howie: this is a fox news alert. we're awaiting an update on the public's health from walter reed medical center. we'll bring that to you live on media buzz. i'm howard kurtz. it was the early morning tweet that stunned the world, froze the campaign and consumed the media. president trump saying he and his wife have contracted the coronavirus, remains hospitalized at walter reed. kellyanne conway, hope hicks, chris christie also testing positive, along with three reporters. many journalists raising questions about who knew what when, the impact on the election and, yes, chastising the president for not being more

careful. >> it's more than understandable to be enraged at the president and at this white house for endangering all of the other people whose lives they have risked and january tear -- squandered. >> they continue to put others at risk, not only by setting bad examples, not only by failing in the pandemic response but now quite literally as carriers of the virus you. >> the fac.>> the fact that tn occurred is a damning indictment and unfortunately kind of a we told you so reality. >> this is almost a nail in the coffin of his incompetence in handling the virus. >> over at cnn, we're told again and a again the president deserved the sickness he got and they trotted out the usual hacks to explain why he deserved it. >> his mentality has been i'm an essential worker for the american people, i can't hide in the bunker. he can keep working, he will recover, he will test negative, he will move on and the campaign

will continue. howie: a host of new questions about yesterday's hospital briefing, joining us to analyze the coverage, mollie hemmingway, senior editor at the federalist. jedediah bila, and clarence page, columnist for the chicago tribune. i want to take a moment to wish the president and first lady a speedy recovery. in the light of the sad news, is it fair for journalists and commentators to pound away on his mixed messaging or does it come you across as insensitive? >> the media have responded to this news in a way that seems very inappropriate. the virginia governor, the governor of my state got coronavirus recently, he and his wife did. he's an advocate of masks. he wears one all the time. he shut down the state. nobody drew similarities between the way he ran his state and him getting the diagnosis or said obviously these things don't

matter. unfortunately, the media seem to be unable to leave aside their unchecked hostility. this is a very important time for them to be reporting facts, instead they seem to be trying to drum up scandals, foment instability. it's disappointing to see they can't set aside the hatred even for a few days, and it comes through loud and clear while the president is hospitalized. howie: jedediah, he had the virus last spring. with that in mind, i will ask -- i think the key element here is the tone and that there is an i told you so attitude i think that is creeping through a lot of the analysis and commentary. even if the people involved are reciting relevant facts. >> yeah, i mean, you have to remember right now the president has the virus. he's in the hospital. so this should be handled delicately, because it's a deadly virus. we've seen how many americans die from this thing and many others get sick. regardless, the media should be approaching it from that angle.

i would like to see we have some degree of compassion left in us. with that being said, i do think some of these conversations about rallies, about, for example, the rose garden ceremony where you see eight people that have tested positive, some of these conversations are important about the debate room, where you saw several people come out, the debate for president trump, several people have tested positive and you know that people were not wearing masks in there. these questions have to be answered because the goal is prevention. the goal here is to prevent as much as we can, to prevent the spread of the virus. so have you to be able to look at circumstances and learn from them. and say maybe in hindsight this wasn't the best thing. there was a recent report that came out of about this rapid testing that was being used with respect to the rose garden, saying that doesn't do so well at detecting people that aren't symptomatic. this is valuable information. so i think you have to tow the line. you don't want to say the president deserved it. that's ridiculous, heartless comment. you want to look at these things

objective and say maybe some of the decisions haven't been so wise. let's change them. howie: that's why i say the tone is key. clarence, joe biden has repeatedly expressed sympathy for the first family. nancy pelosi said it's very sad but going into crowds unmasked and all the rest was a brazen invitation for something like this happen. i didn't see the press accusing her of being partisan or piling on. >> i want to say first of all that my weekend column, you can see that i prefaced my column by wishing the president and first lady well and pointing out we only get one president at a time and we should stand together as a nation and maybe this awful problem will help to pull us together ironically. i find most journalists i've seen responsible journalists outside of the sensationalist press has kept the same balance, wishing the president well,

