howie: this is a fox news you alert. i'm howard kurtz in washington. america has reached a sad milestone, surpassing 2,000 deaths from the coronavirus, a doubling of fatalities in two days and the largest number of deaths in the world. an infant died from the virus yesterday in chicago, the first known death of an american child under the age of one. president trump decided against slapping a quarantine on new york, new jersey and connecticut, as he said he might do yesterday. the president kicked off a media debate saying despite the coronavirus he wants to see the country getting back to work. >> we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself, i hope we can do this by easter.

i think that would be a great thing for our country. i would love to see it come even sooner. i think it would be a beautiful timeline. howie: joining us now to analyze the coverage, guy benson, host of fox's guy benson show, lisa desjardins, correspondent for the pbs news hour and richard fowler, radio talk show host and fox news contributor. the president said the lame stream media, his words, want the economic calamity to continue because it increases the chances he would be defeated in november. do even the most anti-trump pundits want to see the economy continue to be virtually shut down. >> i think they want to see him fail. i think that part of it is true. i wouldn't use phrases like lame stream media. i think some of the coverage is critical and completely deserved. and i think the media has an important role to play here on accountability but the tone, the tenor, the story selection, does

seem to be stacked unsurprisingly unfortunately against president trump and i think he feels like he's out there doing everything that he can and the political attacks keep coming from the press as if it's business as usual. i can imagine that feels frustrating. howie: richard, i don't have any doubt that some in the media would like to see the president defeated and believe that he bungled the crisis. at the same time that's not the same as saying that they want the virtual shutdown of the american economy with the pain and suffering that that -- accompanied by that to continue. >> i don't think any member of the media wants that. i think if you look at some of the folks that are part of the white house press corps and the questions they're asking the president have anything to do with the questions that the american people are asking the president, the questions governors are asking the president. they want to know where the n95 masks are, where the ppe is. they want to know more about that, rather than resetting the

economy. american lives have to come before an american economy. an american economy is not fueled without the american people. and i think that's the most important thing that we can learn from this crisis is now more than ever, howard, we need to rely on government, whether it's donald trump, whether it's andrew cuomo, these individuals, these leaders need to rely on them and if we're putting more responsibility in their hands, they have a solemn obligation to ensure that they're communicating the facts, not conjecture, not bolstering, not rhetoric, actual facts to inform the american people about how we move forward in such a crisis. >> government all levels has to perform, not just strongly and efficiently but in a bipartisan way. lisa, many journalists are working at home, many have kids home from shuttered schools, some have been laid off, had salaries cut, everyone's watching the retirement fund shrink. who would want this madness to continue? >> oh, clearly i don't think any

americans want this to continue. everyone wants this to end as soon as possible. i've got to warn you, you might hear my 4-year-old during this broadcast. howie: understood. >> we had to distance ourselves from senators. senators were not distancing themselves from each other as much as the press corps was. give kudos to the reporters up there, i don't think this story's been told a lot because we were covering the real story which is the giant coronavirus bill. but reporters, we all helped each other out and tried to make sure -- usually five, six, seven of us would follow a lawmaker at one time. that's normal. these are not normal times. so we tried to set up a system -- howie: these are not normal times, indeed. guy, this latest round of debate within the press was triggered by the president saying he would like -- it was his hope that done tri could get back to -- country could get back to work

by easter, that the churches would be filled. there's fierce criticism from some reporters and liberal commentators saying that would cause thousands of deaths to ease up on this, and the president said the media often makes up the names of the sources. neither side is happy with each other. >> he is the one who said it on fox news' air about easter. some people treated that as a deadline. i don't think that's what he said or meant. it felt like an aspirational statement from the president, saying wouldn't it be great, i would love to, x, y and z. people are focusing on the easter date like it's chiseled in stone, which it's not. howie:.it was comforting to see dr. fauci with president trump agreeing and dr. birx was there as well, saying yes, we would love to get this as soon as possible, we would love to move on with the economy and get things back to quasi-normalcy as

