empathy or objectivity? i'm michael smerconish today in los angeles in a swing state election that could determine the entire balance of power in the senate, how should the media best approach the sensitive

issue of pennsylvania democrat john fetterman's recovery from a stroke earlier this year? fetterman suffered the stroke on may 13, the friday before the tuesday may 17 primary election did not reveal it until two days after it occurred. when he did so he didn't share an underlying heart condition that required the implanting of a defibrillator, and we wish him god speed and he's worked hard to win the nomination and it's a shame that his health has become an issue. the polls suggest that fetterman's senate race over dr. mehmet oz has narrowed as the pennsylvania gubernatorial race has widened and while oz won multiple debates, fetterman agreed to only one. it will be october 25th after pennsylvanians have voted and it will last 60 minutes. fetterman was looking to run out the clock, a strategy in the 2020 election when biden stayed in delaware when trump

barnstormed the nation and he counted on early balloting, but as oz continues to close the gap, fetterman may regret not agreeing to more debate and he's not been accessible to the media. his sitdown last week with nbc's dasha burns has drawn enormous scrutiny for both fetterman and his questioner. nbc characterized it as the first in-person sitdown he's had with a journalist since suffering the stroke. he required closed captioning and he's looking at a computer screen and her words are then typed up and he's able to take a moment, read what's on the screen and then respond. this assistance will also be provided him in the debate against dr. oz. here's an example. >> can voters stress that you will be able to do this job on day one? >> yeah. of course. >> what was most interesting, what caused the most controversy is what the reporter burns said

to lester holt before tossing to the interview. >> in small talk before the interview without captioning, it wasn't clear he was understanding our conversation. >> many are calling this ablism, saying it's unfair to fetterman or anyone with a disability, for that matter, to put him under this level of scrutiny. among those who through a flag on this was cara swisher of "the new york times," sorry to say i talked to fetterman for over an hour without stop, without aids and this is nonsense. maybe this reporter is bad at small talk. when i had a stroke in 2011 is all dr. google, folks, who kept trying to give me advice. slow down, they'd say, "f" you, i'd reply and many younger people do just fine. this is a new one. where is the line of appropriate

inquiry? tribalism relative to fetterman when people are suiting up in their jerseys with how they want the senate race to turn out because remember, the retirement incumbent is pat toomey. if fetterman can pick up a seat, it's a gain for the ds. it's not a hold. it's a gain, and i think there is a tendency in this race as in other races to put aside issues that are worthy of legitimate discussion and analysis and instead look at who the opponent is and look at the bigger prize, senate control, and for that reason i put this in the category like georgia. by the way, i'm not equating herschel walker potentially lying about paying for an abortion with the poor guy who had a stroke and the evangelicals in georgia are seemingly looking the other way when there's evidence that walker paid for an abortion in 2009 and in similar fashion, i sense from some of my radio callers that they don't want to hear about whether fetterman might not just have an auditory

processing problem and a cognitive issue because like those evangelicals in georgia the progressives desperately want control of the senate. at least i'm in good company. on msnbc, andrea mitchell had this exchange with terry mcauliffe, former virginia governor and dnc chair about the pennsylvania and georgia races. >> they have an extreme agenda. now, if we keep the united states senate with all these judges that are coming in, we'll stop them from a nationwide abortion ban and that's the stakes of this election. >> let me ask you this just to play devil's advocate. >> sure. >> if the bigger option is keeping control of the senate, how is that different from republicans in georgia, the issue is we have to keep control of the senate in a agenda. >> if they want herschel walker with all of the issues he has around them, that's their choice. >> it's been five months since fetterman released a letter from a physician saying he'd be capable of serving.