pointing out that the president did not wear a mask and ridicules those that did. looking forward, we have a responsibility to say, hey, how did the virus spread in the white house? what kind of policies are they doing? how can we change them? that's our job. howie: all right. let me -- with that in mind, let me play for you, mollie, a snippet of tuesday's debate in cleveland. didn't get that much attention at the time but question with see now -- we can see why now it seems more relevant. >> i don't wear a mask like him. every time you see him he's got a mask. he could be speaking 200 feet away and he shows up with the biggest mask i've ever seen. howie: the media are making mask wearing a major issue. you mentioned ralph northam getting the virus even though he always wears a mask. do you think there's too much press attention to the mask. >> i think the press takes too

much of a side on the issue on whether the response is to shut down the country, ban children from school, keep people from going to church, have people be masked constantly versus the idea that you want to respond with appropriate concern to the pandemic without destroying your life. the media are clearly on the same side of this issue as joe biden, just as they are on the same side of every issue with joe biden and that comes through loud and clear. there's a fundamental debate of how to respond to something like this, whether you put the entire country on hold, were whether you stay in your house and you don't campaign, how you respond to these things and we have not seen in any way a good debate on that touchic within the media. -- topic within the media. they have all agreed that drastic lockdowns, serious measures are the right thing to do even though there is not a lot of scientific evidence in support of this, although they assert that there is. howie: it's the primary debate in the country right now i would say. as we await the walter reed news

conference, yesterday's session at walter reed drew a lot of controversy, the president's personal physician, dr. sean conley was asked whether the president had ever been on supplemental oxygen. let's look at part of his answer. >> has he ever been on supplemental oxygen? >> right now he is not. he is not on oxygen right now. howie: jedediah, the ap later reported that president trump actually had been on supplemental oxygen at the white house on friday before going to the hospital. now, dr. conley gave a generally upbeat you assessment of the president's health which came as a relief. moments later, white house chief of staff mark meadows, it was in a video of similar saying to reporters i want to go off the record with some of you all, was not as optimistic saying the president's vital were very concerning and the next 48 hours would be critical. journalists are getting totally

conflicting assessments from these senior officials. isn't that affair assessment of the way this played out yesterday? >> that is a fair assessment. i myself was trying to follow this in real-time. it was challenging, to figure out what was going on. that should not be the case. when it comes to something as important as the president's health, he's not like everybody else. he's not like every other private citizen in this country. people are all plugged in. he's the leader of the free world. i think people have a right to consistent information and there's been an argument made, well, some information is shielded initially. that's up to the administration. i really believe in full trans parch sigh on this -- transparency on this issue. there's a difference between shielding certain information and providing couldn't dick -- couldn'contradictory informatio. i sound as a member of the media, it was hard for me to do that yesterday, just look objectively. i didn't know what was true. i had to sift through it. that's very, very problematic.

and we saw even right from the start, howie, when the timeline came out from the doctor, he had to go back and correct it because the initial timeline suggested that president trump had been infected before he actually was. so this is all a problem. they need to really get on this. and in the future, they need to really do this right, right from the start. howie: yeah. i was on the air yesterday after the walter reed news conference and i noted that dr. conley had said 72 hours, the president had gotten the diagnosis 72 hours earlier which is totally conflicted with the official announcement by the president on twitter. and about 10 or 15 minutes after i noted that, dr. conley put out a clarification, saying he hadn't meant to say 72 hours. i think somebody might have been watching fox. the white house is drawing flak for not disclosing that hope hicks tested positive. that story was broken by

jennifer jacobs. kellyanne con way anway and a hf dozen others were at the event at the white house, many not wearing masks for amy coney barrett, now testing positive. does the administration need to do a better job of putting out information and answering reporters' questions. >> yes. we have been through a number of issues like these. you know what breaks out is what i call the fog of breaking news. we're still in that fog now, the last 48 hours. i think back to when president ronald reagan was taken to george washington hospital after having been shot, he and his staff did a great job of covering up the fact that he had been shot and collapsed when he got out of the hospital doors. that came out later. our job is to find out what is happening. secrecy is necessary when dealing with the president's security and the nation, it leads to conspiracy theories, et cetera, et cetera. we need to be as straightforward as we can. one more word on masks.