soon as possible. it will depend on the science and the data. i'm comfortable trying to strike that balance as long as health concerns come first. >> i tend to agree with that, guy. howie: richard, let me jump in here, and then you can say whatever you want. this is not purely a left, right debate. for example, liberal new york times columnist tom freedman who can't stand president trump echoed the same thing in a column this week. he said if we shut down for months to try to save everyone everywhere from the virus we could kill many people by other means, kill our economy and maybe kill our future. so it's a difficult balancing act. >> it is definitely a difficult balancing act. if you talk to all of the economists i've heard from, economists i've talked to, what they're saying is this. once we get over the hump on the pandemic and reopen the american economy, it's going to be rocket ship and we're going to see amazing growth. what we have to deal with is the reality. the reality is, as much as the ideal and hopefulness around an

easter date. that doesn't seem to be what's happening on the ground. when you talk to governors like gretchen whitmer and media sources in michigan and louisiana, they're telling you they are just getting ready to baton down the hatches. they're getting ready to experience what new york is going through. knowing that the case, knowing we're doubling deaths overnight, we really need to be having a conversation about america's greatest resource, which is its people and not necessarily the economic metrics that the people are governed by. i think that's something we need to see now more than ever. i was happy to see a bipartisan bill passed in the united states senate. howie: i'm going to come to that in a minute. i want to get toly savment despite the daily barrage of media criticism, the new fox news poll shows 51% of the -- approval of the president's handling of the crisis. and so i'm wondering whether media people who talk to each other think, wow, he must be doing terribly but the public

watching the daily briefings has a different impression. >> i can only speak to my experience. i haven't had conversations about the president's approval in terms of my coverage or how i'm thinking about what i'm covering. i did notice this morning that abc now has a poll saying that the president's overall approval rating is going up and that now he's in a virtual tie nationally with former vice president joe biden. so i think you can say clearly there's a trend line up for the president. i hate to disappoint you, howard. that's not something i've considered. this is the most i've talked to anyone about those ideas. as journalists we feel like we're in the trenches, covering a national disaster, even for those of us who follow politics. i'm paying more attention to state and state governors than i usually do and i think that's important. howie: well, they are on the front lines, making difficult decisions. we're running a little tight on time. guy, this one for us. rachel madow are saying cable

news and television should not carry the president's daily coronavirus briefings with the vice president, with health officials because ellies and he mis-- he lies and he misleads. don't you think people should be able to hear from the president in this crisis and make up their own minds of how he's handling it? >> yes. obviously. i mean, this is absolute silliness. it's consistent descension -- condescension. it's saying we have the president speaking for one hour a day, surrounded by experts, the american people are too stupid to understand what's real and could be dangerous, disinformation or misinformation, if he says something wrong and needs to be fact checks, you have 24 hours to do that. this is a news worthy event, a presidential press conference during a global pandemic, where it's not just him, the members of the cabinet, the doctors who are superb.

it's amazing there are some people in the media calling for censorship. it's wild. howie: richard, i think that's the point. the press has all the plat form, all the time and space in the world to say, look, this wasn't true, this was exaggerated, he's touting an unproven drug. any criticism they want to make, that's fine, that's the role of the president. i'm guessing even you don't want to knock the president off the air waves so we can filter what he says. >> the histrionics, any time there's a national crisis, we rally around our flag and our president which is why you're seeing a bump in approval rating. that being said, this president has a greater responsibility now more than ever to not have a casual relationship with the truth but to have an honest relationship with the truth and that's what's missing here from these press conferences. i have no problem with him doing them. i have a problem when he gets on stage and he's attacking governors who are the front lines of this fight and you talk about that gallup poll and what you also find in the poll is the approval rating of governors

have gone to 70%. people are seeing local leaders step up and what this president should be doing is not sort of making fun of these people or attacking them, he should be supporting them, making sure they get ppes and ventilators. that's the most important. howie: i've got to get a break. you set us up for the next segment. we're up here on the roof, obviously, trying to reduce our footprint in the washington bureau. we'll be back in just a moment. getting older shouldn't mean giving up all the things she loves to do. it should just mean, well, finding new ways to do them. right at home's professional team thoughtfully selects caregivers to provide help with personal care, housekeeping, and of course, meal preparation. oh, that smells so good. aw, and it tastes good, too. we can provide the right care,

