it relieves stress off of me to let me know i'm doing something good for the community, not just papa john's. ♪ howard: this is media buzz. i'm howard kurtz and happy mother's day. media's focus has shifted from the impact of the coronavirus across the country to the impact within the white house where despite regular testing one of president trump's personal valets and vice president pence pence's top spokeswoman have been diagnosed with gloon this is why the whole concept of tests aren't necessarily great. the tests are perfect but something can happen between a test where it's good and something happens and all of a sudden she was tested very recently and tested negative. howard: the latest infections

came after the president defended a move that he would be winding down the coronavirus task force by month's end. >> are you saying mission accomplished? >> no, no, not at all. the mission accomplished is when it's over. when it's over, jim, mission accomplished. >> he's talking about stopping the coronavirus task force at a time when deaths go over 70,000. think about this. we've just gone over 70,000 deaths in america. >> the media needs to make up their minds about whether they want the coronavirus task force briefings or not. for weeks we have heard from a number of journalists who have said that we shouldn't be showing these briefings because they're propaganda. howard: the next day the president abruptly reversed himself. >> i thought we could wind it down sooner but i had no idea how popular the task force is, until actually yesterday when i

started talking about winding it down. howard: joining us now to analyze the coverage, ben domenech, founder and publicity of the federalist and capri cafaro, who teaches at american university. ben, president trump says he and mike pence are tested every day but a reporter asked the president how can you ask the country to go back to work when you can't protect the white house where secret service agents have been affected. where anthony fauci and the head of the cdc and fda are self quarantining. the president said this could happen with or without testing. should this be a big story? >> of course it's a big story. you saw what happened in the united kingdom where boris johnson had to deal with this and ended up in an icu. of course it's significant when you have this level of outbreak happen at the center of american federal power. people need to remind themselves how this testing process works. you're not going to get the kind of immediate turnaround that you would like to see necessarily in

terms of people being able to prevent themselves from getting this disease and eventually it is likely to hit a number of people who are in significant positions of power. i think frankly it's surprising it hasn't happened earlier, given the close quarters you see within the white house. howard: capri, reporters have challenged the president for not wearing a mask, most recently during a visit with world war ii veterans. he said he was a considerable dishappendistance away. is all of this a symbolic story or real one? >> i think it's both. i think certainly it is a story because the president of the united states is not only the commander in chief but the communicator in chief, the centers for disease control has gone out there, dr. birx, dr. fauci and others publicly standing next to president trump saying that they do recommend individuals wearing masks. although trump has said that he doesn't want to wear one and he doesn't necessarily think it is necessary. but there is i think a focus on the discrepancy of do as i say

but not as i do. i think it is a symbolic story about telling -- having the government tell individual citizens what to do and i think the mask controversy boils down to that and we're seeing that at the state level across the country of this loggerhead between individuals that are saying we want the government to step up and this is our own personal choice. howard: ben, when trump says he's expanding the coronavirus task force and not disbanding the task force, i thought he was candid about the political back lash he got. many of the pun don' pundits doe made the right decision, they say he's erratic. >> the constant criticism that so many pundits have made for the briefings led the president to kind of say well, let's get rid of it then, why are we doing this thing. we're trying to get information out to people and it's being depicted as being propaganda or

something of the like. clearly this is a -- you're losing either way situation for the white house. one thing i want people to keep m mind, though, is that the time line on this soys long and the level to which this is going to be a factor in america for such a long time, we're not going to have a vaccine for in all likelihood at least another year in terms of the times we're going to see here so at some point you have to of move beyond the task force mentality of this being a short-term temporary needed thing and to an approach that is frankly part of every agency and every entity that needs to be focused on this. that's something that i think people need to get their minds around and hasn't necessarily been a regular part of the coverage that we've seen on various networks. howard: and you know, there hasn't been a coronavirus televised task force briefing, capri, in two weeks now. now, given the popularity of people like anthony fauci and deborah birx, their high poll numbers, i think the president

