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howard: in just a moment, we'll talk to to corey lewandowski. most debates are heavily hyped by the media and turn out to be the less than dramatic. that the does not look like the case with tuesday's a answerer bc debate. donald trump, kamala harris, which could easily thin this -- tip this very tight election. harris appeared in spirits burg with joe biden who -- pittsburgh with joe biden who spoke mostly about his own record. >> that's why kamala and i are so proud -- [applause] so proud of the greatest job creation record of any president in a single term in american history. >> joe biden has been one of the most transformative presidents in the united states. howard: but the does she want to be linked so closely to the man that a democrats and the media forced out of the race? >> her slogan should have been i'm not joe. right now she's not i'm -- she's i'm not trump, and i don't think it's going to work. >> she's to going to sink like an anchor, he's going to be an

anchor around her because the biden-heifers administration is incredibly -- biden-harris administration is incredibly unpopular. howard: donald trump slammed the vf for her original position banning fracking which she has nip flopped on. >> -- flip-flopped on. >> she said it a hundred times, there will be no fracking. then just recently she said, yes, i could approve frack. look, this is, this is a woman who is dangerous. i don't think ooh too smart, but let's see. howard: what's most revealing in the campaign are unscripted moments, and that's the appeal of the debate. the candidates don't know what questions are coming. i'm howard kurtz and this is "mediabuzz." ♪ ♪ howard: there has been no shorage of pundits and progress

knost caters handicapping tuesday's debate. >> foo if i'm donald trump at this debate, do you agree with joe biden? the country believes, 80% of the country if not believes the country's on the wrong track. >> i guarantee you next week on the debate stage we are going to the the hear more hissing from trump and more sort of nonsensical statements and attacks. >> acting as if there's some false equivalency between what kamala harris' campaigning on and about and what trump is campaigning on and about count serve this country well and, frankly, it's a poor reflection on the media if that happens. >> all you need are eyes and ears to sense that any momentum harris may have had, it was just entirely media-generated. it was the long on social media hype and brat vibes but just short on substance. howard: joining us now from west palm beach, corey lewandowski who was donald trump's first

campaign manager in 2016 and now has joined the campaign as a top official. welcome. how do you see the debate, corey? you say kamala harris is an easier opponent than 81-year-old joe biden, but she's 59, she's clearly energized her party and improved her standing over biden's to. >> yeah. but, howie, here's the difference: she can run from the biden administration and the failures she's been part of, but she can't hide. we can go back and look at her tenure whether as attorney attorney general or in the u.s. senate or now as the vice president. she's continuously changed her position, some say lie about her positions when it comes to the border wall, fracking and no tax on tips. she continuously takes over the trump agenda on the positions that a donald trump has, that he's articulated to the american people because she knows the agenda that she and her boss, joe bide, and her running mate, joe walz, have are so outside

the -- tim walz have, are so outside the mainstream. how'd how'd donald trump has criticized florida's 6-week abortion ban, he's said another trump term would be good for reproduct we've rights, i i know that's sparked backlash, and he says insurance companies should pay for ivf treatments and he favors decriminalization of marijuana. those are pretty clear signs he's moving towards the center. >> those are positions that most of the american people aren't voting on. look, they're voting on crime, national security issues and most importantly, howie, the number one issue is the economy. it is always the case. and the question you have to the ask yourself, are you better off today than you were pour years ago? and -- four years ago? if donald trump appointed three pro-life judges that overturned roe v. wade so it goes back to the states and the states now decide through elections what those laws are going to look like. and what happens in kansas and ohio may be very different than what happens in a a state like new york or arizona.