he hasn't agreed to release his medical records in a pen live interview he repeatedly pushed back on releasing them. >> i would say if there was anything that changed or whatever i abslaolutely would he updated that, other than the progress that i've made, it's evident. >> arguably, had he immediately revealed his stroke and underlying cardiomyopathy and agreed to more debates he would not have questions asked. if he doesn't have cognitive, and has a problem with sentences, i wouldn't think there was an issue. pat toomey said this last month. >> as someone who has served in the united states senate for almost 12 years now i have a really good understanding of how the place works. if john fetterman were elected to the senate and he's not able to communicate effectively, if he's not able to engage with the press and he's not able to

engage with his colleagues, he would not be able to do the job. it's just not possible to be an effective senator if you cannot communicate. it's just the essence of the job. >> toomey's concerns were soon echoed from editorial from the right-leaning pittsburgh post gazette and the washington post. many of my sirius xm radio callers took umbrage at the scrutiny being applied to fetterman and maybe this whole thing will be to fetterman's electoral benefit. in a late september fox news poll of registered members said if he isn't healthy enough to carry out the job senator, 68% said no, they weren't concerned and 34% said yes. it has a history of accommodating health issues while they're serving. bob casey suffered a heart attack and had a quadruple bypass and during his second term he underwent a heart and liver transplant. he was diagnosed with hodgkins

disease, underwent months of chemotherapy, but stayed in office. he famously chaired the senate judiciary committee while getting treatment and never missed a day of work. their cases differed from fetterman when they were in office and they weren't running for the first time with a recent medical setback. here's where i think the subject is, should it be guided by objectivity and the answer is both. you want to cover this in a way that's empathetic to fetterman whether he's in the senate or not, but i don't think you surrender your objectivity if you're in the media. i think we need to understand the extent of hisable abilitie scrutinize their own, whether it's fetterman, walker in georgia or the events of january 6th. joining me is selena zito of the pittsburgh post gazette and new york post and her most recent

book "it's complicated. how our nation is coming together and falling apart." selena, there ought to be consequences for the interviewer from nbc who raised those questions a couple of days ago. what's your thought? >> you know, i think dasha did an incredible interview and subsequently the next day she did a very tough interview with dr. oz. you know, this -- this race has been difficult to cover in particular. i've struggled with what the line is. i've known the fetterman family since 2005. however, our job as journalists is to give the voters as much information as possible and then they do whatever they're going to do in the voting booth. there are people who have won -- that were incapacitated or have passed away, but that -- our job is to tell the voter what is going on.

what dasha said is something that everyone that has gone to a fetterman event and has gone up to the rope line and has tried to have a conversation with him has experienced. it's not exploiting or what his health issues are, it's just changing the facts. >> so what has been -- you just referred to this, what has been your personal experience in covering him since the stroke occurred? >>. >> well, i haven't been able to talk to him, and you know, i think the campaign is trying to sort of find a way to me ander through this. they've been up front in saying that he has the auditory processing issue come means you can't comprehend. it's not a hearing -- it's not just a hearing thing. it's a cognitive thing where you can't sort of understand what someone is saying to you. it's common that happens to stroke victims. i want to make sure that that's

put out there, but i think the biggest challenge has been that it started with a stark lack of transparency and it's created doubt among reporters who have to cover it, and also voters who are trying to decide where they go in this election and i think they would have been -- they would have best served him had they provided their medical information as soon as it happened. look, you mentioned casey and you mentioned specter, when those two gentlemen have their individual house problems, there were medical experts standing on either side of them at events and at press conferences explaining to reporters and to constituents, this is what's going on. this is the prognosis. this is what to expect. >> salena, salena as you heard me make this, that it was

improper. there was in the print edition that someone wrote in defense of fetterman and asked were you be asking the same questions if he were in a wheelchair? wait a minute, we are trying to assess whether there are cognitive issues here and if a person is in a wheelchair and is cognitively fit then there is no issue whatsoever. >> right. >> someone else asked would we be asking the same question if the person were deaf. if they can communicate and are cognitively adept, the issue is no. how would you respond to that criticism? >> the same way you just did. it's an apples and oranges thing. look, people are picking their silos and they're digging in and that's where we are today. there's going to be a slim amount of people that are in the squishy middle that decide or stay. both of us live in pennsylvania. as we both know, our state

decides whether it's about casey in 90-whatever, '92, whatever the case may be, our elections are always decided late and --? final thought, if i may. you heard me say in the setup, you heard me say that i note that it seems like this gap between fetterman and oz is narrowing as the josh shapiro-mastriano race widens and i see cause and effect, i see pennsylvanias like to split their tickets. quick response to salena zito. think biden when he won and democrats just got eviscerated. they lost two statewide road houses where the republicans had zero money to spend. the democrats lost state house seats and the republicans had no money to spend they weren't even