knew full well this was popular task force. so was his aborted move more about trying to shift the media focus to reopening the country and getting people back to work? >> i think that that's certainly an underlying factor. i think that president trump and who can blame him, in an election year, is trying to move past this sort of climate of crisis, focusing on the next steps which is reopening the economy. i do also think that it's important to note that the media i think is real -- has really latched onto this story about trying to disband the task force, i think because it continues this narrative that president trump doesn't want to listen to science and i think that the coronavirus task force stands for scientific experts and i think they're trying to say oh, you want to pivot away from this because you don't want to listen to science, you would rather try to focus on the economy and the political

implications. that being said, president trump obviously decided to switch course and keep with the task force. i think we can anticipate as he has already said, this task force will continue to evolve in its purpose. howard: on this question of science, the new york times had a story the other day that caused a media explosion. i saw it on television, every hour. and that was the headline, u.s. quietly fears virus' daily toll will soon double, story saying trump administration privately projecting a steady rise in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths over the next several weeks. ben, the administration disavowed the outside study and the denial was in the 11th paragraph of the story. what did you make of that. >> i think it should have been a lot higher, frankly. look, the predictions and models that we've seen from a variety of sources have been pretty consistently off in terms of the experience of this. now, that's not to say that these aren't people who know what they're doing. i know many people who work within this area of industry and from my time at hhs and have a

lot of respect for them. at the same time, models have a real difficulty of telling you what to expect when it comes to things that are very new and that behave in new and interesting and often terrible ways and that ends up in a situation where we can't put all of our faith into that one basket. we can't have governmental decisions that are only based on the types of models that we see from various sources. they have to also factor in the other different aspect of decisions and that's something that i think a lot of politicians have struggled with because they would much rather defer to experts in different varieties across the various states and yet that's not going to bail them out in this instance. they have to make hard decisions. howard: to button this up, capri, as the washington post correctly noted about the study that said it could be 3,000 deaths a day, it could be that high, maybe it won't be that high, this was a draft report by an outside academic, not reviewed by the task force and the author said it was a fyi, a

work in process, not a forecast. everyone repeats it the notion that the media helping to scare the hell out of the country. >> the study was conducted by the university of washington. i think that what happens is that the media tries to latch onto any and all information that they can get to try to fill a 24 hour news cycle. i think they're also, again, trying to create this backdrop and create a counter point to is this the right time to reopen the government or excuse me, reopen the economy. so i think when these kind of studies come out, they latch onto it and they try to provide that counterpoint saying is this the right time, are we moving too fast or are we ignoring science, the narrative that the press is trying to continue. howard: right. i think the problem with the media narrative is this is a supposition that you are either for saving lives or you're from saving jobs when everybody including andrew cuomo says you

can't keep the economy should down forever. we have 14.7% unemployment. steven mnuchin telling fox news sunday the real number could be 25%. i want to close with this headline in the huffington post. put it up on the screen, ben. donald trump doesn't care if you die from coronavirus. and it's simply -- the story said he has trouble expressing empathy. that seems to be a classic case of trump trauma. >> this is the kind of coverage that i think is ridiculous and doesn't help anybody. of course politicians don't want you to buy. when it's framed like this by the media it's irresponsible. imagine if right wing entities were saying this during previous health situations during the previous administration. it's requirhoward: i didn't sea criticism of this headline at

all, oh, well, another shot at the president, because it's trump. >> you know, look, what really disappoints me right now is in the middle of a global pandemic where we have millions of americans out of work and thousands of americans dying, people are petty. and everyone is retreating to their respective ideological echo chambers. now is not the time for that and this kind of thing from the huffington post, whether you're left or right, it's not the time for these kind of petty words we have a moment of agreement. we'll have you back later in the show to talk about the mike flynn case. when we come back tara reade is speaking out, that's next. i want to say thank you to all the mothers out there, because especially in these challenging times mothers who can also be daughters and sisters and wives are the ones