howard: sure. >> so the states are the laboratories of democracy, and all donald trump has done is give the people the opportunity to vote on how they want to govern themselves, and that's how the system's supposed to work. howard: kamala harris, who's also moving towards the center, insists trump will sign a national abortion ban when he's express itsy -- explicitly said he will not. >> of course question says -- she says that. we know the democrats' position, and particularly tim walz's position is death up until 40 weeks, death after the baby is born. what donald trump has said is he's in favor of the three exceptions, rape, incest and life of the mother which i think most of the people in america agree with. but the democrats are so extreme on this issue, and that's the only issue they want to to run on because they're running from their record, howie. they have nothing to stand on to the make americans' lives better. howard: kamala harris has also flipped on banning of plastic straws. i just wanted to get that in

there. she just tweeted, the vice president said that trump will end the affordable care act. is that his position? if. >> of course not. listen, again, what is kamala harris for? from our estimation the we have done since kamala harris has been the de facto nominee, 34 sit-down interviews or press conferences where donald trump and j.d. vance have answered questions. kamala harris and tim walz have done exactly one. she spoke for just under 17 minutes, there was of no pushback during that a interview. tim walz's answer of why he lied about carrying a gun into war zone was because he has bad grammar, and the only thing harris could say was the biden administration didn't ban fracking even though she said she would do it on day one. as the vice president, she didn't have the ability to do it. i believe we should listen to what she says. she wants to ban fracking. that would be devastating to the people of pennsylvania. howard: well, i can ask because when donald trump was president, he did try to get rid of obamacare, but i think he's moved on from that, so i wanted to clarify. dick cheney, once known as darth

vadar, mr. weapons of mass destruction, says he's voting for kamala harris because he says trump is the greatest threat to democracy in american history. is that a setback for your campaign? >> look, it's not a setback. look, you know, here's the bottom line, i don't understand this motion that donald trump is a threat to democracy. he went through a competitive primary if process on two separate occasions including this year, he won more votes than any candidate in the history of the republican party. the people have chosen him to be the nominee. kamala harris has been anointed by the creme can karates -- democrats, never went through the process, kicked joe biden off the ballot because we saw his terrible debate performance. the real threat to to democracy? you remember this, howie, they tried to keep trump off the ballot in some of those battleground states, and even the liberal supreme court justices said you can't do that. kamala harris has just been anointed to be the democrats never went through the primary process, didn't get any votes. that's really what this is about.

we have a process to go through which allows individuals to vote on who their nominee talk about -- should be, and she completely bypassed it because her radical ideas are so far out of the mainstream that she couldn't even win a primary. of look, i believe that the system was fair. rfk jr. probably would have been the democratic nominee, but they did everything they could to keep him off the ballot. howard: that's an interesting take. so you're not particularly concerned about dick cheney, you know, representing the old republican party, i guess you would say. >> well, he's clearly the old guard, the guard, you know, the country club republicans that don't support donald trump because he's for what we used to call the blue dog democrats, the he can traditions and the plumbers and the workers who go out every day to earn a living whose jobs are being decimated by illegal aliens coming across the border, some say as many as 20 million. we know at least 100 people on the terror watch list have come through this country. heir taking jobs from these

people, and i don't really care what dick cheney says. we saw what happened to liz cheney in her last election, she was absolutely destroyed. the people said you don't represent us anymore. they're bitter, angry and living in the past. howard: your campaign raised $130 tomillion last month, pretty impressive, but the harris campaign tripled that with $361 million. doesn't that a put you at a serious disadvantage when it comes to to organizing and the ground game? >> howie, what we have is we've got an amazing campaign right now. we've got a fantastic ground game. i've reviewed it, i've looked at it, i feel very good about where we are. more than that, we know that these unions that traditionally turn their voters out for the democrats other than maybe the teachers yee union have no unit anymore because the rank and file are with donald trump. they want their jobs protected, they want their jobs to continue to grow, twhairnlgs to continue to grow, and hay know the only way to do that and if donald trump is elected president of the united states. so the traditional turnout model that the democrats have used which are the the big unions

