>> steve bannon, pleasure to have you on. >> fareed, thanks for having me. >> that's it. thank to all of you for watching. don't forget, you can catch fareed zakaria every sunday on cnn. check cnn.com for your local air times. ciao from rome. i'm brian stelter and this is "reliable sources." this hour, the term fake news is out, the term double standard is in. the pro trump -- are they the ones with two sets of rules? and speaking of double standards, joy reid is apologizing for old blogs. and how about those pardons?

but first, hurricane trump, he blew into washington 500 days ago, and's ha it's hard to keep with all the scandals. the president is very effective at playing the media game and touting good news stories. and this is good news. take a look at the great economic numbers for may, which he previewed a little bit early ahead of time by telling people to tune in. and also his meeting with north korean officials, you see the president there, beaming in the oval office holding that oversized envelope. for pro trump media outlet, there's a lot of good news to report. and a lot of stories for the main stream media too. but we're in the eye of the hurricane. when you're in the eye, the wind

stops, the rain stops, you can hear birds chirping, sometimes you can see a glimmer of sunlight, you can almost convince yourself that the storm has passed. sometimes that's the way some of these days feel. when i hear about the economy, and how well it's chugging along, when i hear trump cheerleaders talking about how great he's doing, and that russian collusion is a hoax, i think -- a is story about his legal troubles and suddenly the storm is raging again. here's sunday's "new york times" headlines, the latest example of this, it's a letter secretly sent to robert mueller in january, from his lawyer saying he's exempt from questions. this secret letter is now public thanks to the "new york times" saying the president couldn't have possibly obstructed the russia probe because he has sweeping power over the probe.

and for the first time, it talks about how trump dictated the meeting at trump tower. it was a letter that had previously been distanced from trump. remember there were trumps lawyer's like jay sekulow that say trump did not dictate the statement. >> the president was not involved in the drafts of the statement. >> he wasn't the only one saying that, press secretary sarah sanders also double downed during a white house press briefing. >> he certainly didn't dictate, like i said, he weighed in and offers suggestions like any father would do. >> now trump's legal team says in this secret letter to mueller that trump did dictate the letter. i only cite this because it's one of many examples of misleading information coming from the white house. "the washington post" is out with a brand-new track, the new

number is 3,251, that's false or misleading claims in the first 18 months of president trump's term. the post doesn't call those lies, it doesn't try to get into the president's head, but certainly some of those are lies, some of them are different things, but that's a remarkable number that's getting worse with time. that 3,251, is another example that hurricane trump, that we're in the eye of it. lynne sweet, washington bureau chief, and mary catherine ham, a senior writer for the feminist and also a cnn political commentator. i'm thrilled to be in d.c., we can all talk in person today, i wonder if i'm making any sense, lynne, when i say this feels like a hurricane, there can be days when it can all seem kind of probe, you can kind of forget

what's going on in the mueller probe and then we're all talking about whether the president can pardon himself, that's what we're talking about on the sunday morning talk shows. >> what we're talking about here is the new definition of what trump strategy is saand it's th we're playing defense instead of offense. because he's impulsive about his own media habits, and because he's obsessed with watching television and that's mainly fox, what you have here is a team that i think kind of self-identifies their role more as 3,251 potential needs of issues to clean up, more than what could be by day 500 in office, could be hundreds of initiatives. we really got people focusing on the good jobs numbers.

>> they're trying. >> they're trying, but then his pardon play, which could have waited a few days, he knew the jobs numbers were coming, and if he hinted it at early, there could have been a rollout, if the numbers are good, we'll do this, and if he knows, or should know by now when you start rolling out hints of pardons, if you really want to talk about your good jobs numbers, news is 24/7, but that limits, that is a limit, 24/7. >> if he wants to take -- and he knows he's going to get most of it. and this is what is baffling, he controls so much air time, if he just wouldn't tweet sometimes, he could get more of the 24/7 maybe talking about the topics they want, so when they complain, often from the white house, you're not covering this, or you're not covering that. there is a way that we cover the news, and if you put it on the