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♪ howard: when joe biden's accuser responded on camera to his denial of her sexual assault accusations, it was not a major network. tara reade sat down with megyn kelly. >> if he's watching this, what do you want to say to him? >> i want to say you and i were there, joe biden, please step forward and be held accountable. you should not be running on character for the president of the united states. >> you want him to withdraw? >> i wish he would. but he won't. howard: joining us now from new york, kat timpf, the co-host of

fox's greg gutfeld show. kat, one bit of news from the interview is tara reade confirming that during the primary she tried to take the allegations to elizabeth warren's campaign and kamala harris' campaign and she says she wants biden to drop out after essentially clinching the democratic nomination. does that make her allegations seem more political and more politically timed? >> i really don't think it does, because she added to the fact that, hey, she voted for obama because she said she felt like she was voting for obama, not biden. she's a life-long democrat but she doesn't want to be a democrat anymore after this and i think it's important when we discuss this to kind of look at the democratic party and the differences with how they responded to this versus how they responded to kavanaugh would be one example and you mentioned elizabeth warren, look at how she attacked the allegations against bloomberg which were much less serious versus how she's dealing with

biden. so she's coming out in an environment, thinking hey, i've been hearing you guys say believe all women, believe all with women and that makes it probably sting extra to have it not be her. again, i don't claim to know what happened or didn't happen between biden and tara reade but if you just look at the ideological consistency alone it's just really not there. howard: right. well, you know, biden has vigorously denied this on television. this is from 1993, her allegation. how do you think she did overall? most people i think until this interview hadn't really seen tara reade. >> i think she did very well. i think that that's something that is certainly difficult to talk about and you have everyone looking at you and saying, hey, do i believe or do i not believe her and in the situation, no matter who you are, people are always kind of looking for a reason why you might be lying or not telling the truth and again, things were asked of her that weren't asked of christine blase ford, people were talking about the lie detector test, she's

offered sworn testimony but she said i'm not a criminal. i think this was not a soft ball interview but it was fair. and i think that that is harder to prier form and i think that made -- performed and i think that made it appear better as opposed to if it was a soft ball interview. howard: let's look at megyn kelly's questions. here's one example. >> you know, some people are going to hear this story and they're going to say you're telling me a u.s. senator in the middle of the day in a senate office building committed a sexual assault right there? >> you huh. yeah. >> how can people believe that. >> i don't really care if people believe it or not. i've had to live with it. howard: i guess she probably does care or she wouldn't have done the interview. but that was one of many times megyn kelly pressing tara reade on contradictions or inconsistencies in her account including why did she tell a washington post and fox reporter that biden didn't do much of

anything, it was really his staff, and why doesn't she have a copy of the complaint. this was posted on instagram and megan's youtube channel. how do you think she did. >> i think if this was an interview where she said tell me your story and i can't believe he did it, nobody would have taken it seriously because these are questions in people's minds and megan asked them. i had this impression that megan, we all know has been through sexual harassment herself. she is knowledgeable about this issue on a personal level. i thought she conducted a very fair interview. it is a difficult thing to talk about. again, she came out of the interview saying i don't know if i believe her or not. that's not for me to decide. i thought that was very fair. when we're talking about a presidential candidate, when we're so close to the election, a lot of people have political motivations here and it could not be more clear when you look at a lot of the democrats and we see that on both sides, all sides with people wanting to

believe for certain reasons or not, but it's really impossible to know for sure. howard: let me jump in. i thought megyn kelly asked every question i could think of i would have wanted to ask with skeet civiskepticism and that wd tara reade approached kelly with the kid o idea of sitting down h her. you mentioned earlier she was asked about the brett kavanaugh situation, she was asked about would you take a lie detector test, but there is no investigation. there's nobody to do an investigation. the dnc dismissed the idea that it conduct an investigation. nobody would believe that. does that all leave us kind of in limbo? >> i think it absolutely leaves us in limbo and these situations, especially when talking about something that happened so long ago, always do kind of lend themselves to limbo where it's kind of difficult to know but there have been no attempts by the democratic party here because i think a lot of them might not want to know because this -- joe biden is the nominee. that's what's going to happen.

and they want to defeat trump. some people have come out and said that, i don't want an investigation because i want to beat trump. so -- howard: absolutely, including a feminist author in the new york times, i've got to leave it there. but they come out and say, yeah, we don't want to know the truth. >> honesty, i guess -- howard: thanks so much, kat. up next we'll look at jimmy kimmel apologizing to mike pence and some other interesting items. stay with us. when bugs move in we stress out and spray... and spray... and spray. well, we used to. with new ortho home defense max indoor insect barrier, one simple application kills and prevents bugs in your home for up to a year without odors, stains or fuss. it's the modern way to keep bugs away. new ortho home defense max. bugs gone. stress gone. ♪ ♪

