Howard Kurtz, told Trump supporters
facts, and they don't like
the facts especially when it comes
to Donald Trump.
And the recent election audit that
took place in the state of Arizona,
so, Trump has not accepted the fact
that he lost
the 2020 general election.
So he's been badgering various,
typically red states to do an audit
to ensure that the election wasn't
stolen from him by Joe Biden.
Well, Arizona did end up doing
the audit, they wasted a bunch
of taxpayer money and
the outcome was that.
Turns out Joe Biden did in fact win
that state, and
there were actually more votes for
Biden than previously believed.
They found 99 additional votes for
Biden when they did this
recount, fun.
Now, Howard Kurtz reported that and
here's what that report look like.
>> Donald Trump unloaded on
the media last night for
their reporting of the Arizona
audit, commissioned by Republicans,
which found no
hard evidence of substantial fraud.
And in fact, awarded Joe Biden 99
more votes, and Trump 261 fewer
votes, but the former President
doesn't see it that way.
The Republican President of the
Arizona Senate, which commissioned
the audit by Cyber Ninjas.
Always makes me think of
the Teenage Mutant Turtles,
accepted the finding,
saying numbers are numbers, and
truth is truth.
And here's Trump trashing the fake
news which is reporting,
what is the press supposed to do?
>> All right, so standard stuff,
I mean, it is kind of rare to
see right-wing outlet
actually report the facts without
adding some caveats that will help
Trump feel good about himself,
but nonetheless, that led to a lot
of backlash toward Howard Kurtz.
Who tweeted, a little sad that when
the GOP-commissioned and
Trump-ally-funded Arizona audit
found Biden got 99 more votes,
people attacked me and the media.
Raising questions about possible
errors and fraud is not the same
as proving them, and was reported.
This is our tribal politics today.
So, the very people, Cenk,
who enabled Donald Trump's lies.
People who very clearly knew that
the election was not in fact stolen
from Donald Trump.
But provided validity to Trump's
lies, provided validity to clowns
like Sidney Powell and
Rudy Giuliani.
Now they're turning around, and
crying once they report the truth
to their audience.
When they're the ones who enable
their audience in the first place,
which means,
if this isn't a no cookies for
you story, I don't know what is.
So, Howard Kurtz,
here's the message.
[MUSIC]
No cookies for you, I'm sorry.
[MUSIC]
That's it.
That's my commentary on this, Cenk.
>> [LAUGH] Okay, all right, so
I'm going to go a little harsher.
>> You're in that mood today.
>> I am.
>> Go get him >> [LAUGH] So
here's the situation.
Howard Kurtz used to work at CNN
and when he had a very CNN type of
perspective.
>> Knock toss.
>> Yeah, and so
what does that mean,
a CNN perspective?
It was down the middle, left wing,
he does it, right wing, he does it,
everything is 50-50, and
the powerful are always right.
And I remember him basically
yelling at me, Unreliable Sources,
when that was showing CNN,
in disbelief that MSNBC would not
tell the truth.
He's like,
you're supposed to be the media
critic ,and you're yelling at a guy
who reported something that MSNBC
is doing wrong.
And so, but
that's long under the bridge,
who cares about that, right?
But my point there is,
he was right down the middle,
corporate media, got it, okay.
Then he goes to the Fox News, and
he's slaying it, and we shown you
many clips here of Howard Kurtz on
Fox, all of a sudden
it's a right-wing perspective.
It almost sounds like, and
looks like, you're just doing
whatever they tell you to do based
on whoever's paying you, and
by the way,
paying you a lot of money, right?
So hey, Burgundy will read anything
in the prompter, that's why I
call them news actors and
not news anchors.
So, which one was a real
Howard Kurtz, the one at CNN or
the one at Fox News?
I don't know, my guess is neither.
If you put him on MSNBC,
all of a sudden he'll sound
a little left-wing,
although not much is MSNBC.
So [LAUGH] now, coming back to this
story, he shot this chagrin to find
out that this gambling in this
establishment, he's like, Fox News.
Our audience is nuts,
I didn't know that ,right?
They don't like reporters,
that's news to me.
They don't like facts!
Yes, Howard,
they do not like facts.
And how did they get that way,
Howard?
Your employers.
>> Totally.