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howard: andrew yow mow has been drawing widespread media praise from his daily briefings from new york, saying nice things

about president trump and vice versa. they are challenging the administration for offering the hard-hit state 400 ventilators. >> what am i going to do with 400 ventilators when i need 30,000. you choose the 26,000 people who are going to die because you only sent 400 ventilators. howard: late friday, the president did what cuomo was urging, invoking a law to force general motors o to produce thousands of ventilators. he had less than kind words for other vent lay tores. >> don't call the woman in michigan. if they don't treat you right, i don't call. howard: guy benson, much of the mead ya along with andrew cuomo had been pushing the president to take this step on the ventilators. general motors was doing it voluntarily. earlier, president trump was saying he didn't think new york

needed 30,000 ventilators. ththey turned the focus to the swipe he took at washington's governor and michigan's democratic governor, gretchen whitmer. your thoughts. >> we often hear about president trump that he's a counter puncher, if they're taking shots at him, he's going to answer in kind. which hope that maybe everyone could put a pause on that rhetoric given the entire world is going through right now. it shouldn't be politics as usual. it's still a political moment, a political season. and i think that president trump overall is having i think a pretty good response with governor cuomo specifically. it gets a little tense from time to time. cuomo's fighting for his state, fighting for the needs of his state. as far as a republican president and a democratic governor in the epicenter of this crisis are concerned, i think they're actually getting along pretty well and doing work for the people, so that's been an interesting and refreshing

element of this whole thing while other elements are less so. howard: richard fowler, i understand it rubbed some people the wrong way when the president says these governors don't get a call back if they don't treat us right. at the same time, clearly the overwhelming issue here for the press is whether or not these thousands of ventilators can be produced to the over-burdened hospitals where people are sick and in some cases dying. >> i think that's what a good journalist does. a good journalist will push the question, where are the resources. what was most alarming about the pushback against governor whitmer and governor insley, there are americans that live there. the ppe is not for the governors, they're for the doctors and nurses on the front lines treating this silent enemy and for you to go after the governors in a world where all these governors are doing are fighting for their citizens, some of these sitens, mr. -- citizens, mr. president, who

voted for him, i think it's not only problematic but speaks to the fact, when you are getting -- when are you in a national crisis, people give you more responsibility and more trust. in response to that trust, you have to respond with realism, you have to respond with kindness, and you ar have to respond with truth. howard: all right. lisa desjardins, joe biden of course is the de facto democratic nominee, he's been doing more remote interviews from his delaware basement, cnn, the view, msnbc. let's take a look. >> i don't agree with the notion that somehow it's okay to let the -- let people die. he says he's a war time president. well, god, act like one. fast. howard: lisa, biden has been getting relatively little media attention even with the interviews because most of the press coverage on the democratic side has gone to andrew cuomo with his daily briefings.

>> we are covering really the main questions of americans which are about how we'll get through this, how long this will last, what this means for health care workers, what it means for our states and the state dealing with the largest crisis. so it's true, right now former vice president joe biden doesn't have a direct effect on this crisis. he's trying to be president a year from now and that's a difficult political position to be in, for sure. the politics of this are interesting because of course senator bernie sanders is still in the race and we have the next primary that we expect at this point is in wisconsin april 7th. that is still going ahead right now. the governor is trying to -- howard: i've got to jump in. we're short on time and i want to get to -- i'm sorry, i do have to jump in. guy and richard, brief answer on each of these. the president yesterday told

reporters he might issue a quarantine for new york, new jersey and connecticut. the president ultimately decided not to do it. there was a lot of media pressure, saying that was a horrible idea. what do you make of the president musing about this online. >> follow the advice of the doctors. i don't care what governor cuomo necessarily thinks, if the doctors and the experts are saying it's necessary, then he should have done it f you have the governor of new york and the experts on the same side saying don't do it, then he made the right call to hold off. howard: all right. richard fowler, 15 seconds. >> look, i agree with guy on this particular point. the problem is, you don't debate this in an open public forum. when you say there's going to be a quarantine, people say let me get out before the quarantine happens and that's how you spread the virus. i think if he's going to have a quarantine in new york which we could debate the legality of it, but the truth of the matter is, just do it, instead of debate, openly museing in the public. howard: the cdc issued a travel

advisory. much more media buzz ahead. bill bennett joins us in a few moments. stay with us. you can't claim that as a dependent! because it's inanimate! people ask me what sort of person should become a celebrity accountant. and, i tell them, "nobody should." hey, buddy. what's the damage? i bought it! the waterfall? nope! a new volkswagen. a volkswagen?! i think we're having a breakthrough here! welcome to caesar's palace. thank you.