turning their voters out, the rank and file are no longer with them. we feel very good about where we are. we also know that most of the mainstream media's to going to continue to hype up the kamala harris-tim walz campaign. they want to tell everyone how she's a savior. howie, is she complicit or was she just naive to to what was going on during joe biden's three and a half years of mental health decline? it's time to hold her accountable for it. i feel very good about where we are, and historically speaking from strictly empirical data point, we are in the best position donald trump has ever been in from the public polls to be successful come november. howard: it's a very tight race. even some republicans who support trump, corey, say he needs to be more disciplined, stop calling harris dumb or wandering off at rallies talking about sharks. you've always been sort of the let trump be trump camp. what do you think -- >> look, i don't think we have time. howie, we just don't have time for political centness. we literally have a -- correctness. we have a woman and an

administration destroying this country, and if we have another four years anything similar to the biden-harris administration, we'll have 20 the million more illegals pouring into this country, gas prices that are probably 80 cents more a gallon, energy kansass we can't sustain -- costs we can't sustain, and every american will suffer under it. we've got a very short window, about 58 days left in this campaign before the voting ends, and we have to make sure that everybody who's concerned about the future of this country and our allies around the world will respect us us once again if donald trump is the president and our enemies will fear us. that's not the case right now. we're a laughing stock, and it's the time to get back to business. howard: corey, i'm coming up on a break, but kamala harris and the democrats keep warning about project 2025 the, the heritage project, even hoe donald trump says he had nothing to do with it. it is staffed by members, many of his former staff theres, and found parts of it abysmal. yet that seems to be a big talking point for the dems. >> well, it's because they have nothing else to talk about. what they don't want to talk

about which is cap, the center for american progress p63 members of that organization inside the biden-harris administration. they are for if taxpayer-funded reparations. they are for some of the most extreme surgeries particularly as it comes to transgender surgeries for children, not notifying their parents. when does the biden -- and kamala harris has said that the ceo of that a organization is phenomenal, the best, heir doing great works. donald trump has disavowed mig to do with project 2025, but no one's holding the harris, walz, biden team account for their support of the cap guys who want to use taxpayer-funded reparations and want to the make sure that children under the age of 112 can have sex change -- 12 can have sex change surgery. howard: more in a moment as we look at how he's dealing with the media. ♪ (inner monologue) seriously, i'm on the green and all i can think about is all the green i'm spending on 3 kids in college. with empower, i get all of my financial questions answered.

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howard: we're back with corey lewandowski. ap ran this headline after the horrifying school shooting in georgia, j.d. vance says school shootings are a fact of life, calls for better security. there was a lot of outrage about that. ap deleted the headline because vance actually said i don't like that this is a pact of life. >> howie, this is the not the first time that we have seen the mainstream media twist the words of someone on the conservative side. this is, you know, unfortunately, i'd like to say it was an honest mistake, but it's not. it always seems that when a headline is wrong or a story in is inaccurate, it's against the republicans. we've seen this now from big tech when mark zuckerberg has now admitted that he suppressed providing information that conservatives were sharing which we now know to be accurate at the request of the biden administration. so, howie, i'd love to say it was an honest mistake from the ap but, unfortunately, for many of us, i've been doing this for

almost a decade with president trump, and we have seen how many times he was been wrong and refused to correct it or they correct it on page a97 in one font. howard: when we first met with -- in 2019, there were two employee of the trump campaign, you and hope hicks. that was a long time ago. campaign stares are on edge as corey lieu wan dow can sky begins popping up on calls, taking meetings with staffers and searching for loyalists. you're paints as a big power struggle. >> here's what i like to say with myself, suzie and chris, i like to call us the three amigos. we're working together very closely every day. we've got an incredibly unified campaign structure here. i'm proud to have a campaign -- part in this campaign. i told the president that when he asked me to come back, i was willing to sacrifice time with my family because i think the future of our country is so

important. there is no in-fighting. they want to make that story happen because it's their narrative, but the reality is we are completely focused on one thing which is making sure donald trump is the 47th president of the united states, and we're doing it as a team. howard: "the washington post" ran about a 9 million word story on you including some of the personal controversies, but also kind of went into incredible detail on your relationship with trump and the work that you do. my question is, isn't there -- whether one approves of the process or not, isn't there a long history of presidential friends being hired as consultants because clients want access or have a meeting set up and yet you've got this, you know, incredibly lengthy can and not terribly positive look at the work that you do? >> howie, if they spent more time vetting tim walz or potential terrorists coming into the country than they did on me, we'd be a stayer country for -- safer country for it. they want to say i was out