table, we're going to cover it. >> is this an example of two americas. you have written about two americas, recently, in an alternative universe where -- is there two realities where the storm is raging in one of them and we're in the eye of the storm with the others? >> there could been a bipartisan, a lot of people would have supported it. you really do have two americas, and i think maybe it's different tv channels that you're watching, on the one hand you have donald trump, that has things like tax cuts, jobs in the economy are going well, north korea, at least we can be what hopeful about that possibility, and so, on one hand, things seem to be going pretty well, on the other hand you have these much bigger issues in the sense that it speedometer

speaks to things like character, the emotion of the social fabric that donald trump is bringing about. liberal democracy, the attacking of the media, and the vulgarity as well. the fact that we're having to talk about stormy daniels all the time. so really, there are two americas and i suspect that if you're a conservative and you're watching fox news and listening to rush limbaugh all the time, you're saying this is the best thing since ronald reagan. if you're exposed to different media, you probably have a very different conclusion. >> one of the times i covered a hurricane, and was surprised by how tired i was during it. the wind, the rain, it's kind o wind, the constant storm. trump's power is not fear, it's fatigue, just that you're getting tired of the stories. the president is mocking his own doj, and putting the word

justice in quote marks. put up the breaking news banner for him to be mocking the doj, and maybe we have fatigue. isn't that part of the idea, is that there's power in the fe fatigue? >> unless i say the same thing over and over again, then i'm going to get busted. trump is like i'm just going to say the wrong thing all the time and no one can hone in on the one bad thing i said, that's how this works, he spreads it all out. i will say it's always infrastructure week in the white house. and i this we have had another one. there is a lot of country that does live in the eye of the storm, think they of the storm as hitting the east coast. and i think it's important for us to remember, we're part of the storm, this is a symbiotic relationship between trump and the media and we are happy to play along sometimes, i think a perfect example is the get all

the attentions are the dinesh d'souza's and others. >> and i catch myself trying not to sound whiney, when obama had great jobs numbers toward the end of his administration, there wasn't much talk about it. but when i bring that up, i feel like it's whining. >> every month those numbers came out. everybody stopped to see, they were worried about 8% unemployment then, and he was under enormous scrutiny about those numbers. >> it's a perfect example of the trump administration like messing up it's own story, because he tweets this a little bit early, versus a story about literal full employment? that is a misstep. one thing that the president and the white house and the president has been quite quiet

about is melania and her status, we did see her tweet the other day, the last time we caught a glimpse of her was on that 10, 24 days, more than three weeks, there's been a lot of questions about her surgery, her time at walter reed and now her invisibility, you see on twitter. she addressed this, she kind of plamed t blamed the media, she said rest assured, i'm here at the white house feeling great with my family work hard on behalf of the american people. how long does she have to be out of sight before there's a legitimate lemedia story. >> i was surprised to see that tone from her, the main stream media working overtime. i haven't seen that with her. in fact the media just went crazy about the state visit celebrating her. and i think some of her was, we

want to trash trump so we'll br celebrate here. so it's a way to say we don't hate this administration, if ths something to celebrate, we'll celebrate it, but trump wasn't doing something we could celebrate. i think the media has treated melania trump very well. i think they have been fair about it. i was surprised by her tone, and i was wondering if somebody was guying that tone of that tweet. >> i think we can put it up on the screen, why is the media intent on tearing down melania? but lynne, you're covering the white house every day, is this a big story? is it getting bigger the longer she's out of sight? >> i think it's bigger whether or not trump read kim's letter. it's another way he pivots off this bigger issue, if he's going

to be headed toward successful talks. first ladies get media coverage, i don't square what your political ideology is, when a first lady disappears from the public 24 days after being in a hospital, of course reporters are going to raise questions and it's not hostile. i mean there are so many things that are polarizing and divide us, sometimes i just yearn for the place, can people understand, this is a time where so much is not normal and you don't want to normalize the serial misrepresentations, fabrications or lies that trump does, that it just is -- you know, mrs. trump has a press operation, if she's doing stuff in the white house, isn't there a picture that there seems to be all kinds of ability to tweet something when you have it. and you would think that one way of answering it, if she didn't want to up, she didn't want to go to camp david this weekend, he took some of his children and not his young son.