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nothing runs like a deer. howard: the impact of the virus is transforming the media, you can see that from our setup on the roof but also personally affected a number of journalists and their families. joining us now is gillia jillian turner. i happen to know a number of journalists who have gotten the virus. one wrote she had to tell her kids to back away while informing them this scary thing happened, upending the entire planet is inside our house, inside our mom. my daughter cried, asking if i would get better, and i couldn't hug her. people like alan finder, a

retired new york times editor, he died from the virus this week. he was gracious to me when i was a rookie reporter. the personal is political when it comes to this. >> at the end of the day, once the pandemic has cycled in and cycled out, as dr. fauci has said a number of times, it's going to impact in one way or another, whether directly or indirectly pretty much every single american. so your experience, i think howie, is in keeping with what not just journalists across america but everyone across america is going to experience at some point during this. newsrooms have emptied out across america for a large part. it's really incredible to see the way this entire industry has transformed virtually overnight from one that requires face-to-face interaction, all day long, all night long in some instances, to one where everybody's now talking virtually and on the phone all

the time. howard: yeah, exactly. i'm not saying journalists deserve any more attention than anyone else. i'm giving you my personal reflections and following those who have been affected including washington post columnist david von draly. he was hit particularly hard. people see skype interviews, see remote, social distancing on the set. i wonder also, there's a balance to be struck here i think between providing the news and information that americans are hungry for and at the same time not wanting to overdo it and perhaps not wanting to scare people more than they already might be concerned. >> yeah. it's editorially i think probably one of the most difficult decisions for journalists to make is how much do we cover this because there's a hunger and a need, a real need for accurate, up-to-date information out in the public sphere but at the same time

other things are continuing on in the world, good things, tragic things, so when do we step back, when do we go 24 hours a day with the coronavirus. i will say i do think that a tragedy like this, a crisis like this makes journalism all the more important. just like during hurricanes, everybody suddenly becomes a meteorologist. during a pandemic, everybody has medical expertise they want to lend to this and it becomes incumbent upon journalists to sort through the noise and the facts and deliver people the hard facts, information we actually know. howard: and you know, just as it reminds people of the role of government, people don't particularly like government, state, local or federal, also reminds people, journalism is a human business. we're trying to cope with this stuff as well. when the stock market is sliding from 29,000 to 20,000, have you to report it. it did bounce back somewhat after the $2 trillion relief package passed by congress which

for once managed to put aside mostly the partisanship. jillian turner, we appreciate your insights. >> thanks, howie. howard: do we actually have a war on the virus or is that just a colorful term that the press likes to use? bill bennett joins us.

howard: this is a fox news alert. some grim statistics this morning as the death toll from the coronavirus surpasses 2,000 in the united states, a doubling in just two days. medical experts have long predicted a spike once more testing became available and that number unfortunately expected to rise further in the coming weeks. despite near constant media criticism against president trump who decided against imposing a quarantine on new york, new jersey and connecticut, 51% in a fox news poll approve of his handling of the crisis. nine out of ten in the survey concerned the outbreak will cause a recession. all the fox networks and

platforms are presenting a concert hostedded by elton john, featuring back street boys, billie eilish, mariah carey to celebrate the country's resilience. the concert debuts sunday night at 9:00 eastern. joining the conversation now with an interesting piece on the fox website is bill bennett, former cabinet member and host of the bill bennett podcast. i want to ask about this piece you co-authored. in it you say that while president trump is calling himself a war time president, you say, quote, it's not really a war, not really, and our response is disproportionate. the media certainly don't believe that the response is disproportionate and neither do many medical experts. what's your take? >> well, it's like war. the answer is yes and no in terms of scope, attention, mobilization, it's like war but the nature of it is not like war. we do not send lots of young men

off to fight, some to die in a fight for the country. what we're asking young men to do instead and young women is to stay out of bars and restaurants and stay home. that's different. we're also not attacking an enemy that hit us first, either with ordinance or economic sanctions but that may happen in the case of china, because that's richly deserved. but it's a national mobilization overt, it's very serious and needs to be taken seriously. my argument -- howard: you talk about in this piece, if i can jump in, you talk about television constantly talking about how many are sick and dead and we see the numbers rising in the headlines. are you suggesting that such a focus on those grim numbers is too much? it's excessive? it is -- >> yes, the exclusive focus. howard: what's the alternative.

