Its extremely unlikely in my estimation that David Gregory is going to jail. But the meet the press moderator is under investigation for wielding this particular prop during an interview with the head of the nra. So, here is a magazine for ammunition that carries 30 bullets. Now, isnt it possible that if we got rid of these, if we replaced them and said, well, you can only have a magazine that carries five bullets or ten bullets, isnt it just possible that we could reduce the carnage in a situation like newtown . I dont believe that is going to make one difference. Why are some gun owners rooting for gregory to be locked up . Should a new york newspaper published a map showing the homes of gun owners. The media in the middle of a debate. Tomorrow is the last day to avoid what the press has described as an almost apocalyptic outcome. To avoid the fiscal cliff if we go over the fiscal cliff try to avert the fiscal cliff. The clock ticks down to the socalled fiscal cliff. Closer than ever going over the fiscal cliff. The fiscal cliff negotiations are going no where. President obama may not have gotten a fiscal cliff deal, but keeping up the media pressure this sunday morning with an interview opmeet the press. Well take a look. From the David Petraeus scandal to the Trayvon Martin tragedy. The medias performance in 2012, well have a report card. Im howard kurtz and this is reliable sources. It was a striking moment when David Gregory brandished that high ammunition magazine last sunday so much so we played it on this program. But that braumpted a d. C. Police whether he violated the citys gun laws, one controversy that they fuind under assault. And eric who blogs about the media for washington post. Simple question, eric, should David Gregory be prosecuted . Well, i think he should be investigated. Ill leave that up to the prosecutors. But i definitely do believe unlike greta van susstrn and unlike you. And the wall street journal page. It turns out the District Of Columbia and lawmakers decided that any magazine in excess of ten rounds is a danger to the p public. You dont see this as a waste of time on the polices part. A lot of people with magazines with no bullets in them going to jail over this. This is the law and the police should look into it. Where did he get it . Where is it now . If the people and the lawmakers decided this could be a threat to society, then David Gregory is just as suitable a target of investigation. Seems to me this is more about Public Relations than threat to society. Talking at all about by refraining from commenting on, did it ask for permission and so forth. I have gotten messages of people saying, as eric says, journalists arent above the law. What is your take . My take is that a journalist should follow the law. And when it comes to knowing what you can brandish on air or not dealing with guns, especially when you have a show with an enormous staff to help you out, you should know what the law is. Now, having said that, prosecutors have a lot of proscatorial discretion. You know where i was going on this, howie. Having known this, is this something that is really worth their time and effort . That is, also, as fair a question as it is, should a journalist who is doing gun stories be aware of the laws and you go and get guns. Smuggle a gun through Airport Security to make a point. They were aware of the gun laws, though. That is the point. They asked the District Of Columbias metropolitan police department, is this okay . They got no answer and went ahead anyway and did it. Once you ask and you go and do, youre always going to be investigated, right . Some conflicting reports on that. Atf angle on that. It also goes to the point, tv is a visual median. Now, obviously, if this was a print story, i wouldnt have to hold up a gun to write about it. Thats some of the pressure. Can we agree on one thing . Was this a stunt . Yes. Absolutely. I dont hold up a pen when i write about what im doing. On the other hand, David Gregory and meet the press have gotten more publicity out of this moment than anything hes done since he took over the host chair. Its been a bonanza for them. Thats for sure. I dont think its good press, though. I dont think its good press. I think this would have to be an exception. You know who else has gotten a lot of press, somebody who has been an outspoken advocate for gun control. Piers morgan. Lets look at an interview he did a while back with gun rights advocate larry prat. Mr. Pratt, you have enormous problems in this country. You have over 300 million guns. I honestly dont understand why you would rather have people be victims of a crime than be able to defend themselves. Its incomprehensible. Youre an unbelievably stupid man, arent you . More than 90,000 people have signed a petition to deport piers morgan, of course, a british journalist because they dont like his views. Right. I would sign a petition saying stop the attacks, which i think have degraded his show. In fact, in another segment that just got some rotation recently, he was talking about the importance of civil discourse and how once you get into attacks it brings the level of discussion way down. Its his show. I mean, calling and inviting somebody as your guest on your show only to call them stupid doesnt become anyone i think in an interview show. I didnt think that was his finest hour. But, if people want to say they dont like him, they find him rude, all fair game when you sit out in front of a television screen. To go from saying that to say, lets kick this guy out of the country. You dont have a legal technicality or a fig leaf. What does that say that so many people are willing to, i would say, defend the Second Amendment by trashing the first. Part of this because there is this very neat feature that the whitehouse. Gov site has that makes it easy for people to selforganize and have a petition on any topic and use the whitehouse. Gov site as it. This is why this petition is happening. A way to vent against morgan because if he had been an american host saying