making all this money and i did all these things. where is the story on the other side, the david plouffes of the world and those guys literally working for meta or facebook or are the lead counsels in those cases who are sitting there literally doing the debate prep with kamala harris? where are those stories? they don't care about that. the reason, it doesn't fit their narrative. i am a private citizen who's volunteering with this campaign because i want to make sure our country is better, and i believe the way to do that is by electing donald trump. i'm u.s.ed to the area -- arrows, and i'm okay won with it, howie. i've decided to do that because it's the right thing to do. but the washington compost, as we call it here, wanted the destroy my reputation. the truth is, howie, this is a staff story that nobody cares about. the thing we should be talking about is what's the ageneral -- agenda for america going forward, and kamala harris should be held accountable for it. nobody cares what corey lewandowski is doing to

volunteer his time. howard: you've taken a lot of arrows over the years. in the '70s, i was doing stories on jimmy carter, billy's brother, final finally register thing for a part in libya. corey, great to have you on. thanks very much for joining us. >> have a great day. howard: when we come back, hunter biden shocks prosecutors by suddenly pleading guilty to tax evasion. ♪ everywhere but the seat. the seat is leather. alan, we get it. you love your bike. we do, too. that's why we're america's number-one motorcycle insurer. but do you have to wedge it into everything? what? i don't do that. this reminds me of my bike. the wolf was about the size of my new motorcycle. have you seen it, by the way? happy birthday, grandma! really? look how the brushstrokes follow the line of the gas tank. -hey! -hey! brought my plus-one. jamie?

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howard: hunter biden shocked just about everyone by pleading guilty in his tax evasion trial as a it was about to start. >> hunter decided to enter his plea to protect those he loves from unnecessary hurt and crawl humiliation. cruel i humiliation. howard: joining us now, jonathan turley, author of new book, "the

indispensabling right." so you heard his lawyer, abbe lowell, talk about humiliation. hunter biden, having going -- gone to trial and lost in the gun case, why do you think he started to -- decided to plead guilty. >> that they literally put him in the worst possible situation. if he had done this last year as many of us were saying, he could have gotten significant benefits. but at this points it's called a naked plea. and then when he went in to say i want an al ford plea, it just came across as privilege. it came off like, well, okay. call the shot here. you're accused of nine felonies. you're guilty or you're not, and eventually he had to do it. that was typical of his defense. there's a series of jump scares that didn't work, and they end up in a worse position -- howard: and his own lawyers would tell him he'd probably the

lose -- lose the case, and his family members would have to testify. there was a time when they were trying to use foreign buck-raking, and there was a lot of it, obviously, to possible wrongdoing by president biden. now that his dad is out of the race, i'm seeing the stories are sixth, seventh or eight eighth on the home page. do you think the media's interest has declined? >> i'm not sure how much interest there was in the main seem media -- [laughter] howard: once he was indicted finish. >> i'm talking about his father. howard: that's right. >> and this trial was going to highlight a lot of those connections and presented a serious problem not just for the biden people, but for the harris people. so i'm not too surprised that it's diminished because there's a sense that you're sort of kicking this guy on his way with out the door. but there's obviously in the campaign season law and politics collide in a way that's not always a predictable. howard: yeah. well, if his father were still the candidate -- >> i think so.

howard: -- be a lot more intense. this other case, doj indicting two russian members of russia today for allegedly challenging or channeling, i should say, $10 million to spread pro-russia and anti-trump propaganda. excuse me, pro-trump messages. and also brought charges against former president trump advisor dmitri simes who's on russia's channel 1 who reffed -- received more than $1 million and a car and driver, you should always have that thrown in -- the. [laughter] and three conservative voices saying, hey, we were victims obviously scheme. >> you know, the thing is governments have been doing this a wrong time. i wrote a column when the russiagate thing came out and, ultimately, it was a small group in st. petersburg of less than a dozen people who were going on the internet trying to influence a campaign that was in a full, you know, catastrophic, you know, fire in the united states. and it was like spitting in the ocean to suggest that they made any difference.