>> to give a balanced view. for example, in england, neil ferguson predicted there would be 500,000 deaths in england, 2 continue to 2 million deaths in the united states. he's revised the number down from england. that didn't get much reporting. we don't focus enough on the facts in the particular cases. the mortality rates, dr. birx said the other day the average age of people who died in italy from the virus was 85. how well-known is that particular fact? if you're over 70, if you have underlying conditions, you're of much greater risk. that needs to be pointed out as well. the third point i'd make, and this is an interesting question about the media, howie, that i'd ask you, because the new york situation, which is very, very serious, we're getting a kind of new york-ization of the country and the country is different

from new york. most of the country is still facing a lot of bad news, no question about it. but we are not in the dire circumstances that some are talking. the reason this is problematic is -- howard: i learned this 30 years ago as a reporter in new york is that everything that happens in new york gets overly played by the national media because all the major organizations are headquartered there. at the same time, i would say this is a little different because new york has half the cases and is the epicenter, the president was considered a quarantine so i think a lot of the extra coverage and the coverage of governor cuomo is deserved. >> and i am over 70, i have underlying conditions and from new york so i'm sensitive to all of this and attention has to be paid to this. howard: i want to -- >> consider the circumstances in other states, though. go ahead. howard: you talk about destruction of the economy. i'll let you make your point in a second. you talk about the destruction of the economy and you say look, ultimately this may not be more than the annual number of traffic deaths or opioid deaths.

to some people that's going to sound close to people are going to die, there's not that much we can do about it. >> there is a lot we can do about it. i think we're doing almost everything we can do about it. i think the president needs to be commended and governors need to be commended on that. there are costs to shutting down this economy and if you just want to do body count, you shut down the economy, you will lose more people because of that than if you have a healthy economy. consider what's happening in homes. we know that there are increases in opioid use, domestic violence, child abuse and other things. when people lose their jobs, suicide, alcoholism, these things rise. this has to be factored in. let's look at all the factors, let's look at encouragements too. this is america. we have the greatest scientists in the world. i think the president is right to point us toward easter, not that we have to open everything up but we need to have hope. some of the news reporting those have the perspective that gives us some hope. victor franco who was a victim

of the concentration camps, said people who had hope survived, the people who didn't, didn't. a lot of emergency rooms and hospitals that we're hearing about, the over-crowding, a lot of people think they have the virus when they don't. this is what they're hearing 24/7 on the news. howard: i see. hope and optimism is important for any leader. at the same time you have to be tethered to the facts and sometimes the news is genuinely bad. the last question, some of the media outlets that have not been favorable to the president, including cnn, msnbc, do you think they are reporting and obviously grim, difficult story or do you think that they are trying to use it against the president? >> oh, they're reporting a grim and difficult story and they're trying to use it against the president. you know, when morning joe says donald trump has chosen to kill the greatest generation, veterans of the korean war and vietnam to save boeing, that's another kind of motivation.

that's not concerned about the country. that ugliness has to so. i'm all for the facts. i just want all the facts, howard. all the facts. howard: all the facts i think is a good way, a good motto i think for the media in this difficult situation as i mentioned earlier, none of us are immune including journalists. very much appreciate your insights this morning. bill bennett, thanks for joining us. >> thank you we will be back in just a moment. thank you, bill. we will be back in just a moment, you see the capitol behind me, to talk more about the media's handling of this unprecedented crisis. and here we have another burst pipe in denmark. if you look close... jamie, are there any interesting photos from your trip? ouch, okay. huh, boring, boring, you don't need to see that. oh, here we go. can you believe my client steig had never heard of a home and auto bundle or that renters could bundle? wait, you're a lawyer? only licensed in stockholm. what is happening? jamie: anyway, game show, kumite,