the same thing, people would just find another angle to get at him. Piers morgan wrote a long piece for britains daily mail. Ill read a part of it. Deport me. I will not stop. In my own efforts to keep the gun control debate firmly in peoples minds, how much abuse im subjected to. And let me say that for every american who attacked me on twitter, facebook and fox news this week, ive had many more thank me and encourage me to continue speaking out. Gun control going back to aurora and before. The question is, though, can he get a little more on the facts. Whenever he does these attacks on his guests, its usually in place of him pairing back with some facts or some argumentation. Instead, he just, oh, its nonsense and keeps going on and he doesnt, he doesnt really, really throw contrary facts into the mix. But he does bring passion on this issue, in fact, he writes in this piece about having to live through a mass murder in britain and brought tears to his eyes and this is all in the wake of the Newtown School tragedy that is setting the backdrop here. You agree that he gets to stay in america . I love watching his show. Now, one other flap here involved the journal news newspaper, which published, as i mentioned at the top, a map. An interactive map of all the people in new yorks westchester and rockland counties who legally own gun permts and this caused an uproar. People say this is a terrible abuse. The reporter who wrote the story has a gun permit. Did the paper go too far . Yes, it singles out individuals. You cant leave common sense at the door that youre talking about a weapon in someones home that could or should have been a way of using the database and publicly available information. When you go get a gun permit, you should know people can find that out about you. To announce to the world and who has the guns and doesnt has guns and you talked to someone who lives in that area. I did. She claimed that she was brought down to the level of a sex offender. A woman who legally owns a gun. Legally owns a gun and she was, she didnt want too many facts about her situation to be printed by me, but she felt she was really trashed by this thing. I think the database is fine. I think publishing is fine and i think the story that accompanied it was a piece of garbage and, so, they were unable to take any good lessons for the public out of the gun database. All they did was say, hey, heres these gun owners. Are there any criminals in there . A bigger angle in here. They just said, here, have a look. I think that was really lame. The blogger retailiated by saying the home address when we come back, president obama gives his first sunday morning interview show in three years. First interview on a sunday show, i should say. How David Gregory and meet the press handled that big opportunity. [ roasting firewood ] many hot dogs are within you. Try peptobismol togo, its the power of pepto, but it fits in your pocket. Now tell the world daniel. Of peptobismol togo. [ buzzing ] bye dad. Drive safe. K. Love you. [ chirping, buzzing continues ] [ horn honks ] [ buzzing continues ] [ male announcer ] the sprint drive first app. Blocks and replies to texts while you drive. We can live without the. Visit sprint. Com drive. Theres been a lot of talk and very little action covering a fiscal cliff showdown here in washington. As the rhetorical war shifted from the white house to baltalfield, president obama took the rare step of granting an interview to meet the press which took place this morning. You signed the legislation setting up the legislation 17 months ago. How accountable are you for the fact that washington cant get anything done and were at this deadline, again . I have to tell you, david. If you look at my track record over the last two years, i cut spending by over 1 trillion in 2011. Joining us now to examine the David Gregory interview and the coverage of this fiscal cliff showdown. Bob cusack manager of the hill. What does it say about the state of the budgetary wars that president obama chose to go on a sunday talk show. He is doing this interview why congress is trying to do it. Very critical of congress and i think this interview wasnt exactly combative. He challenged him on it. Who challenged who . David gregory challenged obama on some points but made 1 trillion in cuts, he also vowed to cut the deficit in half in 2009. That has not happened. Compared David Gregory we saw at the top of the show waving that magazine at wain lapierre. This was a lowkey interview. Meek and weak. I didnt find David Gregory, i think he lost his punch over this shortlived vacation. A number of points he didnt press the president hard enough. The president gave short answers. But theres really no excuse. The pomp and the ceremony. On the other hand, and youve had experience covering barack obama going back to chicago, it can be hard to interrupt during an incumbent president during an interview. It is. Obama had the home court advantage. David had it in that more aggressive interview and now, l ill say this quickly. Way back in the day when obama United States senator and there was a press conference and i asked a question and he was giving it a very long answer, in my view, and i cut him off and, boy, did i get thumped from him for cutting him off. I dont know he complained to you later . He took me to the wood shed for cutting him off and his view was i was trying to dictate the answer. I was just trying to have him address it. Now would i absolutely have that same way of asking him if i were sitting with the question. Im cutting you off right now. Bob, this whole, its been like watching paint dry and tremendously important story, which the country is facing Enormous Economic consequences, but how do you cover a process where its mostly private meetings and nothing seems to be happening . Its very difficult because you have both sides coming out of meetings and sometimes saying Different Things and no way to independently verify it. One of the most difficult things to report until they have a deal