on something like this, the thing that struck me originally was how stupid it is. why would you even do this? you're not really affecting anything. howard: the russians are obviously trying to mess with the election. >> right. and we have messed with other elections. a lot of countries point at auto-- at us. when you're outside the u.s., they'll say, forgive out,, but the leading intervener in air air affairs is the united states. we have a checkered record of that. howard: so in one sentence, is this a big deal or has it been sort of overplayed? >> i think it's a big deal in the sense that we have to hold the line, pursue these things, we've got to be aggressive. i'm surprised that the learning curve is so long for the russians, but who knows what their motivation is. howard: jonathan turley, thank you so much. good luck with the book, which i've started to read. next on "mediabuzz," clay travis and kevin corke on the

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howard: in the runup to tuesday's presidential debate, donald trump is trashing the network hosting the event. >> they are the most dishonest network, the meanest, the nastiest. but that was what i was presented with. [applause] i was presented with abc. if. howard: joining us now to analyze the coverage in nashville, clay travis, can cofounder of outkick, and here with me, kevin corke, fox news national correspondent. clay, why is trump slamming abc even as he's agreed to do this debate on tuesday on abc? >> well, i think there may well be a benefit here because he slammed the heck out of cnn, if i remember correctly, and then i thought cnn did an actual pretty decent job offing being fairly moderate in terms of their moderating obligations and special. pleasure -- and potential.

we've got the nfl about to kick off in a little over an hour, every now and then a head coach comes out and goes after to officiating, and a lot of times -- certainly it happens in the nba and college basketball, a lot of times the coach benefits because in the back of their mind, the officials are aware that their actions are being more severely scrutinized than they might otherwise have, and it works sometimes to the favor of that team. i think donald trump is trying to put abc on the spot, shine a spotlight on on what he believes is likely to be their bias before it even starts in an effort to try and get them not to be as a biased against him as maybe other people would anticipate. so that's my chess maneuver if here if i were analyzing it. [laughter] howard: kevin, is this working the refs or laying the groundwork if he's seen as not doing all that a well? >> a little from column a, a little from column b. i agree with you, he understands there's a history there. there's the donna blah civil

history, the george stephanopoulos who famously worked for the clip opses. i also think he's bracing hymn. if he performs poorly or doesn't hit the answers as well as his opponent does, he can say, well, it was rigged, to use a very familiar trump phrase. howard: right. the moderators for those who don't know are david mover and -- muir and lynn say davis. clay, any doubt in your mind that donald trump is moving towards the center on issues such as abortion and marijuana? >> not. i think it's actually super smart of trump. i was looking at the "the new york times" poll results that came out this morning on the race, and kamala harris is strongest on abortion. and if you look at how she's doing with women, young women in particular, to the extent that the trump can limit his losses with women or that kamala can limit her losses with men, we have a major gender gap in this election. and i actually think generally speaking trump has always been

fairly moderate on the abortion-related issue, and it's been hard to pin him down on exactly what he believes on that issue. and i don't think that's a politically bad spot for him to be in. so his, his ability to take any sort of voting power away from that issue is, i think, a sign of him attempting to the tack toward the middle as we sit here about 50- some-odd days out from the election itself. howard: kevin, any doubt in your mind that kamala harris, who's also moving toward the middle, is trying to separate herself from joe biden on tax increases, on the border? and the question then is, is that going to -- how much is she going to be held accountable for the record of what everyone now calls the harris-biden administration? >> exactly. and that's the tough challenge for her. the fact that they don't have a ton of information on their web site, i stand for this, my policy position is this --