wear a masks, ladies and gentlemen. because look around the world. why is this country behind everybody else in making masks a part of the issue. howie: i will endorse it. i was outside the hospital that reagan was taken to, george washington hospital when he was shot, and later was able to report that he lost a lot of blood, it had not been disclosed, on the way to the hospital. so these questions always come up. we have a brief time left, mollie. leaks to news organizations about the impact on the campaign, advisor telling the new york times, trump advisor, political disaster. it points to the failure of deep denial approach. these are his own people being quoted, of course anonymous. >>.mollie. >> yes. i don't think you need to be an an an muse source to -- anonymous source to know this seriously disrupts all campaigning for both campaigns. in general, i find that prognostication by pundits and

reporters has been you abysmal for the last five years. they should have some humility. they said four years ago that they knew how this campaign would go, it was lights out for trump. now they seem to be doing this again. nobody has gone through something like this in the closing days of a campaign. they should just be calmer about it. howie: all right. panel, we hope to have you back later. when we come back, hogan gidley on the president, the press, the virus and the election and again, we are yo awaiting anothr news conference at walter reed medical center.

howie: how does president trump's covid-19 diagnosis affect the white house, the campaign and the media coverage? joining us now is hogan gidley, national press secretary of the trump campaign, the former

principal deputy white house press secretary. we all wish the president and first lady a speedy recovery. much of the media are saying this hurts the campaign, not just because the candidate has to be quarantined and is off the trail for some period of time but because it puts the pandemic including his early downplaying of the virus and the fact that he's battling it right now back at the top of the media agenda. your thoughts? >> well, a couple of things. first of all, i appreciate the kind words about the president. i know he's doing well. the video he released shows exactly the kind of leader he is. even at walter reed, he's focused on making every single american life better. he's done so with his policies in the first four years of his term. he's going of to do that in the next four years. i would quibble with the characterization you put forward about the president downplaying the virus. he was the only one taking this seriously. in fact, he mentioned it in the state of the union you address. we all know what nancy pelosi did with that, she tore it to shreds. this president shut down travel

from china and europe. joe biden would not have done that. he said it was a bad move. said it was fear mongering, said it was racist. we know from dr. fauci, dr. birx, dr. redfield and others that that one move saved countless lives in this country. so the president has taken leadership on this and just about every other issue he's faced and you see the results. this country, while impacted greatly and negatively by this china virus, is better off than so many other places around the world because of this president's leadership. howie: all right. there's also a lot of videotape of the president saying early on he thought it would go away soon. yesterday's news conference at walter reed caused a lot of confusion and criticism. you had the president's personal physician, dr. sean conley, not giving a straight answer on whether he received supplemental oxygen. the white house chief of staff, mark meadows, on background saying that he was concerned

about the president's vital signs over the previous 24 hours, next 48 hours will be crucial. you're a press secretary. doesn't this kind of conflicting and confusing information undermine credibility and make it hard for people to figure out how is their president doing? >> no, the president was very clear. he released his own video and talked about how he was doing. he was open and honest. you saw there was no telly prompter, no staffer handing him notes during the course of the video which is more than i can say for joe biden. and look, the american people know that this president is in control of this country and the doctors came out, they clarified their statement as well. people know this president is facing a serious illness, like so many americans across the country. he's fighting it. as he also said in the video, he can't stay locked up in a basement forever. this country can't stay shut down. we have to get back out, we have to get our economy back up and running again, people back to work. livelihoods matter and when you have all of the death had and

destruction caused by this coronavirus and what china did to this country, is unspeakable. what they have done and unleashed on the world. you need a leader in this time. not only fights the virus but fights back for the american people on all fronts. that's what this president has done. you saw that in the video. howie: what's your reaction to msnbc's rachel maddow saying the white house and president endangered people through risky behavior and nancy pelosi saying the president's conduct was a brazen invitation for something like this to happen? >> i'll tell you what i kind off thought and found about the conversations in the mainstream media and mainstream democrats, it's disgusting what they're saying about this president. when you have a former speech writer for hillary clinton saying i hope he dies, when you have msnbc -- i was looking, if trump and pence go down, oh, great, then we can get nancy

pelosi. that doesn't bring anybody together in the country. you would think that if the president of the united states has any illness, that the country could come together. the democrattings an democrats a can't help themselves. they don't like joe biden, they just hate donald trump. they're going to do everything they can in their power to get him out of office even if that means saying disgusting, reprehensible things about someone who is fighting an illness and is in walter reed right now, still running the country and still doing a better job behind the walls of that facility than joe biden ever did in 47 years of failure in elected office. howie: let me add my disgust to the former official and anybody else on social media who is rooting against the president at a time when the country should be rooting for him. you spoke to him last night. tell me about that and also, why didn't the white house reveal that hope hicks had tested positive and instead this was broken by bloomberg news which made some people feel like the information was being held back?