fighting for and they held two congressional seats in bucks county and cumberland county. >> good point. >> we split our tickets in this state. >> salena zito. get back to the qcar and on the road. >> social media reaction what do we have from the world of twitter, i believe. >> how is using a closed caption device any different from people not being able to see and using reading glasses. msn parodying fitness is doing a service to all auditory disorder sufferers, kim, i think i was cliftal clear in saying senator pat toomey disagrees. i don't think it's an issue. i don't think it's an issue at all. if it's a cognitive issue then i think it's different and therein lies the distinction that i'm drawing as you heard me respond to the person that says what if

it's a wheelchair? what if it's someone who is deaf? whatever disability might be, that's acceptable as long as cognitively there's no impairment. that's how i see it. the survey question, the poll question this week at smerconish.com is an intriguing one, and i hope you go to the website and cast a ballot. on a totally different subject, if putin launches a tactical nuclear strike in ukraine, how should the u.s. and nato respond militarily? nuclear? conventional or not at all? go vote at smerconish.com. still to come, disparaging remarks about blacks and other groups caught on tape during a meeting between l.a. council members and have resulted in recriminations. the january 6th returned after the final hearing and orchestrated, televised inquiry,

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only tylenol rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. they release medicine fast for fast pain relief. and now get relief without a pill with tylenol dissolve packs. relief without the water. committee's ninth public hearing this week, it's time to ask, did all of the investigation move the needle? so far signs point to a no. here's the headline of this poll taken this summer by monmouth university. january 6th hearings have no impact on opinion because compared to polling before the hearings, the number of americans who thought trump directly responsible fell from 42% to 38% and only 5% of

republicans say trump is directly responsible while the number of americans who thought joe biden had fraudulently won the presidency remain constant at 29%. this is part of why my next guest wrote in "the new york times" that the house select committee has been assiduous in its research, artful in cinematography and wholly ineffective in shifting views about the storming of the u.s. capitol. christopher caldwell joins me now and the author of the age of entitlement, america since the '60s. christopher, i agree with you that i wish there were elements of cross-examination and confrontation in the january 6th committee's work and all of those nine hearings, but the fact that the needle didn't move, i don't think is the committee's fault. i think it's a testament on the level of polarization and the entrenchment that people have in this country. what about you? >> well, i -- you know, i --

certainly, i agree with half of it. it's hard to see how given the evidence of trump's misbehavior between the election and january 20th and people who were against trump would shift their -- their opinions. i do think that -- that a lot of the people who were on trump's side were a little bit frightened of the way the -- the committee operated, and i think that there was a tendency to blame the january 6th events not on -- on -- on trump's misdeeds, but the -- let's say the -- but on the opinion that there was something wrong with the election which is an opinion that can be freely held by anybody. i think that people felt that it was being politicized is the

best wi tay to put it. >> you said it was not a coup attempt and donald trump was not leading it. what blame are you prepared to level at him for the events of that day? >> yeah. well, he was -- as this thing developed, i think that he whipped it up and he was, of course, as anyone who watched it that afternoon knows he was extremely slow to give any kind of message against violence and against disrupting the proceeding, but i think that when you talk about a coup, you're talking about a very specific thing. you're talking about someone using things like the army and control of broadcasting and things to violently overthrow a country, and i don't think there was anything like that going on. i think that --

>> well, he was the -- he was the arsonist who refused to call the fire department, right? i mean, isn't that a fair analogy? he's the guy who stoked the whole thing and then sat back and watched it unfold on his flat screen television without li lifting a finger to stop those people from what they were doing. >> oratorically and it's not the same as a coup. trump's role in urging people is kind of at the level of affinity, and i think that this is where the whole january 6th investigation becomes kind of difficult. he kind of, like, felt their pain and he shared their opinions, but that doesn't render their opinions criminal. >> i think that -- i share your criticisms in the way they could have approached their onand done so in more of a traditional court confrontational style, but i think you soft peddle,

respectfully, on your treatment of trump. i'll give you the final word. we've got just 15 seconds. >> well, yeah. so i think that there's a -- two sides to the thing. it would have been nicer if the -- if the -- if the committee could have been more bipartisan, but i realize that the blame for that is bipartisan. >> christopher caldwell, thank you for being here. >> thanks for having me. more social media reaction from the world of twitter. what do we have? >> the far left and the far right have already made up their minds and those of us in the middle is this is a media event and only details in a fair trial may sway all of us. youu you've already heard to christopher caldwell relative to how they structured this whole thing. even if they'd given you and me the opportunity for

