Immigration with the white house leaking news that obama is delaying his promise to issue an executive order before the election. Is the press buying into the white house . Political coverage kicking into high gear as the fall election season getting under way with republicans still favored to catch the senate. Which side won the week . Well take a look at our new segment, midterm media madness. Chuck todd making his debut at meet the press with a president ial interview. Can he revive the damaged press after the damage done by David Gregory. Plus, the hackers that leaked the nude sebly photos. Excuse me, what about the endless media that run stars with topless sun bathing or who have wardrobe malfunctions . Arent they exploiting women . Im howard kurtz and this is media buzz. President obama getting hammered by the media told reporters overseas this week that he wants to degrade and destroy isis. But he also used this language. We can continue to shrink isils sphere of influence, its effectiveness, its financing, its military capabilities to the point where it is a manageable problem. And hes drawing flack for words like manageable. Liberal world like dan na millbank accusing obama of happy talk. People saying they dont want to see their president be hawkish, but they hate to see him weakish. Only a few are defending the president. If president obama does not formally declare a war on muslim terrorists, hes doing all americans a terrible dissurface. I think the terrorist threat is overstated. I think were spendsing too much time and too much money republicans are blaming the killing of sotlov to the president of the United States is another day at office. How is the president forming this debate . Joining us now, lauren ashburn, steven hanes and Juan Williams, columnist from the hill. Media war frenzy like 2003. Does this remind you of the run up to the iraq war . No, it really doesnt. In 2003, we had the administration pushing a wear, pushing an agenda. Weapons of mass destruction and the press saluting, basically saying, hey, whatever you want, thats fine with us. Now, 2014, flash forward, and you have the press pushing to do something, whatever something is, and you have the administration leading from behind saying we dont have a strategy and the press pouncing on that. Thats an interesting phrase, steve hayes. There does seem to me to be this demand that the president do something, even though military action is risky and there are no great options here. Yeah. Im not sure that theyre pushing him to do something as much as what hes done to this point doesnt work. You have a president who understated dramatically the threat of variety of jihadists, whether it was going back to the Christmas Day bomber and the president calling it an isolated are you saying, therefore, the pt press wants obama to admitted error and apologize . No, i dont think thats necessarily the case. I think theyre pressing him because hes said things like isis is a jv squad. If youre covering the white house on a daytoday basis, you have to ask that question, how could we have gotten it so wrong . I think its responsible coverage and i dont get the sense that theyre necessarily beating the drums for war. Do you see many in the media pushing or advocating or somehow wanting military action here . Id have to have my head in the hole not to see it. Its all over. Are you saying i have my head in the hole . No. I said i would have to have my head in a hole. Thanks. But i dont think theres any question. You just played clips of bill oreiley and others saying if we have to declare a war right now. I think its very interesting. Obviously, in the media narrative, howie, yes, the more dramatic action taken, the bigger our numbers, the bigger our ratings. I think thats a dangerous thing. Hold on, hold on, youre saying theres an institutional bias or imperative for war bau because that would get more people to watch our Television Shows . I think thats part identity. I think what has happened, you look back historically, recent history, the syria situation, the big red line, congress wouldnt approve. The merp people didnt favor it. If there had been, if the media were sort of predisposed to want war, to want the drama as juan suggests, we would have seen that with respect to syria. We didnt see that at all. I come back to a point, had we touched, which is there is no good strategy yet people think, oh, obama said there was no strategy. I said there was not a strategy of dealing with isis in syria, not in general, but that quote wag taken and used as evidence that this guy was not feisty. This is a guy who took out bin laden, took out the it wasnt one of the great moments in president ial press conference history. No. But lets go to the question of war. It was the very first question Nbcs Chuck Todd with meet the press. Are you preparing the country to go back to ward what are . Im preparing the country to make sure that we deal with the threat that is isil. What do you make ooh that exchange . Media like to know that there is a clear line between what were doing and what were not doing. Are we going to war, are we not going to war . You saw james rowsen asking jen pataki the same thing. Are you going to use this word, war . So far, nobody is using that. Nobody is using the word war. If there was going to be a movie, we are in quite a muddle. Our allies, our brand, syria, these are people who werent our allies and have never been our allies. But, you know, i mentioned at the top, steve, the president ordering a fresh round of air strikes against isis in or out to protect a major dam there. Are we falling into the trap of not judging him by his actions, but judging him by this