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More media bashing: Trump hits 'fake' networks, CNN, 'Morning Joe'

There’s a post-Thanksgiving buffet of possible topics, from the Senate scramble over tax reform to just who’s running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to whether Sarah Huckabee Sanders actually baked a pecan pie. (Really. That became a thing after correspondent April Ryan challenged the authenticity of said pie on Twitter. Seriously.)

But let’s start with the president of the United States slamming the media for the umpteenth time: This is no longer a feud or a battle but a permanent feature of the Trump tenure.

Trump now says all the networks, with one notable exception, are unfair to him, and yesterday he took to the Twitter:
“We should have a contest as to which of the Networks, plus CNN and not including Fox, is the most dishonest, corrupt and/or distorted in its political coverage of your favorite President (me). They are all bad. Winner to receive the FAKE NEWS TROPHY!”
I always say the president has every right to hit back at what he views as bad journalism. But I think the constant drumbeat of “fake news”—not about particular stories but entire networks—is losing its punch.
Trump’s most ardent supporters will cheer, but the other networks do stories that are legitimate--and Fox News does many of those same stories—even if some of them don’t please the White House. This doesn’t mean they’re not overly negative, sometimes biased, and occasionally inaccurate, but just branding everything “fake” has become more like a mantra than a specific complaint. So no trophy is needed.
But this and other recent tweets show Trump has been stewing about his coverage.
Easier to understand is his blast at MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” which had a little flap over talking about turkey on a show pretaped before Thanksgiving: “The good news is that their ratings are terrible, nobody cares!”
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski regularly rip the president in harsh terms, and it’s personal for Trump because they were once friends. But if nobody cares because of ratings, why does he care? (“Morning Joe” has beaten CNN in total viewers for more than two years but “New Day” is recently winning the key demo.)
Perhaps most troubling was this Trumpian slam at his least favorite network:
“@FoxNews is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them!”
The network responded: “It's not CNN's job to represent the U.S to the world. That's yours. Our job is to report the news. #FactsFirst”
This is an outgrowth of Trump having watched CNN International on his Asia trip. And for those who haven’t seen it, the international channel has a more sober tone than CNN here and features far more world news.
A number of journalists say Trump is sending a signal to other countries that could jeopardize CNN foreign correspondents who must operate in hostile territory.
I truly hope that’s not the case, and that Trump was just expressing his usual frustration with all things CNN.
Trump knows when he tweets these things that the media will go haywire, which means that he’s driving their agenda. But he may be approaching the point of diminishing returns.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m.). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz. 

'Blowback': Clinton campaign planned to fire me over email probe, Obama intel watchdog says

A government watchdog who played a central role in the Hillary Clinton email investigation during the Obama administration told Fox News that he, his family and his staffers faced an intense backlash at the time from Clinton allies – and that the campaign even put out word that it planned to fire him if the Democratic presidential nominee won the 2016 election.

“There was personal blowback. Personal blowback to me, to my family, to my office,” former Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough III said.  

The Obama appointee discussed his role in the Clinton email probe for the first time on television, during an exclusive interview with Fox News. McCullough – who came to the inspector general position with more than two decades of experience at the FBI, Treasury and intelligence community – shed light on how quickly the probe was politicized and his office was marginalized by Democrats.
In January 2016, after McCullough told the Republican leadership on the Senate intelligence and foreign affairs committees that emails beyond the “Top Secret” level passed through the former secretary of state's unsecured personal server, the backlash intensified.

Former Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough III.

“All of a sudden I became a shill of the right,” McCullough recalled. “And I was told by members of Congress, ‘Be careful. You're losing your credibility. You need to be careful. There are people out to get you.’”
But the former inspector general, with responsibility for the 17 intelligence agencies, said the executive who recommended him to the Obama administration for the job – then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper – was also disturbed by the independent Clinton email findings.
“[Clapper] said, ‘This is extremely reckless.’ And he mentioned something about -- the campaign … will have heartburn about that,” McCullough said.
He said Clapper's Clinton email comments came during an in-person meeting about a year before the presidential election – in late December 2015 or early 2016. “[Clapper] was as off-put as the rest of us were.”
After the Clapper meeting, McCullough said his team was marginalized. “I was told by senior officials to keep [Clapper] out of it,” he said, while acknowledging he tried to keep his boss in the loop.
As one of the few people who viewed the 22 Top Secret Clinton emails deemed too classified to release under any circumstances, the former IG said, “There was a very good reason to withhold those emails ... there would have been harm to national security.” McCullough went further, telling Fox News that “sources and methods, lives and operations” could be put at risk.
Some of those email exchanges contained Special Access Privilege (SAP) information characterized by intel experts as “above top secret.”

“I was told by members of Congress, ‘Be careful. You're losing your credibility. You need to be careful. There are people out to get you.’”