cross-examination. i don't think minds would have changed. everything that i said in the opening commentary about the program about what's going on in georgia or what's going on in pennsylvania and with regard to know. >> jan 6th, people are just too damn dug in -- or too many people are looking at the big prize, who controls the senate and who controls the house. that candidate and my candidate and i'm putting my party in control. >> i want to go to my website and smerconish.com. ? a very provocative poll question, if putin launches a tact kl strike to the ukraine, how should military respond militarily, up ahead, the georgia senate debate and herschel walker denied ever

paying an are for an abortion. how did it play out with georgians and a leaked tape of a los angeles city council gathering of three members of council. it wasn't a council meeting, per se, made national news because the participants all hispanic were recorded making slurs against african-americans and other ethnic groups. resignation ensued and what does this reveal about america's diversifying electorate? >> he was out there this week. he was talking under his new rap name crazy. he was talking about the juice. [ laughter ] >> not so flattering about the juice this week and he got locked out of twitter. he got locked out of instagram. on the bright side he is now the head of the l.a. city council.

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at its core it's a struggle for power between this group of

hispanics and their perception of people of color, of blacks. i mean, one of the comments that she makes is about the progressive district attorney george gascon and said [ bleep ] he's with the blacks. it's a looming, potential conflict that could drive more hispanics away from the democratic party and toward the republican party. it's not tribal and it's not rs and ds and it's by ethnicity and a sign of a bigger issue. >> yours truly with bill maher and talking about this story. the blacks and latinos are actually getting worse and what might this mean for the democratic party. this week a leak of recording of racist remarks at a meeting of three los angeles city council members created a political firestorm. the shocking tape was of a 2021 meeting of l.a. county ron herrera and three latino members of the l.a. city council,

president nury martinez, kevin de leon and gil cedillo, and speaking contemptuously about those they regarded as rivals, racist bigoted and crude remarks about blacks, jews, armenian, indigenous and gay folks. martinez is likening the son of another as a changuito, and gascon is with the blacks. herrera stepped down on monday, martinez resigned on wednesday and protesters, d.a. gascon responded to martinez's accusation with an op ed with the l.a. times. i am with the blacks because in los angeles county, blacks are disproportionate to the population size. given what they said behind closed doors, the fact that

crime disproportionous. fears of losing hard-fought gains, one 76-year-old black woman called the leaked tape a, quote, betrayal almost akin to january 6th. this comes of the hispanic vote trending toward the republican party. joining me now is fordham university law professor tania hernandez who is herself afro-latina and author of the book racial innocence, unmasking anti-black bias and the struggle for equality. thanks for being here. explain this to me in a larger context. how does this fit in with your academic research? >> well, unfortunately, while this came as a surprise to many people in the public, it's not so surprising to afro-latinos. the existence of anti-black bias has been a recurring trend, a theme, a dynamic within latino

communities because of the way in which it's embedded within latin american and caribbean cultures. this is not a product made in the united states. it's not an off-shoot of u.s. racism within latin america and the caribbean where 65% to 90% of the african slave trade was brought. the recurring legacy of slavery and the negative stereotypes and attitudes about blackness are still with us. >> in other words, you see it flat out as racism, and not as, i guess, a jockeying for power between different racial or ethnic groups, not that that makes it any better, but you see it in the case of the former, not the latter. >> well, i see it as a combination. i think that within the electoral politics and with redistricting and that's where the horse trading happens, it can be a very crude process, but at the same time when you are in these tense environments and

termers are flying or what have you, that is where you hear some of the most unvarnished attitudes, and so it's not that it's excusable because it happens within electoral politics jockeying for position situation, it's that that situation triggered the ability for it to come to the surface. >> so in los angeles, as i read in and understand this issue, i've come to understand and recognize there are 15 members of city council, 50% in round numbers of los angeles is hispanic. only three of the 15 are hispanic given the resignation of the council president. so you say, oh, it's disproportionate. there are only 3 of 15 and they're only 50% of the population and then i say to myself, wait a minute, i'm now going down the same rabbit hole of thinking that there needs to be parody. really, the issue ought to be who are the best people not what they look like. >> not only who are the best people, but who are the best

people who care about all groups within the community? what you are seeing here is that the designation people of color is one big umbrella category and it doesn't necessarily mean that everyone who is viewed by others as a person of color has all people of color in their best interest. >> can we also blame the electorate? because i think there is a tendency to say oh, my god, this disgraceful, disgusting behavior of these council members behind closed doors, but the voters tend to vote for their own, right? i mean, you vote initially when your group has never had representation, somebody's running for mayor, and they are -- i'll go with my own case, they are montenegrans. i have to go for the montenegrans we've never had that job before. as a black candidate, as a latina candidate, whatever the case may be and voters do that.