where's the picture? >> i think there's a risk of some liberals falling into a conspiracy theory trap here by assuming the worst of what's going on. >> this is just what reporters do,f a first lady disappears, i don't care, it could have been from betsy truman to mrs. washington, f all our presidents, if the first lady or the person who's standing in for first lady disappears, you want to know where she is. >> quick break here, brand new reporting about the seismic week of tv news, roseanne barr is not staying silent. and samantha bee has more to say. details right after the break. keep your insights from prying eyes, so they won't be used by anyone but you. the ibm cloud. the cloud for smarter business. the ibm cloud. if you have moderate to severe or psoriatic arthritis, little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream.

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while the trump administration fails to condemn racism, it's falling to corporate america to stay a stand, to show leadership, that's what disney did this week, the company, the parent of abc was widely applauded for its decision to go ahead and cancel it's top rated new show roseanne because of roseanne barr's racist tweets. i thought roseanne barr was too big to fail, i thought she was too popular to be fired. >> are they going to fire here her? >> i am standing by for a

statement from abc, i suspect it will be part of a condemnation, but it would be hard to imagine abc parting ways with roseanne bar. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> what is abc saying. >> the show has been cancelled. hey, there you go, lesson low pressured, it really was a shocking move, it sent shockwaves through the entire industry, that is partly why it became such a big story, because it was so surprising, because the network was essentially putting morals over money. now that was on tuesday. barr continued on a tweet storm throughout the week, making excuses, playing the victim, et cetera. and president trump sort of did that as well. he tweeted toward abc's owner disney's ceo bob iger, saying why aren't you apologizing to me for various insults on abc.

then the conversation turned to samantha bee making disparaging comments against ivanka trump. bee will be back on the air on wednesday. and in fact i can report that she will address this, she's going to take it on on her show called "full frontal" on wednesday night. i'm really curious what she says, how much she takes responsibility and how much she tries to change the subject back to what she was originally talking about which was president trump's immigration policy. remember, that was what she was actually trying to talk about but it was overshadowed by her profani profanity. maria, roseanne bar, samantha bee, two very different stories, did you see folks trying to draw a false equivalency? >> yes, and i call it a false

ekwif less th equivalency, if samantha bee had done the same thing as roseanne barr, tweeted exactly the same thing, perhaps about condoleezza rice, and she did it when she was employed by a company like abc or disney which is very family ordiented, and if you flp it, if roseanne had done this on a late night show and used the same words that samantha bee did, let's say towards chelsea clinton, she probably would not have been fired. that's the way to think about it, each one in its own silo, and when you think about each in its own silo, it's easy to scream false equivalency. and maybe we will all get to different conclusions anyway, as oppose fd to what i just said, don't think people agree with

me, but if you try to compare exactly those circumstances, each one, i think it's an a lot more honest conversation. >> let me just take the completely opposite view on this. i think it sounds extremely try address to make them completely different things, these are two women figures, they both have on on the mou autonomous tv shows. you could argue that the racism is a harsher one because just because it's racism, you can also argue that samantha bee was scripted by an entire staff of a network. >> should she have been fired? >> i'm in favor of people being able to say lots of crazy things because i hart speech. but i'm not surprised that the racism got roseanne fired and this is roughly the equivalent and i'm surprised that she's still getting awards.

>> she got an award the same night that she apologized. and she said look, we spend an entire week debating one word than the president's immigration policy. >> she also said th-- look, i think she probably should have been punished worse than she was. she's out there saying in her acceptance speech for this award that basically trump supporters made me do it because i'm so passionate. it's like, no, nobody made you use the c-word. >> what i'm seeing here is grievance 3politics, it's my tem is different than the other team. >> the conservatives had a long time said we are discriminated