howard: no policies. >> no policies. and what that means is i can go back and use all the videotape from back in 2019 19 and 2020 and say this is what she really thinks, don't believe her mouth. believe her mouth from before. that's a tough circumstance for them and this entire campaign. howard: clay, i say both sides are playing this game, and what i mean is trump ignores the fact that kamala harris has dropped her opposition to the fracking which is stance she took when he ran for president and acting like it's her current position. kamala ignores trump disavowing project 2025 the calling it abysmal and acts like he's embraced this 900-page plan by the heritage folks. >> i think the difference is most people have a pretty general sense what donald trump stands for. of he's been president once before. he has tons of policy proposals out there. he'll answer pretty much every question under the sun. kamala has -- axios had a great piece up on friday, believe it

was, where they talked about nine different issues that she either is not telling us what her current opinion is or has completely flipped. she now supports a border wall. you mentioned fracking. i do believe that -- she said she believes many reparations which now she won't even answer a question on. what i think when you really dive in here is people know what they believe about trump. they may not agree with him, but they know what he stands for. kamala has tried to hide what she stands for by having her advisers leak out different opinions that she now has changed her opinion on. and let me say this, i think this is important, joe biden, when he ran for in 20 to 20, was smart enough to stay away from far left-bing opinions. he never said -- left-wing opinions. he never said he supported defunding the police, kamala did. he never came out and said he supported reparations, kamala did. he never came out and said he wanted the ban plastic straws, for goodness sake, kamala did. biden, even in 2020 was running

towards the middle with the idea of running -- winning a general election. kamala tried to tack to the far left when she actually last time had her policy perspective. it's one thing to evolve is, it's another thing to end up on the exact opposite side of what you told everyone you believed in just a few short years a ago. howard: right. well, kevin, same question to you. kamala harris has, of course, done one interview, and that's with cnn's to dana bash, and reporters haven't had a chance to ask her, why did you change your mind? was it a mistake? she hasn't offered -- >> and when, i think, is also important too, howie. you can say i've had a change of position, but i want to know when in addition to why, what new information did you take on, and how does that square with what you've said repeatedly in the past? howard: yeah. i'd like to know the answer the some of those questions too. >> indeed. howard: both sides, i think, are doing, as i say, what general election candidates do, try to reach out those more moderate

voters who might have been turned off by rhetoric becamed at the base of -- aim ad at the base of both sides is. vladimir putin, rather sarcastically, saying he supports kamala harris because of her infectious laugh. that vla dis, -- vlad, he's such a kidder. after the break, are kamala harris and tim walz getting enough media scrutiny? stay with us. our biggest challenge? uncertainty. hidden fees, surcharges... who knows what to expect! turn shipping to your advantage. keep it simple...with clear, upfront pricing. with usps ground advantage®. ♪ dry... tired... itchy, burning... my dry eye symptoms got worse over time.

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howard: in his fox town hall, donald trump took aim at kamala's running mate, tim walz. >> but he is a weird guy. he walks on the stage, there's something wrong with that guy. [laughter] and he called me weird. and then the fake news media picks it up. that was the word of the day, weird, weird, weird. howard: clay travis, in this election, which everyone says is the most important in our lifetimes, how did it become about weirdness? >> well, because we used to have a debate about who we would most like to have a beer with, if you remember. we've actually had a lot of candidates that don't even drink of late -- howard: including trump. >> -- for all his perceived flaws doesn't drink. joe bide, i don't believe, was a drinker. -- joe biden. george w. bush, even when i remember that turning into a big discussion, he had stopped drinking when he was 40 years old. but i think what there is a desperate craving for, this is my sense of the nation, is people would like things to just be normal again. and it's hard for things to be

normal if a candidate is weird. so it is a method of attacking the lack of normalcy that a candidate will bring by claiming that that they're weird. now, what's interesting to me about a walz doing the weird attack is there are lots of left-wing cities famously austin, texas, for example, which always bragged about being weird and eccentric and not in the normal flow. so that the line of attack is a bit strange to me. howard: right. >> particularly coming from the left. and trump even came on my show and said you can call me a lot of things, but nobody's ever called me weird, which i thought was funny. so here we are. howard: he did not like that. let me get kevin in. my view is all polling politicians are a little weird because given the overwhelming ambition that it takes to run for president. >> indeed. if you're the former president, you can run with this in part because of tim walz's sort of

