On his Sunday show “Reliable Sources,” CNN host and Daily Beast Washington bureau chief Howard Kurtz made it clear that he disapproved of The Daily Caller reporter Neil Munro’s attempt to ask President Barack Obama a question during his immigration announcement on Friday.
However, he then asked guest Matt Lewis, also a contributor to The Daily Caller, to react to Munro’s attempt, asking if he would have done the same thing. That led to the following exchange between Lewis and Kurtz.
Transcript as follows:
KURTZ: All right. Matt, he’s your colleague at The Daily Caller. But a lot of conservatives have criticized what he did. He claimed — Neil Munro says he believed the president was closing his remarks. He had no intention of interrupting him. But he kept on talking while the president was trying to speak.
LEWIS: Well, first of all — a little about Neil Munro. He’s actually an Irish immigrant himself. He was with the National Journal for a decade. So, he’s a seasoned reporter. I think, if you put it in context, President Obama, first of all, the policy bypasses Congress —
KURTZ: No, no, no, I’ve only got a few seconds.
LEWIS: The speech —
KURTZ: Would you have done what he did? Was he wrong?
LEWIS: Cenk [Uygur] just said that we should be aggressive when asking questions. There was going to be no question and answer. This was the only chance he had to ask a question.
KURTZ: Happens all the time. He had no business interrupting the president.
LEWIS: The press corps should be a little less deferential to authority.
KURTZ: This is not a question of being differential. Ask all the questions you want, you can shout question —
LEWIS: Where in the Constitution does it say you can’t ask questions? This is protocol and it’s etiquette. But it’s not constitutional. He did the right thing.
KURTZ: I understand. I understand that you have to defend your guy —
LEWIS: It’s not defending my guy. It’s defending the right for reporters to ask questions.