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shape your future. start here. complete the census at 2020census.gov. howard: we're back on the roof top in the shadow of the capitol building where the $2 trillion bill was passed. joining me now is griff jenkins. there's a survey a couple days ago that said that 62% of those questioned believe the media are exaggerating the effects of the coronavirus and that troubled me, made me think about how we're handling this and as i said earlier, it's kind of a tight rope act in this crisis situation. >> you know, howie, i will say that of all the stories i have covered over the years, this is one of the most difficult in the trust of the american people to be honest brokers of fact is our ultimate end goal but it is such a moving target because you have at the same time both the health

aspects, which is unprecedented in many ways and of course the economic impact which also unprecedentedded so you don't want to mislead people while at the same time getting it accurate. for example, today is the seventh straight day of daily increases in deaths, today being the worst, the first time we've seen since the numbers started to spike that there was more than 400 plus in the number of deaths. that means your chart is going straight up and of course we've heard so much about flattening curves. you have to paint that accurately without terrifying people who are already being asked in 23 states plus across the country to stay home because of the dangers. howard: right. look, this has affected everybody's lives in ways large and small and i take the point that bill made earlier that while new york city area obviously has been hardest hit and there are other hot spots, part of the country that are not hard hit, people might have said two weeks ago when journalists were quoting experts and others

making projections about the soaring death toll that that was edgexaggerated. now that the number is expecting to keep rising, it turns out that it was not exaggerated. it's hard to predict the future. >> absolutely. you're hearing from the experts -- you know, this whole conversation you were talking about earlier about the daily coronavirus task force press conference, setting aside perhaps if some don't want to hear from the president, those experts, dr. fauci, dr. birx, telling us that we need to prepare for the increases is not only a great source for journalists to get those facts to help paint their message but also the actual information that americans at home, many of whom their only source of information is that television, is that hand-held smartphone, it's really quite an important part of this whole story and of course the need to keep people resilient. we heard the president of course in norfolk down there at the

disembarkation of the usns comfort, such an important thing to talk about the resilience because we know with a peak, a week, two, three weeks away, these stories are going to get worse. reporters are going to have to give you harder information to digest as you continue to weather difficult circumstances. howard: right. right. as you hear the church bells behind me here in the nation's capitol. a lot of people look at this through a trump lens, whether you like the president, don't like the president. some of the polls showing that more democrats than republicans, significantly more, think the coronavirus is worse compared to those who have a different persuasion. but i think that it's incumbent upon us to not be swayed by that. partisans are going to think what they want. you can't completely take politics out of this situation. people trust us. we have 3 million people watching this program last sunday. we don't usually get those kind of numbers. people are home, hungry for information.

final thought, griff. >> final thought is that it's always been the case that there are political truths and there are objective truths. objective truths are facts. that's what reporters want to give you. whether you're a senator, congress person and you're going to get into a political bicker, we saw it for a week. they've got the bill passed. we have to address the emergency, the dangers facing 3 million plus americans. howard: good thoughts, griff jenkins, really appreciate. i know you've been up since early this morning. thanks very much. when we come back, nancy pelosi had harsh words for president trump, as some are preaching bipartisanship. back in a moment. or from the things they love to do? with right at home, it doesn't. right at home's professional team thoughtfully selects caregivers to help with personal care, housekeeping, meals - and most of all,

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howard: it's been a busy day on the sunday shows. house speaker nancy pelosi was on cnn's state of the union and had pretty harsh criticism of president trump. take a look. >> what the president, his denial at the beginning was deadly. his delaying of getting equipment to where it continues -- his delay in getting equipment where it's needed is deadly. howard: and we're back with guy benson and richard fowler. guy, pelosi saying that trump's delay was deadly. now, the media often sides with nancy pelosi but having just gotten cooperation for a $2 trillion economic bailout bill i was surprised she escalated her rhetoric to that degree just recently. >> i'm not really surprised because she's hyper partisan. people demand president trump be nonpartisan and apolitical during these times and i tend to agree with that but pelosi's out there lobbing grenades at him

rhetorically even after a moment of cooperation and i find it interesting actually that she would harp on the word delay and the delays of president trump, given the fact that she came back to washington last week, blew up the legislative process and democrats delayed needed relief by three days. that may not be the word she wants to use here, given very recent history. howard: all right. well, the democrats would say they were negotiateing with the senate to try to change some of the provisions. but richard, by contrast, joe biden was on nbc's meet the press. he was the fourth guest, showing he doesn't have a day job right now. of course, he's still an important party figure. chuck todd asked him whether president trump has blood on his hands and biden said no, i think that's too harsh, biden not using the heated rhetoric we see in the house speaker. >> and i think the reason why the vice president did that is because here's the truth. the truth of the matter is, our slowness to respond to this