>> unfortunately, given the existence, longstanding racial bloc voting to support white supremacy, to be very frank, it is understandable that people would respond to that in wanting to have something -- someone who looks like them represent them, hoping that their interests would be best served. i think here what is particularly problematic is that the voters didn't necessarily have knowledge of the full set of attitudes. and so they were voting, but you know, what exactly were they voting for? well, they have the knowledge now, that is for sure. thank you very much for your analysis. i appreciate it. >> any time. >> social media reaction, catherine, from the world of twitter, i believe. these were democrats on those tapes so it is not racism if you have a "d" next to your name you cannot be racist by definition says chris with his tongue in his cheek. i get it. i think the bigger issue here potentially is that if there is

this competition playing itself out between blacks and hispanics within the democratic party, it might give impetus for more hispanics to leave the democratic party and go with the republican party which has been a trend, and i noted it in some of the polling data that i shared. >> hey, are you voting on this week's provocative poll question at smerconish.com? i hope so. i can't wait to see what your thinking is on this. god forbid, if putin launches a tactical nuke in ukraine, then what should be the u.s.-nato response? militarily speaking? should it be a nuke hear response, tit for tat, a conventional response or no response at all? go vote at smerconish.com and i'll read you the results at the end of the hour. still ahead, there were fireworks in the georgia debate between rafael warnock and gop challenger herschel walker over their respective relationships with law enforcement. >> one thing i have not done, i've never pretended to be a

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ensure max protein, with 30 grams of protein, 1 gram of sugar and now in two new flavors (♪ ♪) >> with the midterms 24 day away, last night in georgia, rafael warnock and republican challenger herschel walker squared off in their only debate as a sign of where we are in 2022 it included a question about who won the 2020 presidential election. >> did president biden defeat former president donald trump in 2020? >> did president biden win? >> that is the question. >> president biden won, and senator warnock won. that's the reason i decided to run. >> joining me now is patricia murph whoa covered the debate of the at llanta journal constitution. i didn't watch the whole debate, and i only watched snippets and

you did. it's only about snippets. wasn't the bar set so low for herschel that it made it easier for him to step over it? >> it was very low for herschel walker. i would say herschel walker set that bar very low himself because of his past statements that have been so confusing on the campaign trail. he also refused to debate his primary opponents before, and he's never debated in any capacity in his life at all. so i think the low expectation were probably well earned, however, i would say that herschel walker was able to meet and exceed those expectations. he held his own against rafael warnock who is a very seasoned speaker, very seasoned debater and in terms of did he meet the low bar, he probably exceeded the low bar, but i think it wasn't a bar set by the media. i think it was set by herschel walker himself. >> so much has been said recently about the abortion issue as it pertains to herschel walker. here's the way in which it came up in the debate last night.

>> this week you said that the accusations are, quote, all lies. for the voters watching tonight, can you explain the circumstances surrounding these claims? you have 60 seconds. >> as i said, that's a lie. i put it in a book. one thing about my life is i've been very transparent, unlike the senator, he's hid things and at the same time i said that's a lie and on abortion. i'm a christian, i believe in life. >> we are witnessing right now what happens when politicians, most of them men, pile into patients' rooms. you get what you're seeing right now, and the women of georgia -- the women of georgia deserves a senator who will stand with them. >> patricia, when this issue first came up and there was the greeting card and the check and the receipt and a woman saying, you know, i had an abortion at his request. there was a tendency to think this was a gamechanger, but it