against. even if you take overt politics out of it and just take the entertainment that middle america gets. in the '60s or '70s, you had a couple of hit tv shows on "green acres" and beverly hillbillies" that were actually winning their time slot and were cancelled. sometimes the free market doesn't exactly work, these executives, they're not putting the bottom line ahead -- so they're not actually going with money. roseanne was doing very well with her show, they fired her anyway. look, i do think, though, race is a red line, misogyny is obviously bad, and there's the me too moment right now. but when you call, when you talk about valerie jarrett and you talk about "planet of the apes," that is -- you cannot do that, and i think rightfully so. they're apples and oranges -- >> they're both equally bad

fruits. >> the c-word used to be bad as well. it's not anymore. >> what about the the networks -- both networks just ignored them they didn't at all. >> i think it's important, i think people in some ways are starting to ignore presidential tweets because of trump. you know, when he tweeted that tommy lauren was a role model after she had this incident in minnesota, i -- when i first saw it, i said i'm going to leave this alone, then trump tweets, and i'm like okay, i have to address this, because the president of the united states is saying this person is a role model and this person has tweeted things about black lives matter and kkk that are really racist and this has to stop. most, i think, a lot of people just ignored the president on that, i still think because -- and i believe this is true. the president and the white house can still drive our

rhetoric, the level that we have our national conversation at, it can still drive visual imagery in this culture. and it can still drive the american imagination for all of our media platforms, nobody can match that, and a lot of this goes back to the way the white house is driving all of that in the public mind. the -- the -- look, you can't blame the white house for something as ugly and horrid as roseanne did, but you can see how trump's rhetoric fed her and made her feel justified in her racism. and you can also see in a way how it drives someone like samantha bee, and i'm not excusing her in any way, and i'm not blaming him for this. but you can see how it driving people to extremes. >> it drives people to sink lower? >> that's the mistake, listen to, when they go low, we go

high, which is what we should do, but the chulture is not doig that. they're going in the other direction. i want to talk about the hurricane metaphor, when i was on vacation last week, i am not turning those cable challennnel 6:00 a.m. i just want to walk any dog and look at the sunshine, and then roseanne's tweet comes out and i'm on the phone with the office and i'm writing it and i'm black in the hurricane, my twitter is plowing up and everything else. >> it went on longer because of the president's comments about cz disney and iger. what i wish trump would tweet about is an actual hurricane, because we're right at the beginning of hurricane season and there's a lot of questions about if puerto rico is ready for this. it's my fault for not talking about this harvard study, why is it that roseanne overpowered the

story about the death toll in puerto rico? >> we are addicted to celebrities in a sickway. >> celebrity culture. >> we're a celebrity culture that's one thing, what she said so went to the guts of the culture war in this country, and it was so ugly, even by the standards of social media rhetoric today, it was so shocking, what she wrote, and then you -- and here's the other part of it. >> it's also relatively easy to cover. everybody has an interest in it. >> i agree, brian, but there's also this deeper thing, that people saw her show and saw the character of roseanne connor who's likable in some ways. that show spoke to them in the same way that trump did. and i'm not denigrating this, i think it was important, i'm from wisconsin. for people to say in wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania, we hear you, we know how bad things are. she did that.

so you like her in that artificially constructed roseanne character. and then the real roseanne does something so repulsive and so uglyhat it shocks you. this was a shocking moment in our culture. >> i grew up in puerto rico, my brother lives there, this is very personal theo me, i talked about this this morning, and this should not be overshadowed and i wonder if it's because it's puerto rico and not the main land, i'm sorry, but puerto rico has gotten the shaft in th this -- was not nearly to the extent that it should have been done and i wonder if these were 5,000 american citizens state side and if they weren't brown and if they didn't speak spanish, i think we would be talking more about this. >> i don't think we'll ever really know what the real death toll was, the harvard study found that number, it could be much higher, it could be lower.

i was struck by two headlines on cnn.com that summarized, one, americans viewed hurricane maria as if it was some other country. but puerto rico will be an enduring stain on his presidency. but only if the press takes it seriously. >> yes and i think it is our responsibility to continue to shine the light on this. let's think about this, and the death toll -- i have talked to a lot of people there, anecdotally, to the administration down there, to medical folks who have worked in the field, and they say it probably will be much higher than 5,000, because a lot of these deaths were not reported. people were having their loved ones who died in their houses, they keeping them there in their houses because they didn't know what to do with them. so i think this will go over