♪ howard: npr's public editor is chastising the network for failing to report tara reade's sexual assault allegations against joe biden for nearly a month. that hurts says kelly mcbride and feeds the narrative that it was reluctant to help president trump's re-election and that it's hypocrite call in burying such accusations against democrats and not republicans

and unfortunately that's what many people already believe about news outlets. jimmy kimmel thought he was seizing on a hot mic moment during the vice president's trip to a virginia nursing home. [ indiscernible ] howard: mike pence pretending to carry empty boxes of ppes into a hospital is the perfect metaphor for who he is and what he's doing, a big box of nothing. howard: that was picked up by andrea mitchell who said what can we say, fake photo op. but the video was edited, failing to show others laughing at the obvious joke. kimmel offered a semi mea culpa. andrea mitchell, glad we asked. turned out he was joking. maybe check first next time.

cbs this morning has taken down part of a story on a drive-through virus testing situation that a michigan clinic because of this scene. >> the governor says testing above all else will help determine when to fully reopen. howard: president trump says cbs was pretending there was a mass amount of chaos and disorder but after being accused of staging a longer car line at the cherry hill clinic, cbs invisitted they knew nothing about this, that cherry hill admitted telling one staffer to get in the testing line an later acknowledged numerous staffers were involved. sinclair broadcasting has been hit with a $48 million fine. stemming from unethical behavior in its failed attempt to buy tribune media and failure to disclose corporate sponsors for some of the material it airs. ahead we'll look at a sexual harassment probe involving nbc news after andy laxhouse.

but up next, mike flynn, the case against him dropped by the justice department and the media fury. stay with us. >> when i was five i decided to run away from home. my mom said be sure to take everything you need. i grabbed my favorite stuffed animals and hot wheels cars. on the way out i turned to her and said i think i'll take you too. early on i knew how important moms were and to all of them i say happy mother's day and to mine, thank you, and i love you.

♪ howard: new documents were released last week appearing to show fbi agents devicing a perjury trap for michael flynn. it was not mentioned in prime

time. that changed when the justice department dropped the case against the former national security advisor who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi. >> he was an innocent man. he is a great gentleman. he was targeted by the obama administration and he was targeted in order to try and take down a president and what they've done is a disgrace. they're scum and i say it a lot. they're scum. they're human scum. >> attorney general william barr same seems to be trying to establish it's a crime to the lie to the fbi unless you do it in a trump white house. >> this was an attempted coup to undo a dually elected president and take him down and lie about it the whole way. that's why they turned the screws on flynn. howard: we're back with the panel, ben domenech, obviously it's extremely couldn' controver the trump justice department to drop this case. how do the other cable networks

not even cover the documents that were the backbone of this decision, not even running critical stories and now they have to play catch-up. >> it's so funny how the story played out. if you weren't paying attention to the people right of center media and watching fox news, you probably didn't know this was a point of contention. there's been so many people who have run away from the story because it would force them to have to go back and look at the leaks that they were basing their earlier stories on about the way that this played out with michael flynn. it would also in. instances force them to examine the comments from paid contributors to their networks who have been saying one thing when they go on-air for the past several years, but other things behind closed doors as we learned from the transcript that's have been released this week from the house intelligence committee. this is going to be a continually unraveling story as we go forward and i think that a lot of these media entities need to look at the original reporting they did on the subject and whether they can trust those types of sources in

the future, whether they need to make changes in order to vet things more thoroughly. howard: capri, what the media pointed out is that bob mueller was appointed by trump's deputy attorney general and the president fired mike flynn three weeks into the administration for lying to vice president pence. >> right. and you see headline after headline in places like the washington post saying if michael flynn wasn't -- if he didn't do anything wrong, why did ellie -- why did he lie? this michael flynn story showcases the media and editorial bias on the left and on the right. you see so much more coverage in the mainstream media or legacy media about president obama's comments that were leaked about the decision out of the justice department, essentially saying that the rule of law is at risk because of this decision out of attorney general barr. you see that much more than some of the intricacies that have led