linguistic debate . I think thats always a risk. Perhaps that was the case in this situation just given that hes finally doing something. I think for a long time, the president had been all talk and his actions, if you look at the number of air strikes, they were really not many. But i think lauren is actually right. Imagine that. No, i didnt mean it that way. Youre absolutely right is what i meant to say. If you look at the way the media like to cover stories like this, that are inherently messy stories, we want to impose a narrative and say here is whats happening. I think the reason were having so much trouble doing that with this president in this context is that the president himself doesnt know. Hes muddled. Its muddled in his head. So the the policy is muddled to the Media Coverage is muddled. Interestingly, the president did use tougher language with nato and the five criticized him for going to stone hedge and saying it was cool. Sometimes do you have the impression that he cannot catch a break with the commentators . At the moment, he certainly cant. At the moment, its everybody, left and right i would say, also, because youll notice that some of the left have become highly critical in terms of the midterms because his poll numbers have went so i think the conventional decision with obama is hes not with it, he doesnt get it. I must tell you, though, when i look at someone who is praised, which is british Prime Minister cameron or Angela Merkel in germany, their rhetoric tends to be more shrill. But are they doing anything more than president obama . No. I was struck in this meet the press interview, should you have gone golfing the day the murder of jim foley . And he said the optics were bad and i admit that. And he also admitted the fact that he is not good at the theater, at the theater of politics. And thats the first time weve heard him say that. And boy, is it true. This leads us to the next question, and that is the second murder, brutal beheading of another american journalist in syria, steve sotlov. Al gentleman zee ra is refusing to show images from that video. Shocking. Because they showed Osama Bin Laden talking to americans. Right. I talked about this after jim foleys killing. Should the other networks stop running those pictures . I also talked about it on social buzz where there was an outcries, the isismiablackout was talked about quite a bit. The reasoning behind that, as people were saying and other journalists were saying is because we dont want to give them the satisfaction of showing these brutal killings. And there was also the flip side to this, which is the glenn greenwolds of the world saying this is a slippery slope to eliminating freedom. People should be able to press freedom, that people should be able to see these images. But last point, i do not want to be sitting at home with my 6yearold on the news having to see this used as wallpaper over and over again. I dont want to sanitize the news, but i think once its covered initially, it shouldnt be covered over and over and over again. We should cover the story adegrees ifrly, but not those pictures. I want to close this segment by talking about developments on benghazi, as you know, a new book out, five commandos or former commandos saying the cio in charge ordered them to delay a rescue attempt on that tragic night. Thumbs up, thumbs up, then what happened . I said hey, were ready to go. Bob looked right through me and he looks at the team leader and he goes, you guys need to wait. Bob was the cias base chief in benghazi. Fox and the New York Times, Washington Post and others having carried a word, do you think this latest twist in the story has been underplayed . Yeah, i think its been underplayed considerably. I would argue that the New York Times sort of checked the box. They got the book, wrote a short story and said basically there isnt much new in the book. There is a lot new in the book. It changes the timeline considerably. This is an incredibly compelling story. This is one of the more gripping hours of Television Production i have ever seen because the story is so strong. Does it deserve as much coverage as it got . Pure news judgment, its kind of old at this point. I thought that fox did a very good job but the point for me is that initially the charge was that the president or that our military had somehow been negligent and not protected the lives of our diplomatic personnel, and theres nothing there that would suggest that. Maybe some very bad judgment from aides, but theres a lot we still dont know about this story. Send me your tweets. We always read some of your tweets at the end of the program. Ahead, our new segment on the fall elections. Midterm media madness. When we come back, how the white house spun the press on delaying an executive order on immigration. [ breathing deeply ] [ inhales deeply ] [ sighs ] [ inhales ] [ male announcer ] at cvs health, we took a deep breath. [ inhales, exhales ] [ male announcer ] and made the decision to quit selling cigarettes in our cvs pharmacies. Now we invite smokers to quit, too, with our comprehensive program. We just want to help everyone, everywhere, breathe a little easier. Introducing cvs health. Because health is everything. I thought so what . , but now cai cant stop playing. Rst thats not how it works. I mean its so simple. Its like my Car Insurance. I saved 15 in fifteen minutes. Well esurance could have saved you money in half that time. Three in a row sweet 15 minutes for a quote isnt so sweet. Level 2 start with a quote from esurance and you could save money on Car Insurance in half the time. Welcome to the modern world. Esurance, backed by allstate. Click or call. President