picture so let's wait until we hear that >> howie: regardless what happens trump is going to be in and out of courtrooms during the heart of the campaign and that i think is going to have some effect but it also could make republicans say they are throwing the book at him to make sure he has little chance to be out there in the key states. >> since we're on mediabuzz let's address the media aspect of this , which is trump and his story is sucking up all the energy, all of it out of the republican primary race. if you're running against donald trump, you're also running

against media that's reporting constantly on donald trump. he is the star of the show beings and from a media perspective, why wouldn't you want to talk about trump? people want to hear about him. >> howie: right also good for ratings, they miss him from the old days because he put people in the seats caned of thing. >> when the joker says did batman kill you, what would i do without you that dynamic over and over again. >> that's where we are, robbie, ron, thanks very much for joining us. still to come kevin spacey is acquitted some editing for song "try that in a smallest and jeff zucker denies he's aiming to buy cnn. the buzz beater is next. young lady who was, mid 30s, couple of kids, recently went through a divorce. she had a lot of questions when she came in. i watched my mother go through being a single mom. at the end of the day, my mom raised three children, including myself. and so once the client knew that she was heard.

we were able to help her move forward. your client won't care how much you know until they know how much you care. ♪

>> let's race the clock on the buzz beater, go.

london jury acquitted kevin spac ey of sexually assaulting in a series of trials that has rendered the actor unable to work for six years and he was also found not guilty in trials here in the u.s. , was teary eyed in the courtroom and fired from the netflix drama " house of cards" and prosecutors called him a sexual bully but the actor said the charges are madness and a stab in the back a key witness who defended spacey, elton john. rudy guiliani admitted he lied in court when he made unfounded accusations of manipulating balancing against two georgia election workers. the former personal lawyer for donald trump, guiliani now says in a civil suit, filed by the mother and daughter who went into hiding after receiving death threats for his words carry meaning that is deflam a tori but he insists he's innocent. jeff zucker has been trying to rain raise money to buy his old

network and he spent the last year traveling the globe to raise money and a spokeswoman says any allegation that jeff has made, any effort to purchase cnn is false. he's never had any meaning or conversation buying cnn with anyone. variety stands by its story but according to the rep a stunned z ucker is demanding a re traction. >> it was a scary moment mitch mcconnell beginning a press conference when this happened. >> been good bipartisan corporation and a string of, um, -- >> after the senate minority leader posed for 19 seconds, fortunately he was able to return moments later and finished the presser. >> are you able to do your job? >> we're very glad the 81- year-old senator is all right but with a history of

other falls, one of which four months ago caused a concussion and broken ribs his colleagues are obviously worried. >> ♪ carjacking old lady at a red light ♪ >> a new twist for jason aldean 's song which rocketed to the charts after country music television banned it and the lyrics describe what happened to criminals around here we take care of our own, got a gun that our grand dad gave me, he denies the video is pro-lynching saying there's no reference to race, he didn't know the tennessee location was the site of a in indiana infamous 1927 lynching but there's been editing now with footage of a black lives matter protest removed, aldean's record label adp attributes that to a copyright issue but maybe it'll cool things down just a bit. that's it for this edition of mediabuzz, i'm howard kurtz you can subscribe to my podcast

we've got millions of downloads a year, apple itunes is a pretty good place to do it. we are back here next sunday, 11 eastern, hope to see you then, for the only media analysis show on national television. at pnc bank, you can find us in big cities and small towns across the us, where our focus is to always support the people who live and work there. because you call these communities home, and we do too. pnc bank. you won't overpay for glasses if you shop at america's best. they offer two pairs and a free, quality eye exam starting at just $79.95. i can see from your expression that you find that shocking. ...aaaaaaaand, you don't have ears. book an exam today at americasbest.com. ♪ ♪ we're reinventing our network... ...with smarter, more efficient routes... ...so you can deliver more value to your customers. fast. reliable. perfectly orchestrated.

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eric: it is a jampacked weekend for republicans trying to stand out in the crowded field for president. the candidate stepping up their meet and greet in iowa, pennsylvania and elsewhere for the summer campaign season, it heats up even more than the weather they are out there. we have coverage of all their doings hello everyone i'm eric ericsean this is a "fox news li" appeared hi arthel. arthel: hello eric, hello everyone i am arthel have opened the trail is hot today for gop hopefuls, several not yet ready to leave i