to that decision. so the coverage of this case i think is very biased, very siloed and frankly i don't think anybody in either camp is going to end up changing either their approach or frankly their views on this because, again, as i've said before, i'll say it again, the echo chamber in each side of the ideology on this issue in particular, people are not going to go to another outlet to see a different point of view. they want to see what they believe. howard: we're running a little tight on time here. so ben, a lot of this is aimed at bill barr. in fact, the new york times editorial today is headlined william barr's pre versio pervef justice. >> barr didn't make this decision standing alone. he brought in an outside u.s. attorney to look at this, to examine it over the course of four months. they found this new material

exculpatory material that ought to have been handed over both to michael flynn and the court in this case and i think that frankly the attorney general did a phenomenal job defending this whole process and his ultimate decision in his interview with katherine hai hairyag. this is something they didn't do on a whim. howard: the career pro prosecur on the case who worked for mueller's office withdrew from the case when the decision was made. i want to make sure i get to this. i will come back to you, ben. molly hemingway writing about a meeting barack obama two weeks before he left office with joe biden, also with let's see here, jim comey, susan rice, the national security advisor and the acting ag. and e-mail says president obama said he wants to be sure that as we engage with the incoming team, the trump people, that we

are mindful to ascertain is there any reason we cannot share information fully as relates to slusrussia. molly says it's part of an effort to target flynn and push the idea of russian collusion. what does the e-mail actually prove? >> it proves we need to ask question of former president obama and joe biden about what that meeting entailed, about what they were thinking in this time. this opens up a lot of questions and that was the meeting where they found out james comey was circumventing normal practices when it came to going through the white house counsel before interviewing michael flynn. this creates i think a question that really needs to be asked of the democratic presumptive presidential nominee about what happened in that meeting, what his role might have been in spinning this up. howard: right. capri, i want to get you in on this. that same e-mail, susan rice wrote that obama said everything should be done by the book. speaking of leaks, there was a

leaked account in recent days about a phone call obama held with alumni which he is reported to have said that the rule of law is at risk in the mike flynn case, that this is without precedent for him to get off scott free, the story's been downplayed. obama is so careful about public utterances, i have to think he knew or wanted it to get out. >> if he did it certainly worked. that's been the headline in many of the mainstream media outlets. if that's what he wanted to convey, he certainly was successful in doing so. howard: on this larger question about the president calling obama administration officials human scum and so forth, clearly an attempt to put the onus on the previous administration. >> and frustrating, i don't like it when either side uses this kind of language,ic it's beneath the office of the president of the united states but president trump is certainly not a stranger to utilizing colorful language even though i think it's inappropriate, i understand his frustration here.

howard: all right. ben domenech and capri cafaro, great to have you with us this sunday. up next, with andy lack out as nbc news chairman, a state investigation into sexual harassment alleged possible, coming right up. can save hundreds. hey mara! - yeah jamie's the guy running it. - mara, you're not on mute. i once had to fake jury duty to get out of talking about his yogurt preferences. mara, you know you're not on mute, right? oh, there's a mute button? yeah, that's flo! the one who looks like she'd smile while she sleeps. flo: i always smile. mara: that's why i said that.

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after a rock eate rocky tenurs to have no previous knowledge of sexual harassment allegations against matt lauer before firing him. >> nbc is dishonest news. that's why they fired andy lack, i guess. you have to ask them. andy lack was a hack and they fired him. howard: variety confirmed that new york's attorney general has been conducting an investigation of possible sexual misconduct, retaliation and gender discrimination at nbc news. joining us from emily miller, political analyst who once worked for nbc news. emily, will lack's tenure forever be defined by the botching of the harvey weinstein story and the handling of the allegations against matt lauer. >> absolutely. andy lack's legacy -- he's been in the tv business for 40 years or so, it will be defined by the

fact that he killed the story, the ronan farrow story about harvey weinstein. the state attorney's office when after weinstein and is now going after nbc news and comcast or as president trump says con-cast. howard: when you worked at nbc news, you were in your 20s, did you have any experience with sexual harassment? >> i did. i did. i was very young. i worked there. i worked at nbc network from the age of 21 to 23, 24. and i did suffer from sexual harassment and from older men and men in power and they made it very clear some of the exchanges that would have to happen in order for me to be promoted there. and i was so young, so naive. i didn't understand what was