really hasn't been, has it? >> it is starting to feel like that was not a gamechanger. it certainly put more doubts in the minds of republicans because it created such an atmosphere of chaos around herschel walker. he had already been accused and admitted to so many things in his past that were so unsavory including abuse of his former wife that there were republican voters who were with him anyway, so that information about the abortion whether they believed it or not, did not change their support for herschel walker. it was really the chaos and his own response to that that was keeping some republicans on the sidelines. republicans who needed to see more from him that, yes, i am capable of doing this job as a public official in the spotlight, and i think his debate performance last night went a long way in answering that. so, no. it looks like it won't have been a gamechanger and a lot of this is about the u.s. senate. a lot of this is about joe biden and a lot of this is about who's

going to control the u.s. senate in the future and it was an easy race to rationalize and that's what he was trying to do last night, too. >> people are voting for bigger stakes. they're going into their respective state election, but they're thinking about control of the house or control of the senate or what's to come in 2024. so three weeks-plus left on the clock. where is this race? >> well, listen, it's not three weeks. it's two days. early voting starts in georgia on monday and georgians do use early voting quite a bit. so i would say this race is about neck and neck. we don't know where it's going to come out. somebody who was not on the stage last night was the libertarian in this race, chase oliver. he has been getting about 4%, sometimes as much as 5% in these polls. that is keeping both herschel walker and rafael warnock under 50%. if this goes to a run off that one of them needs to get 50% on election night.

>> no, no, no! not again. >> we will be right back where we were. i could be talking to you in december. so it looks like this could easily go into overtime and then we're going to see these two men really fight it out one-on-one. so the stakes could not be higher, and i don't know that that debate last night did anything to keep us from going into runoff territory. >> well, if we are having that conversation in several weeks, the entire control of the senate could be at stake in the outcome of a runoff. holy smokes. >> yes. it could be, and georgia has been here very recently in those 2021 runoffs and that's where rafael warnock was elected the first time. >> sure. >> it obviously depends on what happens in those other races like pennsylvania, but it certainly could happen and because of georgia's unusual election laws and because ne neither one of these men has ever polled over 50%, that's why a lot of people in the state are saying this is about tide.

this is not also about just these two men, but control of the senate and joe biden's administration and do you want a senate that will help joe biden get further or that will put the brakes on what joe biden is doing? and so those are really the stakes that we're looking at. >> patricia murphy, thank you so much for that. appreciate it. >> thank you. okay. still to come, more of your social media reaction to today's program and have you voted yet? here's the poll question. very provocative. god forbid putin launches a tactical nuke in ukraine. what should be the military response from the u.s. and nato? do we go nuclear? do we use conventional warfare or nothing at all?

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yeah! i can't believe those idiots are going to fall for this. 90%! hey mark, did you know california is sending us all their money? suckers. -those idiots! [ laughter ] imagine that, a whole state made up of suckers. vote no on 27. it's a terrible deal for california. we win. you lose. naomi: every year, the wildfires and smoke seem to get worse. jessica: there is actual particles on every single surface. cooke: california has the worst air pollution in the country. the top two causes are vehicles and wildfires. prop 30 helps clean our air. it will reduce the tailpipe emissions that poison our air. kevin: and helps prevent the wildfires that create toxic smoke. that's why calfire firefighters, the american lung association, and the coalition for clean air support prop 30. naomi: i'm voting yes on 30.

responded to the poll question. if putin launches a tactical nuke in ukraine, how should the u.s. and nato respond militarily? do we go nuclear, conventional or not at all? here is the result. 75% say 24,000 votes, lot of votes, i am in that category, too. 75% say conventional, not nuclear. interesting that 6% say not at all. conventional gives us the ability, i think, to cast him as the pariah that he is and would be, god forbid, in that scenario. social media reaction. nothing, not our concern, tired of fighting other countries' battles i said last night, to me it's reminiscent of an, and elie

pointed this out at the holocaust memorial in washington, the decision not to bomb the tracks f we knew he was about to trike with nuclear weapons in ukraine, how could we do nothing? i don't think you could defend that. it would be 1994-ish redux. thank you for watching. wish i had more time. visibly diminish wrinkled skin in just two o days. new crepe corrector lotion only from gold bond. champion your skin. think he's posting abobout all that ancient roman coinage? no, he's seizing the moment with merrill. moving his money into his investment account in real time and that's... how you collect coins. your money ner stops working for you with merrill, a bank of america company.

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good morning, everyone. saturday, october 15. i'm amara walker.