5,000 and that means there will be more american citizens killed in the after math of maria, than 9/11 and katrina combined. when we come back, we'll talk about another one of the big stories of the week, a media story about joy reid, a blog post from joy reid's past and who's digging this up and why is she avoiding the hacking issue? what about your reputation, is that small? when you own your own thing, it's huge. your partnerships, even bigger. with dell small business technology advisors you'll get the one-on-one partnership you need to grow your business. because the only one who decides how big your business can be, is you. the dell vostro 15 laptop, with 7th gen intel® core™ processors. a hilton getaway means you get more because... you get another day in paradise. get a sunset on a sunday.

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posts that have been found and republished. some of them are homophobic, others are insulting figures like john mccain. one of the most disturbing to me was that she suggested someone check out a 9/11 truther documentary. she posted these blogs a decade ago. but maybe she didn't public them at all. but she's claiming she was hacked. that some hacker had published these posts in order to make her look bad. she's not claiming she was hacked anymore and she is apologizing for the posts. msnbc is standing by her. in this statement, obviously system some of her posts were hurtful and hateful and not reflective of the colleague and friend we have known for the past 10 years, but is there

aany suggest that she was hacked? and is the hacking being investigati investigated by the fbi? and whether the supposed fbi probe is still ongoing. i want to bring back in david, matt, and maria back to the table. i wants to know if there's someone out there that ee's publishing these old posts to embarrass her. she said she couldn't prove she was hacked, but this lingering in the air as a huge issue from mnsz. >> i want to give people leeway about their old statements. >> people evolve and change. >> do i think it's possible liberal hosts get more leeway for evolving than conservative hosts, i don't know. i think people are willing to forgive you if you said

something in the past that you don't agree with anymore and we can move on. what i think is probably lying about the hacking that she was trying to get out of it earlier. >> the lying question, we don't know if she's lying, but it looks like that. what is your interpretation of this? >> brian, especially in this moment, in the media, where we are being told by the white house that the press lies, you know? we should have the highe esest standards in the world. if you look at the fourth it state documentary of the "new york times" and you see the levels they have to go through with editors and stuff to try to get it right. that's what we need out there, nbc news does not need to be presenting somebody or being silent about something saying maybe this person sitting at this host desk is a liar. and also this alleged lie is also kind of complicated in the sense that it's kind of nutty, it's the kind of thing you make up when you're really desperate. >> like when you're backed into

a corner. >> students make up these kind of stories when they don't have their work there. >> hey, stop talking about reid, the real threat is trump. what about that pivot, don't pay attention to reid's issues? >> this does go to her credibility because if she had just come out and apologized, period, people like redemption stories, people want to give people a second chance, people want to believe people when they are truly sorry, maybe liberals give more leeway for evolving, maybe because we believe in evolution, but i think it disease has also has to do with, this didn't happen yesterday. what was this, 2005? that was's a long time ago, so she can say i'm not is same person i was then.

and it reminds me of the anthony weiner story, and he kept claiming that he was hacked. and the fact that that they're not even addressing it shining even more of a light on it. >> and why is msnbc not doing anything about it? this is the larger problem, we have now created a world where shame doesn't exist anymore, and you look at some of the things that sean hannity has said or done did not get him fired and there's a sense that we're tribalists now and when someone gets attacked, we need to circle the wagons and that's what msnbc is doing with joy reid. >> everything is judged through a political perspective, instead of a moral perspective. >> you're doing what a political campaign would do, not what a

media outlet would do. >> it's good for web traffic. to our panel, thank you very much. quick check from "reliable sources," we'll be right back. chevy also won a j.d. power dependability award for its light-duty truck the chevy silverado. oh, and since the chevy equinox and traverse also won chevy is the only brand to earn the j.d. power dependability award across cars, trucks and suvs-three years in a row. phew. third time's the charm... paywell, esurance makes itnce you dsimple and affordable. in fact, drivers who switched from geico to esurance saved an average of $412.