>> couple of things. i can't speak to what the white house is doing. i don't work there anymore. i know they have the best doctors on the planet in that facility, looking out for everyone's health and i know that all the necessary precautions are taken every time someone is around the president, the people who are around him every day also have testing every single morning so i know they've taken all the proper measures to make sure the president is healthy. howie: in your conversation? >> my conversation was very good. he was upbeat, making jokes, asking about the campaign and policy. he's ready to get back on the trail and keep fight forge the american people -- fighting for the american people. not just reminding people what he did the last four years and what he'll do in the next four as well. howie: we're awaiting a news conference at walter reed medical center with an update on the president's health.

howie: this is a fox news alert. we are awaiting a news conference at walter reed

medical center with an update on president trump's health, that now scheduled to begin shortly. we'll bring it to you. we're back in the meantime with trump campaign's hogan gidley. let me take you back to the debate because the president as you know has been portrayed as having blown up that debate, as having shattered the rules, undermined democracy and all that. choosing to stop interrupting joe biden who interrupted at times as well. your reaction to that coverage and in light of the president's illness do you believe at this point the other two debates will take place? >> i think they will. i hope they will. but you know, joe biden back in 2012 interrupted paul ryan 82 times. we expected that to happen. it was actually joe biden who interrupted this president first. it was in his second answer, no one talks about that. so it was game on from then. the president is a counter puncher. you think he's aggressive? you better believe this president is aggressive. he's bold and decisive. this president was able to get hostages back that joe biden could never get back. that's why this president was able to get trade deals that

benefited american workers. joe biden could never do that. that's why this president's attitude and his style able to do so many things towards the way of peace deals around the world, making this world a safer place. joe biden could never do that. are there people out there who may or may not like every single tweet? perhaps. the fact is, the results that this president has been able to deliver for the american people, regardless of race, religion, color or creed, speak for themselves. joe biden could never do any of this and he has a 47-year career of failure to prove my point. howie: all right. just for the record, our fox news analysis said the president interrupted his opponent or chris wallace 145 times to biden's 67 interruptions. the media have continued to hammer the president as you know about his response to chris wallace's question about condemning white supremacists. i know as you're going to remind me that three times the president said sure but he didn't issue at that time a

simple declare testify sentence. in fairness, he called into sean hannity's show and said i condemn white supremacists, i condemn the kkk, i condemn the proud boys. why didn't he do that at the debate. >> he did that at the debate. you said so, three times in one question. the media keep trying to drive the narrative because they know joe biden and the democrats are hemorrhaging african-american voters. president trump came in and said what do you have to lose and he delivered for the black community, something joe biden hasn't been able to accomplish in his 47 years, and nothing to show for it in the african-american community. african-americans are coming onto this campaign because the president not only passed criminal justice reform, something joe biden didn't do, this president also made sure that the kkk was going to be prosecuted as a terrorist organization, something joe biden didn't do. this president got record high employment for african-americans, as well. joe biden talks a good game but he's been an abject failure at

every level of government and nowhere is that more obvious than reques with the african-amn community. i understand why they're trying to push this narrative. the president has absolutely condemned white supremacists at every single turn, done it multiple times. you notice, joe biden won't condemn antifa. in fact, he calls it a set of ideas because he knows those people rioting, looting, smashing in store fronts, burning down churches are all with his supporters. he doesn't want to risk offending nose who are causing death and destruction in the cities because it would hurt him at the ballot box. howie: i've got about half a minute for this last question. a rally in minnesota, the president said media outlets are cheering violent demonstrations in the streets. he said cnn. new york times, they think rioting is okay, you can do whatever they want. do you really think he thinks the news organizations thinks