going on. i knew that i had to leave. so in order to get promoted at nbc and -- howard: were any of these interactions physical? >> yes. one was. howard: i know you don't want to mention any names, but do these men -- do they still work at nbc news? >> yes, they all do. everybody, everything that happened to me still works there and i just -- i'm not in a position, not interested in being public and getting into a public debate over this. what concerns me is i have offered -- state's attorney has been talking -- the new york state attorney has been talking to a lot of current and former nbc staffers and i was asked through a second -- through somebody if i would be willing to cooperate and i said of

course, i'm always willing to cooperate with law enforcement and i do have evidence of the -- somewhat i would say exchanges that were asked of me when i was really young and you know, i would fully cooperate but i haven't, they haven't called me but i would, of course 6789 what's really concerning here is nbc, comcast, a publicly traded company has been getting rid of these bad guys, matt lauer, locking his door and forcing women to have sex with him and then chis matthews who -- i know the new york state's attorney was their primary person they were going after, so instead of dealing with this, nbc just fires chris matthews and fires andy lack who is the head of the whole organization, the top executive. he's got his own issues and he's been covering up for a lot of things going on in there and as you also mentioned stopping stories like the harvey weinstein disgusting story. instead, nbc, which is

supposedly a news organization, instead of actually investigating itself, having an outside law firm investigate it which is however other network that's been caught up in this whole me too system, is they've had outside investigators look at what these accusations are and nbc has refused. howard: right. just to clarify -- >> nbc said they're investigating themselves. howard: just to clarify, it is true that recently msnbc's chis matthews was fired. he's not been accused of assault. he's been accused of making inappropriate comments to women. and just to go back for a moment to your experience, it was a long time ago but was this troubling to you as a young woman getting into the television business? >> frankly, i didn't know better. i can't say this is -- i mean, i talked about it openly with people over the years because it was more of a like seriously, like you're my dad's age kind of situation. like i mean, i -- frankly, i

remember the last time i actually walked out of rockefeller center which is where nbc news is based in new york, i walked out after being propositioned and for a promotion and i literally walked out, walked out of the building, went to my college roommate's apartment and told her what happened and do you think what i think is happening is happening and she's like i don't know, call your mom. i mean, that's how young i was. so i called my mom and she verified and so it was just more of a shocking situation and i've never been secret about it in my life because it was just a wake-up call to adult life. howard: i've got 10 seconds. do you believe that some of that culture still exists today at nbc news? >> i think nbc news has to have an outside investigator or the state's attorney is going to shut down both comcast and nbc and file charges because these executives have got to go and they've got to clean house and get good people in there instead of all these bad actors.

howard: all right. right now it's a civil investigation. emily miller, we appreciate your time. thanks for sharing your story. >> thanks for having me. howard: and don't go away, president trump at the lincoln memorial taking more shots at the press, talking about abe lincoln. that's next. happy mother's day to all of the amazing moms and a special message to my mom who taught me so many life lessons that i used to succeed. i love you very much. happy mother's day. i know that every single time that i suit up, there is a chance that that's the last time. 300 miles an hour, thats where i feel normal. i might be crazy but i'm not stupid. having an annuity tells me that i'm protected. during turbulent times, consider protected lifetime income from an annuity as part of your retirement plan. this can help you cover your essential monthly expenses.