crisis goes far beyond just the president. we have for a long time in this country neglected our resources, our public infrastructure, right, for a long time in this country we have lampooned nurses for wanting more money. now we need nurses. if there's anything when the crisis is over, the first bill i want to see congress propose is free nursing school so everybody who wants to be a nurse should be able to become a nurse because we need nurses. we need doctors. we spent a long time conside crg our public infrastructure, criticizing the role of government, rolling back government resources and now we see we're ramping them up in times of crisis. they should have been there from the beginning. this is not a democratic problem or republican problem. this is what partisanship gets you. howard: well, guy, you know, the president takes a lot of media criticism for when he takes swipes at people, whether counter punching or not. we talked earlier about criticism that he made of democratic governors in washington state and in michigan and of course his attacks on the

press which gets the press riled up. the pelosi comments i think remind us that partisanship on the democratic side is also pretty rampant, even in this crisis, and yet the media don't make that as much of an issue. >> we see a bunch of handwriting about nancy pelosi and her rhetoric in the middle of a pandemic, i think not. the point you made, which is the democrats argued they needed to negotiate a few more provisions and the bill barely changed between sunday and final passage, that's fair enough. i think we all know if the roles had been reversed and republicans in the senate were filibustering a pandemic relief bill, i think the coverage would be drastically different than it was last week and i think we all know why. howard: and richard, obviously it was a campaign going on, you can't completely take politics out of the system especially when you have this shutdown

economy and the rising death toll and all that but it's interesting that andrew cuomo and some democratic governors have modulated the criticism of the president. they may criticize something the administration did or didn't do, but they're not going after president trump as much as they have been because they know they need to work with the administration to get help with their states. >> absolutely. they realize the american people need strong leadership and need the white house to respond. where i disagree with guy is this. we've seen republicans hold up disaster relief bills over and over again. in this particular bill, one of the reasons why there was sticking points in the united states house because they wanted oversight for the fact that billions of tax dollars is going to banks, going to corporations without some level of oversight and accountability and i think that is a very real holdup because here's the truth. the truth of the matter here is that we want to get out of this crisis, it's not going to be corporations that get us out, it's going to be the american people many and we're seeing that every day through coverage all across the country. it is nurses who are getting us

out of the crisis, respiratory therapists, doctors that are getting out of the crisis. howard: got to g it's fascinating that congress which just seemed mired in gridlock actually had cooperation. took a crisis like this to get the bill passed. guy benson, richard fowler. appreciate you staying with us this morning. and i'll be back with some final thoughts. in america we all count. no matter where we call home, how we worship, or who we love. and the 2020 census is how that great promise is kept. because this is the count that informs where hundreds of billions in funding will go each year for things like education, healthcare, and programs that touch us all. complete the census online, by phone, or by mail. shape your future. start here at 2020census.gov

howard: politics on the nation's capital tends to be so tribal, so frustrating to me, i don't they get an overstatement to say that the magnitude and the toll the coronavirus is actually forcing people to come together, to work together into recognize that we are all americans.

luckily have president trump and andrew cuomo say nice things about each other, and even president trump saying a nice thing or two about chuck schumer, the usual partisan roles have been set aside and initiate partisanship in the media as well. most journalists and reporters are trained to do a good job under difficult circumstances for themselves and their families. i noted earlier how this is personal for me because i know journalists who have had been affected by the virus, whose families have been infected by the virus, who have kids and struggling in other ways, just coping with lives being stuck at home. i think we all feel that to some extent. the focus should not really be on journalist, nice to have the church bells backing me up. the focus should be on the doctors and the nurses and the firefighters and the police officers in the hospital workers, even the retail clerks who are taking some risk to keep some of the economy functioning. they are the real heroes although they don't necessarily

get a whole lot of attention. i think we ought to remember that they are putting themselves out there for all of us. that is it for this edition of "mediabuzz", i hope you will join us next week, will be back here next sunday, thank you for joining us. stay safe. ♪. eric: the u.s. seen a dramatic spike in coronavirus cases overnight, there are now more than 120,000 confirmed cases of covid-19 including over 2000 deaths in our country. this is the federal government issues new travel restrictions in the northeast, there are new warnings this morning about the spread across the nation and the potential death toll right here at home. welcome to "america's news headquarters", i am eric. arthel: i am arthel neville. the cdc advising most everyone living in new york, new jersey and connecticut to refrain