rioting is okay. >> you should be posing this to the rest of the media. howie: i am posing it to you. i'm quoting the president's words, talking about the media. >> correct. right. but it's the media out there making excuses for those who are ravaging our cities, who are putting our american families at risk, putting jobs at risk, who are literally causing billions of dollars worth of destruction in cities and towns, hurting our cops, targeting them for death. that's what the left is doing and the mainstream media isn't saying a word about it. go look around what's happening in all of these places. they're not donald trump supporters. these are folks who support joe biden, who support the mainstream media, so the media in turn is giving cover to both. howie: hogan gidley, we appreciate you being on. thanks very much for joining us this sunday. >> than so much. howie: it's not clear whether the president being in quarantine over covid-19 will wipe out the next two debates, after the cleveland faceoff that politico called an epic moment

of national shame and embarrassment for the ages. >> that was a hot mess inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck. that was the worst debate i have ever seen. it wasn't even a debate. it was a disgrace. >> that was [bleep] show. we're on cable. we can say that. apolapologies for being maybe a little crude. >> it was a highly depressing 90 minutes. biden did not seem senile. you may have been surprised by how precise some of his answers were. howie: a tsunami of criticism followed a debate dominated by constant interrupt from president trump, causing joe biden to break in as well, despite rebukes from chris wallace and endless instances of people talking over each other. >> i'm the moderator of this debate. i would like for you to let me ask my question.

mr. president, can you let him finish, sir. i have to give you roughly equal time. please let the vice president talk. i think the country would be better served if we allowed both people to speak with fewer interruptions. i'm appealing to you, sir, to do that. howie: and we're back with the panel, mollie hemingway, the media as you know -- that may be the only debate we get to see. i hope not. the mead have beeny vie been evg the president over his debate. >> the media keep pushing not to have debates. i don't think they understand how important they are to the american people. the narrative that this was trump interrupting, certainly he was interrupting but it's important to note that he's not the first person to interrupt. in his second question he was interrupted three times by joe biden. and then we had a moderator -- we had moderation that was trying to keep control of the debate and i think it would have been good just if we could have

more -- we clearly need to do something to just enable the candidates to speak to each other. i think partly the media were frustrated that joe biden hadn't been able to dominate in that same way he did in 2012 when he debated paul ryan and he just interrupted him constantly. the media liked that when that happened. they didn't seem to like it when there were interruptions here. howie: all right. jedediah, certainly joe biden did some share of interrupting. he called the president a fool and a clown and said will you shut up, man, which is now a campaign t-shirt. when the press said the president was trampling the rules even when you had two minutes to give your first answer, was that backed up by what we saw. it was sort of unwatchable at times. >> yeah, i mean, people have done the math on this and shown that president trump interrupted far more. did they both interrupt each other? yes. was there poor behavior on both parts at times? absolutely. if i were chris wallace, i would

have wanted to be able to cut the mics. it left me feeling that the debate moderator should be able to cut the mics. chris wallace wasn't sent there to be a hall monitor for a bunch of third graders. he was there to moderate a debate. you should be held to a standard. they should have followed the rules. what it prevented was people hearing about policy. i have to say, president trump has to watch his tone sometimes. i think joe biden does as well. people are there for the meat of the matter there. they want to hear you talk about healthcare, how you're going to lower their costs, what you're going to do about their taxes. they're trying to figure out who to vote for here and to look like you're dealing with two people who were toddlers, i mean, that's just not a good situation. it left a lot of people with a really bad taste in their mouth. i would say i think joe biden wound up with the advantage because, just one point, howie, he made that effort to look directly into the camera and to appeal to people's emotions and

right now this is a very emotional time with covid-19, with violence in the streets, with the racial divide being what it is, i think people's emotions are high and i think that that was a winning strategy that he employed. howie: well, there was some substance in the debate. it got completely sort of drowned out by insults and interruptions. it was a frustrating night for chris wallace. here's what he had to say afterwards with bill hemmer. >> it was only 45 minutes in that i realized what a -- just a total mess and disservice this was to the country and to try to stop it, do i wish i had stepped in earlier? yes. but as i say, hindsight i 20/20. howie: the president's argument was he had to debate chris wallace and joe biden. what chris wallace said he was trying to do was enforce the rules and at what point he called for a halt of the debate to try to get better decorum and