jolly -- howard: he's a hunter, a fisher. >> he's campy. he's almost campy when he gets out there. he's dancing around, and i get it. this works in this instance, howie. ultimately, what happens is most voters can tell if you're a person, a woman or man, that they like. if they like you and your politics line up, you're god -- golden. but what's tougher is are they like likable enough to to win middle. that's yet to be seen. howard: when barack obama said to hillary, you're likable and he got creamed for it. tim walz's day at the minnesota state fair, he chomped on a pork chop on a stick, he admired the dairy princess butter coveringsings, he handed out ice cream at the dairy goodness bar counter. but the times missed the real news, what happened when murder of the tragedy for israel reached the fair. >> what's your reaction to the six hostages being pound in

gaza? >> thanks, everybody. howard: so, clay, the minnesota governor -- who would be a heartbeat away from the presidency -- just runs off a when asked a question about the middle eastsome many. >> yeah. and i think it's because of, unfortunately, the substantial anti-semitism on the left which i believe is the reason tim walz was the vp pick over josh shapiro given shapiro's in the more significant state of pennsylvania. and it's not just this puff piece, by the way. did you sort of the the hag yoking my from the washington post talking about the person, spices or whatever it was that kamala harris had gone in and bought recently? howard: you don't care about the spices? that was the most interest thin- [laughter] >> i'm an awful cook, so i don't know one spice from another. i do think it's emblematic of if we're going to have all of these different reporters from a variety of media outlets following kamala harris and tim walz around everywhere, toes tense the, goal is to get information to make voters better able to analyze and consider whether they're the right choice or not.

kamala and walz being completely unwilling to interact with the press, to me, actually humiliates the press itself and lees them -- leaves them writing about a ice to cream and spices as opposed to telling us what they actually believe on the issues that most americans care about. howard: the ice scream and spices campaign. kevin, i know a vp candidate doesn't want to get out too far ahead of the nominee, but tim walz couldn't manage a couple of sentences about the hostages? it was heartbreaking for the families? he just said, i'm out of here? >> this is a terrible strategy for a couple reasons. first of all, people don't get to to know you. you're going to be in a leadership position in this country. at bare minimum, you can be consoler in vp or the second consoler in this circumstance by simply saying the right thing about the devastating loss and discovery. but i think the other problem is this is part and parcel to the campaign which is say less and do less because we can win this on vibes. finish and that's what they

think. that's how they're operating. i'm not sure it's going to work, but so far it's been reasonably successful, and they're less likely to change it, i think, because of that. howard: clay, i've got half a minute. do you think the harris-walz team are getting enough media scrutiny compared with the generally hostile coverage of donald trump? if. >> certainly not. and let me give you a good analogy here. in 1980, jimmy carter lost the election to a large extend because he was seen as weak for his inability to get american hostages back from iran. hersh goldberg 40 lin was shot in the back of the head, i think that hamas did that because there is a profound weakness in the biden-kamala administration. the lack of insistence on having answers to questions like these relating directly to the health, security and safety of american citizens, i think, is a profound failure of the media and reflective of how much we've changed since 1980 when the hostages were a major scenario and situation in the election. howard: yeah.

>> we still have a bunch of american hostages being held by hamas. we're not getting them back, and they don't respect us. howard: still to come -- by the way, thanks, clay and kevin. we'll go to israel where huge demonstrations are being fueled by fury over killing of six hostages. ♪ ♪ duckduckgo comes with a built-n engine, like google, but it's r and doesn't spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browsel but it blocks cookies and creepy ads that follow youa and other companies. and there's no catch. it's fre. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today.