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♪ howard: president trump's never-ending battle with the press took a historical turn last week with a town hall at the lincoln memorial with bret

baier and martha mccallum. >> i am greeted with a hostile press, the likes of which no president has ever seen. the closest would be that gentleman up there, they said lincoln, nobody got treated worse than lincoln. i believe i am treated worse. howard: joining us now, susan ferrechio, chief congressional correspondent for the washington examiner. susan, i would say the president gets relentlessly negative coverage, worse since richard nixon. why make the claim against lincoln. >> he was assassinated. i think lincoln was clearly treated a lot worse generally speaking than president trump, obviously. because he was sitting right there in front of lincoln and saw an opportunity to make that comparison. there's been a dysfunctional relationship between the president and the press since he was running for president and then it went into high gear the day he took office.

and it's been dysfunctional. i don't think it's salvageable. but i also think the president's talking about unfair treatment, it's dysfunctional, both sides are responsible for this. the media and the president. they volley back and forth and they ramp up the rhetoric, they ramp up the hatred of each other. you see it at every press conference. it's truly a dysfunctional relationship. that is what it is more than anything else. yes, he is treated unfairly. howard: in that interview, the other part, the question was asked by a retired nurse, the president said the questions he gets are disgraceful, horrible, horrendous. look, there's attitude, there's grandstanding, most journalists consider the questions about the handling of the coronavirus to be legitimate. >> there's some of them are legitimate. but they're buried in sort of got-ya framing of the question, where it's not just about getting at the heart of how the government is handling this, and

there are really legitimate questions, it's about how to blame the president and try to make the president take responsibility. it's almost like tunnel vision with the press. it's more about getting trump than really covering this objectively and the problem with that, howard, is a lot of questions are not being asked. howard: susan, let me just jump in with an example. the president tangled with paula reade. he told the new york post she's angry, he doesn't like her attitude and then it wasn't donna reed, i can tell you that. she is a '50s sit com mom and she said yeah, i'm not donna reed. what did you make of that comparison, going after her that way? >> people are going to call that a sexist comparison. but the president is an equal opportunity critic of the media. he goes after men and women based on how they ask the question. not necessarily what they want to know but when it seems like they're trying to grandstand,

that's the way he perceived her question. i'm not saying that's the way she asked it. the president saw it as another got-ya approach to way the media always treats him. howard: he did praise abc's david muir this week for an interview they did. susan ferrechio, thank you very much. >> thanks, howard. howard: and we'll be right back. hi, mom. you're the heart and soul of the family, the glue that keeps it all together. i know my mom has taught me what unconditional love is and i know that because i tested her in high school. to my mom, dianne, i love you so very much and to all the moms at home, happy mother's day. in this time of social distancing, when taking a break from everyday life is critical to everyone's health, there is one thing we can all do together: complete the 2020 census. your responses are critical to plan for the next 10 years of health care, infrastructure, and education.

let's make a difference, together, by taking a few minutes to go online to 2020census.gov. it's for the well-being of your community and will help shape america's future. ♪

and will help shape america's future. if you have a garden you know, weeds are low down little scoundrels. draw the line with roundup. the sure shot wand extends with a protective shield to target weeds precisely and kill them right down to the root. roundup brand. trusted for over 40 years. howard: leslie stahl is recovering from the coronavirus and here's what she said on 60 minutes. >> after two weeks at home in bed, weak, fighting pneumonia and really scared, i went to the

hospital. i found an overworked, nearly overwhelmed staff. every one of them was kind and sympathetic, gentle, and caring from the moment i arrived until the moment days later when i was wheeled out through a gauntlet of cheering medical workers. howard: i think leslie was pitch perfect, making it not about her but those who cared for her at considerable personal risk. she saii know pundits and polits pay lip service to the hospital workers but what they're doing is truly amazing. some have gotten the virus, some have died. they put themselves on the line every day and for that we owe them a debt that we can never fully repay. that's it for this edition of media buzz. i'm howard kurtz. happy mother's day to all the moms out there. i think about my mom every single day. by the way, my podcast, media buzz meter, is now available on spotify as well as apple

itunes, google play or fox news podcast.com. we just passed 1 million downloads for that. thank you for that. let's connect on facebook and at whicatwhichtwitter. we'll be back here next sunday. see you then with the latest buzz. ♪ arthel: on this mother's day, we remember the mothers who have succumbed to covid-19 as the number of coronavirus cases worldwide passes another grim milestone, and the pandemic enters its ninth week here in the united states. hello, everyone. i'm arthel neville. eric: hello, welcome. i'm eric shawn. this is america's news headquarters. coronavirus has spread to more than 4 million people around the globe while here at home more than 1,300,000 americans have been infected. the number of deaths nearing 80,000 now, but there is good news, 200,000, more