it basically didn't work. >> as a veteran of the middletown high school debate team in ohio, i was appalled. this is not a debate. it was a debacle. you got a big shouting match that broke down in two and it didn't serve anybody's purposes very well. i was most surprised with president trump who normally is very conscious of how an audience thinks and feels, somehow thought that by yelling at joe biden and interrupting he was going to expand his base. no. right now is a time when president trump needs to be able to reach out to those people who are the undecided voters, that 15% out there or whatever that's still undecided and most of those i talked to just thought a pox on both their houses, it was a big hot mess. howie: well, mollie, jedediah referenced the idea of should the moderator be able to cut off somebody's mic if they're trampling the rules. the commission on presidential

debates are considering that. at the same time, the president and his team, campaign team have ripped the commission saying they're siding with joe biden and he won the debate and he doesn't want to change the rules in the middle of the game so it's not clear how that will play out. >> ganging rules in the -- changing rules in the middle of a campaign seems unwise. there are a couple issues here. one is that there's a lot of things the media refuse to talk to joe biden about and the only person in the entire country who might be able to press joe biden on those things is donald trump. so if he is constrained from being able to ask his opponent questions that the media refuse to ask, that is a pretty big liability against him. more than that, i think it's very much time for us to update how we do debates. there had been a flurry of pushing for joe rogan to moderate the debate, not because he's particularly like a policy wonk or has experience doing anything like that but he does an interview style where he tries to get at what people really believe without judgment and i think that there needs to be something to really update

this. it's not doing what it's supposed to do and it's not serving the american people or just let the two candidates kind of talk to each other and go at each other and ask the questions they want to ask. howie: as we await the news conference at walter reed, we want to move on to our next segment, if i can ask the control room to play the sound, showing the question that chris wallace asked about white supremacists, we can discuss this with hogan gidley and the reaction to some from the mead . >> are you willing to condemn white supremacists and militia groups? >> the proud boys. stand back and stand by. i'll tell you what, i'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about antifa. >> number one, donald trump refused to condemn white supremacy. number two, the president of the united states refused to condemn white supremacy. >> it was not a mistake. it was intentional.

mr. trump intentionally is stoking a neo fascist organization to commit violence. >> i guess being against white supremacy and saying of course, i'm for peace, that question has been asked and answered a you thousanthousand times. yet the press obsesses over it when they can't challenge him on his results. howie: clarence, the president certainly says he's answered the question many times. the media consensus is that his answer or limited answer was created the media firestorm. no that he's done it in the interview with sean hannity, is it time for the media to move on from this question? >> no, not as long as you have a lot of americans, like me, who lose sleep at night over the fact that they've got a president in the white house who is soft on proud boys and these other right wing extremist groups, and it seems by impulse and his instinct to gravitate away from really criticizing people who support him, even if they come from that fringe.

i think this is a question that's on people's minds and they're not going to give it up. howie: all right. there's a lot more to say about this. i'm going to ask you to stand by, panel. we're looking at the live picture from the walter reed medical center. the president is going to -- the president's doctors and medical team at walter reed will be coming out to give the latest update on the president's health, yesterday's news conference created a lot of confusion. i'm sure they would like to have a very simple, clear update on the medical condition of the president. is he improving as mark meadows went on judge janine last night and said. we'll see that in just a moment as we wait for the news conference to begin. let us pause one moment for fox stations across the country to join us. howie: this is fox news coverage. i'm howard kurtz in washington. president trump's medical team is giving an update on his

condition. we see the doctors coming out to the microphones. they will typically make an opening statements and take some questions from reporters. we're anxious to hear about the president's condition. let's listen in. >> good morning, everyone. >> good morning. >> since we spoke last, the president has continued to improve. as with any illness, there are frequent ups and downs over the course, particularly when a patient is being so closely watched 24 hours a day. we review and debate every finding, compared to existing science and literature, weighing the risks and benefits of every intervention, the timing as well as impacts a delay may have. over the course of his illness the president has experienced two episodes of transient drops in his oxygen saturation. we debated the reasons for this and whether we would even intervene. as a determination of the team

based on the timeline from the initial diagnosis that we initiated dexamethasone. i would like to take this opportunity, given speculation over the course of the illness, the last couple days, update you on the course of his illness. thursday night into friday morning when i left the bedside the president was doing well. with only mild symptoms and his oxygen was in the high 90s. late friday morning, when i returned to the bedside, the president had a high fever and his oxygen saturation was transiently dipping below 94%. given these two developments, i was concerned for possible rapid progression of the illness. i recommended the president would try supplemental oxygen, see how he would respond. he was fairly adamant that he didn't need it. he was not short of breath. he was tired, had the fever and that was about it. after about a minute, on only two liters, his saturation levels were over 95%.