>> They're the ones who hired
Hannity, and Carlson, and O'Reilly,
and Ingram and
all of them to lie 24/7, my god,
Trump's definitely going to win.
Trump's got this locked up,
there's no question.
The only way he doesn't win
is fraud.
That's the only way,
that's the only way.
He didn't win, fraud, fraud, but
you guys lost 60 cases in
a row, okay?
>> Right.
>> No, I don't know.
Really, didn't Fox explain over and
over again, 60 cases,
60 cases even Trump's appointed
judge saying you have no evidence,
no evidence, no evidence.
No, instead Fox at a bare minimum
implied 1,000,
2,000 times over that the election
was actually stolen, and
that's why they're getting sued.
>> Right. >> But Howard Kurtz,
the newsman finds out today that
the Fox News audience might not
like journalism.
And that his own network might have
been lying to that audience and
that's why the audience is angry,
and doesn't trust anybody.
You're a newsman, Howard, and
you just discovered that.
>> Yeah, I mean, look, outlets,
especially outlets that purport to
do journalism are not supposed to
serve as co-opium dens for
various political tribes, right?
By the way, I mean,
you see this play out in so
many different areas of the media.
It's not just corporate-backed
media like Fox News, you see it
kind of play out with various
independent people who make money
off Patreon for instance, right?
I see it happen all the time,
where they get rewarded by
an audience, if they stick to
a certain narrative.
But once they deviate from that
narrative, the audience punishes
them, and the fact of the matter is
your job is to just tell
the audience what the truth is.
You can't change the facts of
the story, the facts are the facts.
Your analysis might get people
riled up or upset, but
you have to have faith that
your audience is smart, and
will maybe disagree with you.
But will come to a conclusion that
they're comfortable with, maybe
disagree with you, and then later
on you prove that you're right.
Like I did with Tulsi Gabbard and
a bunch of other things,
but nonetheless,
you know what I'm saying.
[LAUGH] >> I get it,
sometimes the audience gets upset
at you because your analysis might
not agree with their own analysis,
and that's fine, right?
But that's
not what's happening here.
What's happening here is the very
person who engaged in enabling
the lies is now shocked that once
he tells the truth, the people who
love the lies are upset with him.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah, come on.
>> So, look guys, last thing here,
actually, I'm glad Ana brought up
the Tulsi Gabbard example,
because it is a good one.
So when she first reported
the things that were wrong with
Tulsi Gabbard, a lot of our
audience didn't like it.
because they were used to liking
Tulsi because she had a lot of
progressive positions in
the beginning.
Now, she shed most of those and
is now openly in favor of war, and
drone strikes, and
all those things.
And it turned out Ana was right,
but we had the courage,
and most especially obviously,
Ana who did it in the first place,
had the courage to say it even
though we knew our audience might
not love it >> You know why though,
because our audience is smart.
So I get it,
that was a painful experience,
the audience turning on you and
being upset with you.
But I trust my audience, and
I trust that once I proven right,
they're going to like respect the
fact that I told them the truth.
Because to me whether you like me
or not, and regardless of what you
think about me, I want to make sure
you guys have the information.
My analysis is different,
you can disagree with my analysis,
that's fine, but
the facts are the facts.
I can't change
Tulsi Gabbard's record.
I can't change what she said on
camera, you get what I'm saying?
>> 100%, so now back to Howard and
how it applies to him.
Look, there are some folks who have
courage on Fox News, Chris Wallace,
we've now given him tons of credit
because he's earned it by asking
tough questions of both Democrats
and Republicans, right?
So Howard Kurtz is not in
that group.
And if you tell him this,
he's going to be outraged.
So you guys don't understand
Fox News is part of the beloved
establishment.
You guys seem like radicals
who are saying that some
of our hosts are lying.
That's outrageous.
And in Washington among people that
are powerful,
they do find it outrageous.
They're like, and
now it's a little less so.
But my god, five,
ten years ago if you said Fox News
was filled with liars, you would be
thrown out of DC or New York,
in any polite circles, in any club.
They would hate you forever for
it, right?
And that's the time that Kurtz is
used to.
So now when we challenge them and
say duh, everybody in the country
knows Fox News is lying about this
issue, and you just discovered it?
In the past, they would have
bullied us and steamrolled us with
corporate media,
now the Internet's too strong.
Howard, you're embarrassing and
everyone knows it.