obama appeared on meet the press this morning to explain why he dropped his vow to act soon on immigration policy. In a sit down with the new moderator, chuck todd. What do you tell the person thats going to get deported from the election that this decision was made in your hopes of saving a Democratic Senate . Well, thats not the reason. And what ive determined is i want to make sure we get it right. I want to make sure, number one, that all the looks like politics. It looks like Election Year politics. When i take executive action, i want to make sure its sustainable. So the public is not mind you, youre not taking it . That sounds like youre concerned the public wouldnt support steve hayes, before the president appeared on nbz yesterday afternoon, the white house Unnamed White House official put on out a statement to the press, leaking it without his or her name attached saying this wasbying done in part because of the republicans extreme porlerzation in this issue. I think the white house is trying to convince people that the president had no other options, that he couldnt do this, this is not just about politics, but this is because of republican intransient. This is sort of their standard play. The way its been covered is substantial. The press has the right to say well, mr. President , this has not been helpful to them. Youre changing because of politics and i think you saw that reflected in the coverage from chuck. Has the president had more time saying he wanted to study this issue, all of us would have said, come on. So in a way, white house officials conceded, this yes, it is about politics to some degree. But i still feel that the coverage didnt make that much that this was a complete flipflop on the president s part. I think the coverage in the morning papers has made that point. You had Immigration Reform advocates out there being highly critical of the president and saying, again, hes disappointed not only the Hispanic Community but even some liberal democrats who think there is a need for Immigration Reform in the country. Republicans, not only have they been obstructionist, but theyve used it to fire up their base. And as a result, that the president shouldnt have backed down. That theres not a good time. The president should have said theres never a good time to do this politically and he should have acted now. Sure. But the president is very good at but i just thought it wasnt a read my lips moments. But there was a lot of lies coming of the white house. The white house had been laying the ground this week, talking to immigration advocates and saying it because of red states that are endangered. Now the president saying we need to build a case with the American People or its because of the crisis with the kids . This was the i first big interview with chuck todd. How did yhe do with the presidet in general . I think what we saw here were tough questions. Obviously, chuck todd knows his stuff. Hes been around politics for quite some time. He was able to jump in and spar with the president. Juan and the president . Howie. But i also think that what were seeing here is a very conversational style. This is a switch from the last moderator of meet the press David Gregory. You have him teasing things out of the president in a way that disarms him. Its a similar style to that of diane sawyer that she has used when interviewing politicians. At the end, a lot of people ask the president , a lot of people say you look exhausted. The theater aspects of the job. He said part of what i love about the vacation is from the press. Ive known chuck todd for years. I worked for him for two years. I consider him a friend. I thought it was a very good interview. One of the reasons is hes conversational, hes at ease, but he extracted i think a lot of information and pressed the president on the Biggest Issue of the day, which is this fight with isis, and i think made news, made the president have to talk about it in a way that he hasnt before. And its a winwin. Its a win for chuck and its a win for the president who gets to come on to the show and sort of try to tell us what his theory is behind all of his isis machinations. But based on twitter having residents as the sort of admission of barack obama that maybe i shouldnt have played golf that day. Thank you so much for joining us this sunday. Ahead, the leak of those nude celebrity photos raises this questions, dont some Mainstream Media outlets run these images all the time . But up next, can the view bouncewo new panelists and can chuck todd revive the franchise known as meet the press. . H. Heartburn. Did someone say burn . . . Iefchews. 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That opens up the doors to trust. My name is kanyon. Im a technician here in portland oregon. Every morning, i give each one of my customers a call to give them a closer eta. And when i called this customer, i discovered that he was deaf. Then i thought of amanda. Ive known American Sign Language since i was about 8 years old. Its like music for your eyes. And i thought that was an amazing gift to have, to be able to communicate with the deaf. My friend kanyon asked me to help him explain how todays appointment will go. He was nodding his head and giggling a little bit. I earned his trust that day, i guess. Chuck todd is former print guy who became nbcs chief white house correspondent. The networked forced out David Gregory after six years of struggles at meet the press. The new moderator made his debut today. What does he need to say, do you think, that will rally the public to his strategy . We are an exhausted nation. And i think this president is taking a a fairley reasoned, measured response. Now,