WikiLeaks documents show the campaign was formulating talking points as the review of 30,000 Clinton emails was ongoing.
The campaign team wrote in August 2015 that “Clinton only used her account for unclassified email. When information is reviewed for public release, it is common for information previously unclassified to be upgraded to classified.”
McCullough was critical of the campaign’s response, as the classified review had barely begun. “There was an effort … certainly on the part of the campaign to mislead people into thinking that there was nothing to see here,” McCullough said.
In March 2016, seven senior Democrats sent a letter to McCullough and his State Department counterpart, saying they had serious questions about the impartiality of the Clinton email review. However, McCullough was not making the decisions on what material in Clinton’s emails was classified -- he was passing along the findings of the individual agencies who got the intelligence and have final say on classification.
“I think there was certainly a coordinated strategy,” McCullough said.
McCullough described one confrontation with Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office just six weeks before the election, amid pressure to respond to the letter – which Feinstein had co-signed.
“I thought that any response to that letter would just hyper-politicize the situation,” McCullough said. “I recall even offering to resign, to the staff director. I said, ‘Tell [Feinstein] I'll resign tonight. I'd be happy to go. I'm not going to respond to that letter. It's just that simple.”
As Election Day approached, McCullough said the threats went further, singling out him and another senior government investigator on the email case.
“It was told in no uncertain terms, by a source directly from the campaign, that we would be the first two to be fired -- with [Clinton’s] administration. That that was definitely going to happen,” he said.
McCullough said he was just trying to do his job, which requires independence. "I was, in this context, a whistleblower. I was explaining to Congress -- I was doing exactly what they had expected me to do. Exactly what I promised them I would do during my confirmation hearing,” he said. “... This was a political matter, and all of a sudden I was the enemy."
He said pressures also increased early on from Clinton’s former team at the State Department, especially top official Patrick Kennedy.
"State Department management didn't want us there,” McCullough said. “We knew we had had a security problem at this point. We had a possible compromise."
Speaking about the case more than a year after the FBI probe concluded, McCullough in his interview also addressed the possibility that a more cooperative State Department and Clinton campaign might have precluded the FBI’s involvement from the start.
“Had they come in with the server willingly, without having us to refer this to the bureau … maybe we could have worked with the State Department,” he said.
More than 2,100 classified emails passed through Clinton's personal server, which was used exclusively for government business. No one has been charged.
Asked what would have happened to him if he had done such a thing, McCullough said: “I'd be sitting in Leavenworth right now.”
Fox News asked a Clinton campaign spokesman, Feinstein’s office and Clapper for comment. There was no immediate response.
Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.

Russian jet buzzes US Navy spy plane over Black Sea

A Russian Su-30 fighter jet buzzed a Navy reconnaissance plane flying in the Black Sea while conducting a routine patrol in international airspace Saturday, an official told Fox News. 

The Russian jet crossed 50 feet in front of the Navy P-8 in full afterburner causing “violent turbulence,” the official said. The provocation lasted 24 minutes.

It appears to be first known incident of this type since June, when an armed Russian fighter jet buzzed a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance aircraft over the Baltic Sea. The Russian Su-27 jet had air-to-air missiles under its wings and approached the U.S. Air Force RC-135 recon jet "rapidly," coming within 5 feet of the American aircraft, officials said.
Once alongside, the Russian jet was “provocative” in its flight maneuvers and flying “erratically,” according to another official.
RUSSIAN JET BUZZES US RECON JET: PICTURES RELEASED OF 'UNSAFE' INCIDENT
Earlier this month, U.S. fighter jets intercepted Russian nuclear bombers approaching the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan off the coast of North Korea.
Multiple U.S Navy F/A-18 jets were dispatched to escort two Russian TU-95 bombers away from the ship currently stationed near North Korea and operating in the Sea of Japan, according to Navy officials.
The Russian bombers, capable of executing a nuclear strike, were intercepted merely 80 miles away from the ship, said Navy officials.
Lt. Cmdr. Nicole Schwegman described the incident with the Russian air force as “safe and professional,” according to Military.com.
Saturday's incident, which CNN was first to report, came just weeks after the Russian foreign ministry called the U.S. an “occupying force” in Syria.
There are roughly 2,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Syria, although the Pentagon acknowledges only 500. It’s unclear how many will remain following the defeat of ISIS in Raqqa, the terror group’s so-called capital.
There are approximately 3,000 ISIS fighters left in Iraq and Syria according to U.S. officials after reaching a height of nearly 40,000 fighters two years ago. 

Roy Moore campaign staff push, shove Fox News camera crew at rally

Campaign staffers for Senate candidate Roy Moore late Monday night got into a scuffle with two Fox News camera crews prior to a rally in the town of Henagar, Ala. 

Organizers told the media that Moore was expected to use the front entrance at the Henagar Community Center and the cameras were stationed outside, Fox News’ Jonathan Serrie reported. Moore instead used a side entrance.

Camera crews and reporters attempted to see the candidate as he made his way into the building. And that point, two men “decided to push the cameras back and physically manhandle two Fox News photographers,” Serrie told Shannon Bream host of “Fox News @ Night.”
A Fox News producer stepped in and told the two staffers not to touch the cameras.
“It’s not unusual for people to get bumped around a bit in the media scrum,” Serrie said. “This was not a scrum though. It is highly unusual for members of a political campaign to physically engage in this manner with members of the press,” he said.
It was unclear if Moore witnessed the scuffle that one cameraman said lasted about 30 seconds.
Bill Armistead, Moore’s campaign chairman, told Fox News he has not seen the video, but the campaign does not approve such behavior.
“Our campaign certainly doesn’t condone any pushing or shoving of anyone, certainly not reporters or anyone else,” he said.
Armistead accused the media of “inappropriate” behavior and “tying to stampede us in a lot of different situations and running down hallways, chasing after, shouting things that are inappropriate.”
For weeks, accusations that Moore, now 70, sexually molested or assaulted two teens, ages 14 and 16 -- and tried to date several others -- while he was in his 30s have taken center stage in the heated Alabama race. Moore denied the allegations of misconduct and said he never dated "underage" women.
“We’re not going to be open to taking questions until they’re (the media) ready to talk about issues,” Armistead said. “And that’s what we want to talk about.”
President Trump has declined to follow the path of other mainstream Republican leaders, who have called on Moore to step aside. Republican lawmakers are considering expelling Moore should he win the seat.
Serrie pointed out that the scuffle occurred on public property and Fox News had RSVP’d for the event.