and you can count votes for plan b. Behind closed doors, you just dont know. Thats why cspan is trying to get in the room and get these talks televised because we dont know who to believe. All right. Who is going to propose that all the talks should be on the record and televised. Who was that . I forgot. Someone. Candidate barack obama. Let me follow up with bob. There have been waves in the coverage where i read reports in the papers and perhaps read them on television. Theyre getting close to a deal, the two sides are moving and the journalists repeatedly have been too optimistic about this. Of course, theyre going to work something out, yet, overestimating the ability of these two parties that are at each others throats. Two worked something out. You have to read the tea leaves. There was a point when obama moved from 250,000 threshold on taxes to 400. Boehner put tax rates. Boehner said for the first time republicans would be willing to support. The question is, how much his troops would be backing him raising tax rates on those over 1 million. Which for given the republican fervent opposition to any raise in tax rates, that was a significant step, but then it stopped. During that time about a week where the white house and speaker boehners office was not criticizing each other. Lines of communication were open. Since then, its gone south. Does it seem like a dull story because its an artificial crisis created by congress itself. They could solve this thing in ten minutes with ample compromise on both sides. While the country is following this news, its not a breathless anticipation. The only thing that is starting to sink in with people, howie, where i think it is getting more public attention is that people are now realizing that their paychecks really will be a lot lower very soon if nothing gets done. Therefore, i think it is very legitimate interest that finally is getting done when it is sinking in on people that they will have an immediate pocketbook impact if nothing gets done. If there is a lastminute sort of minor compromise, bob cusack, where both sides agree to put off the majority of the tax increases or to extend the bush tax breaks for all but the richest but doesnt do anything about the automatic spending cuts which is hundreds of billions of dollars. Well all call it a deal, but it wont really be a deal, will it . Well deal with the debt for years and years and, also, the other thing is this bill possibly could actually increase the deficit when you deal with it. So, reporters have to be careful about the terminology here because on new years eve we may say, the two sides reached a deal, but it may be a kick the can. The nation could be downgraded, again. When we had the deal in august of 2011 and then s p downgrade the nation. You could see that again. Has the press been commrisant as hyping this as an apocalypse even if there is a budgetary agreement in january and its not like pushing the country into default, which was the prospect last year. I think in your intro tease. I think the degree to which the media swallowed the fiscal cliff is extreme and the voices of paul krugman who says this isnt more than a little ramp. Those voices have been buried behind the simplicity of a fiscal cliff. The press loves a deadline. The press loves a deadline and loves colorful language like fiscal cliff. Thanks for joining us. At the top of the hour, state of the union has republican reaction to the president s interview on meet the press. Did we really need to go haywire over David Petraeus . Mr. Margin . Dont be modest, bob. You found a better way to pack a bowling ball. That was ups. And who called ups . You did, bob. I just asked a question. It takes a long time to pack a bowling ball. The last guy pitched more ball packers. But you. You consulted ups. You found a better way. Thats logistics. Thats margin. Find out what else ups knows. Ill do that. Youre on a roll. Thats funny. I wasnt being funny, bob. I know. I need you. I feel so alone. But youre not alone. I knew youd come. Like i could stay away. You know i cant do this without you. Youll never have to. Youre always there for me. Shh ill get you a rental car. I could also use an umbrella. Fall in love with progressives claims service. A hybrid . Most are just no fun to drive. Now, heres one that will make you feel alive. Meet the fivepassenger ford cmax hybrid. Cmax says ha. Cmax says wheeee. Which is what you get, dont you see . Cause cmax has lots more horsepower than prius v, a hybrid that cmax also bests in mpg. Say hi to the allnew 47 combined mpg cmax hybrid. We are continuing to look at the medias performance, the good, the bad and the ugly in 2012. Just when the seemingly endless president ial campaign ended, journalists began to wallow in a strange sex scandal involving David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell and a cast of supporting characters. One official describes some of the emails as sexually explicit and the equivalent of phone sex over email. Apparently 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails with jill kelly who set the fbi on Paula Broadwell. Biography and mistress Paula Broadwell. Florida socialite jill kelley. Friendly, perhaps flirtatious. Did we all get a bit carried away . Ill put that question and others to our panel of media critics. Fred francis Senior Correspondent and founder of 15seconds. Com. Laura ashburn editor and Steve Roberts at the George Washington university who spent a couple decades at New York Times. Since nothing else came back looking back in our National History and not prosecuting Paula Broadwell for stalking or anything else. We were right after the president ial election, everybody was bored. And this happened during newtown or during the president ial campaign. It would not have been as big a deal. This was a timing issue. Nothing else going on, remember how, you know, the stakeouts in front of jill kelleys house. How do they send 30,000 to 40,000 emails. Just this nonstop, salacious story. Yes, but it was great television. Sex