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know, went after mr. d'souza, are the same people that went after my husband, the same people that are going after my husband now. >> that was last night on fox news. of course there's a debate whether the president is sending a message to his friends. frank, is this the inevitable kind of end point of the fox news presidency, people going on fox, first to lobby for pardons, then once you're pardoned, you go on to thank him? >> it's like now turning the president not just into a reality show, but a game show if the price is right, there's something behind the curtain and you get the big prize. what i find is something that is not explored enough is what are these pardons worth to some of

these people? particularly martha stewart, mew thmew -- martha stewart was dissed by trump when she got in trouble with the law. and it may be another example of trolling, because she's bit up her business again and built up a brand, and how does a pardon from president trump help her? >> and i wonder if people even benefit by being speculated about and that remains to be seen. let me turn to succession, i mentioned it a minute ago, it's this new hbo series that you've been crucially involved in, it's a fictional spin on a media empire. i think there's a similarity here between rupert murdock and brian cox who plays the patriarch on your program. >> murdock like, redstone like, any billionaire power, with the

power in the media, to affect all our lives, that affect the other 99% of us daily, so it's a drama about a crazily dysfunctional family, it's satirical. three writers from my other show "veep," it also has a point to make, that these screwed up people affect our daily life. >> and that's something that's been true for decades, but is especially true today as we see a new wave of media consolidation. >> absolutely, and indeed, a story line in our first season is that our family patriarch, the 80-year-old billionaire played by brian cox wants more and more, he wants to own all the news, as we put it, and yes, and they're ever greedy for more money and more power and more clout with government and the

rest of it. >> frank, best of luck with the new series, thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> quick break here, and the most incredible story of the week, a reporter who fakes his own death, but was the credibility of journalism the real victim here? that's rite aft ee's right afte. but meningitis b progresses quickly and can be fatal, sometimes within 24 hours. while meningitis b is uncommon, about 1 in 10 infected will die. like millions of others, your teen may not be vaccinated against meningitis b. meningitis b strikes quickly. be quick to talk to your teen's doctor about a meningitis b vaccine.

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with pg&e in the sierras. and i'm an arborist since the onset of the drought, more than 129 million trees have died in california. pg&e prunes and removes over a million trees every year to ensure that hazardous trees can't impact power lines. and since the onset of the drought we've doubled our efforts. i grew up in the forests out in this area and honestly it's heartbreaking to see all these trees dying. what guides me is ensuring that the public is going to be safer and that these forests can be sustained and enjoyed by the community in the future.

a russian journalist put that question to the teft test this week. he worked with the ukrainian government to fake his own death as a part of a sting operation in order to cap cure the people pursuing him. there are a lot of questions you may not be thinking of. julia wrote about this for the "new york times" this week. there was an immediate reaction saying this could be problem mating for other journalists.

how so? >> everybody was relieved he was alive. i think people were concerned, a, he koorped with the ukrainian security services and, two, that he presented it as either i was going to get killed or i had to go along with the sting operation. there were lots of choices in between. i think the real problem is that the kremlin often when it is caught doing something bad, like shooting down a malaysian russian spy in england. they say what if this was a false slide operation to make russia look bad. >> that is what the russians claimed after he was the first proclaimed dead and then it turned out that there most outlandish series, this was set up to make russia look bad proved true. so what happens in the future when russia is caught doing something bad or yet another

journal sift killed. >> they protect journalists. it shows how many journalists have been murdered in russia and the ukraine in 2000. you see on screen there, it's a disturbing trend and your concern is next time it will be called fake news. >> yes, it's sad and also i have to say trauma advertising this community that has gone through a lot the speed with which his colleagues wrote obituary wears, memorials of him, he's not a very well liked guy, go not a guy a lot of people agreed with. this community of journalists have gone through this trauma so many times to fake one, there was one journalist who was stabbed in the neck in october and survived. she flipped out. it's like a really trauma advertised community that you retraumatize for your own benefit or to make russia look bad. >> thanks for being here. i recommend her beat on the "new

york times."com. we are out of time here on television. we will see you on the web, reliable sources.com. a reminder, chris cuomo's program is here tomorrow night 9:00 p.m. eastern time. 9:00 p.m. eastern time. cuomo prime time tomorrow.

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