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howard: as massive demonstrations by half a million protesters paralyze parts of israel for days, benjamin netanyahu launched a media blitz. >> jerusalem opposed the reporting that you're 90 president there in negotiations -- 90 to % there in negotiations, towards a ceasefire deal. would you say that's accurate? >> no, it's exactly inaccurate. but now to go and make concessions after these murders?

it just, it's a license to kill hostages. that's what hamas will understand, kill hostages, get concessions. howard: joining us now from tel aviv, taye i didn't think so -- trey yingst, hour of "black saturday -- author of "black saturday." trey, how can the killing of these six hostages by hamas, including an american as clay travis mentioned, be seen as a anything other than a barbaric act that decimates any hope of a ceasefire deal? >> reporter: well, howie, that's exactly right. it was a barbaric act. the education cooks of these -- execution of these six hostages, they've been in gaza since the october 7th massacre. and, look, this really changed the level of pressure on these negotiations, and it has changed the israeli psyche about what to do and when. it's part of the reason you saw half a million people in the streets of this city, tel aviv, overnight if demanding a hostage

agreement to bring the remaining captives home, but it's also something that politically has really become quite unpopular, the fact that more than 11 months into this conflict, there are still more than 100 toisraeli hostages both dead and alive still inside gaza. howard: yeah. and let's not lose track of the fact that merely seizing civilian hostages is, in my view, a war crime. but a lot of protesting israelis, and you the this -- you know this, say bibi cares more about saving his own political career than making a deal to save the remaining hostages who are alive. >> reporter: and, look, the reality of the situation is that both hamas and israel will have to make concession ises if they want an agreement. and if they don't want an agreement, the war will continue. but they have to be clear with the public about what comes next in all of this. the pressure will continue to rise in israel, and israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu, as you heard in that clip when he spoke with brian

kilmeade just last week, said they're not close to a deal. american negotiators are working this weekend trying to put forward a new bridging proposal to close the gaps indirectly between the two sides, but officials here do not believe that proposal will be successful. howard: yeah. it seems to me that there's last minute demands by each side, i'm not sure each other really wants a deal. you tweeted the other day you can have empathy for israeli civilians and palestinian civilians. don't lose your humanity, excuse me. you've seen the carnage and the suffering up close. is this part of your book, "black saturday," which is out october 1st? >> reporter: absolutely. we were in southern's ceil to -- israel on the morning of october 7th as the massacre was unfolding, and i write about that in "black saturday." but i also go deeper into the stories, speaking with the people directly affected by the r war. i interview hostages who were dragged into gaza on that

fateful morning and later released, i interview palestinian civilians who give a new perspective about what was -- what the war was like inside gaza. there's one moment where you hear about a hospital in khan yunis, a palestinian journalist is outside reporting and just a few hundred feet away, one of the hostages from the community is being held inside the medical complex. howie? howard: and we have about a minute. that kind of detail and talking to people on all sides, what's been the impact on you? i mean, you've seen this up close as much as any journalists on the planet. >> reporter: i talk about this in "black saturday" as a well. it has been incredibly difficult to witness this. we saw people die in front of our eyes on the morning of on the 7th. and then we have reported on this war from southern israel but also inside gaza. i was inside the strip five separate times with the israeli military, and in "black saturday" i speak not only with

israeli officials including the defense minister, but also senior hamas officials to get a real understanding of the impact on the populations of both israel and gaza. personally, we're focused on the mission to continue telling this story on the ground as israel approaches the one-year anniversary of that deadly massacre. howard: all right. trey yingst, look toward to reading the book. and that is it for this edition of "mediabuzz." i'm howard kurtz. you can subscribe to my daily pod last every day, it's free, "media buzzmeter." i riff on the day's to top five stories plus the funny and the weird ones, to bring back that word from the campaign. apple itunes is a good place to do it. don't forget, we're back here every sunday, 11 eastern. i look forward to talking to you then. we'll have our postdebate analysis. this is the only media analysis show on national television. ♪ why can't they use my backyard!! with empower, we get all of our financial questions answered.

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arthel: 8p minus two day