he stayed on that for about an hour, maybe, and was off and gone. later that day, by the time the team here was at the bedside, the president had been up out of bed, moving about the residence, with only mild symptoms. despite this, everyone agreed the best course of action was to move to walter reed for more thorough evaluation and monitoring. i would like to invite up dr. doildr.dooley to discuss the con plans. >> thank you, dr. conley. a brief clinical update on the president's condition, i want to reiterate my comments from yesterday regarding how proud i am to be part of this multi-disciplinary team of clinical professionals behind me and what an honor it it to care for the president here at walter reed national military medical center. the president continues to improve. he has remained without fever since friday morning.

his vital signs are stable. from a pulmonary standpoint, he remains on room air this morning and a is not complaining of shortness of breath or other significant respiratory symptoms, is ambulating himself, walking around the white house medical unit without limitation or disability. our continued monitoring of his cardiac, liver and kidney function demonstrates continued normal findings or improving findings. i'll now turn it over to dr. garabaldi from johns hopkins to talk about therapeutics and our plan for today. >> thank you, dr. dooley. i wanted to reiterate what an honor and privilege it is to take care of the president and be part of such a talented team here at walter reed. the president yesterday evening

completed his second dose of remdesivir. he's tolerated that infusion well. we have been monitoring for potential side effects. he's had none that we can tell. liver and kidney function have remained normal. we continue to plan to use a five day course of remdesivir. in response to transient low oxygen levels as dr. conley has discussed, we did initiate dexamethasone therapy and he received his first dose of that yesterday and our plan is to continue that for the time being. today, he feels well. he's been up and around. our plan is to have him to eat and drink, be up out of bed as much as possible torques be mobile. if he continues to look and feel as well as he does today, our hope is to plan for a discharge as early as tomorrow to the white house where he can continue his treatment course many thank you very much. i'll turn it over to dr. conley for any questions. >> dr. conley -- >> just a moment, please. the president wanted me to share how proud he is of the group,

what an honor it is for him to be receiving her care here, surrounded by incredible talent, academic leaders, department chairs, internationally renowned doctors and physicians. i would like to reiterate how pleased we all are with the president's recovery. with that i'll take your questions. >> dr. conley, you said there were two instances where he had drops in oxygen. can you walk us through the second one. and also i've got a question for the lung specialist afterwards. >> yesterday there was another episode where he dropped down 93%. he didn't ever feel short of breath. we watched it and it returned back up. we evaluate all of these and given the timeline where he is in the course of illness, we were trying to maximize everything we could do for him and we debated whether we would even start it. the dexamethasone. and we decided that in this case

the potential benefits early on the course probably outweighed any risks at this time. >> wil did you give him a secd round of supplemental oxygen yesterday? >> i would have to check with the nursing staff. if he did, it was very limited. but he's not on oxygen and the only oxygen that i ordered, that we provided was that friday morning initially. >> what time was that yesterday? >> yesterday -- what was yesterday? >> the second incident. >> the second incident. it was over the course of the day, yeah, yesterday morning. >> the president's current blood oxygen levels, that's my first question to you, dr. conley. >> 98%. >> what did the x-rays and ct scans show? are there signs of pneumonia? are there signs of lung involvement? or any damage to the lung? >> we're tracking all of that. there's some expected findings but nothing of any major clinical concern. >> why start him, dr. conley on

the -- >> did is oxygen level ever dip below 90? >> we don't have any recordings of that. >> what about here? >> at the white house or here, anything below 90, just the to qualify herself. >> it was below 94%. it wasn't the low 80s or anything. >> the steroids -- >> yesterday you told us the president was in great shape, has been in good shape, minutes after your press conference mark meadows told reporters that the president's vitals were very concerning over the last 24 hours. simple question for the american people, whose statements about the president's health should be believed? >> the chief and i work side-by-side. i think his statement was misconstrued. what he meant was that 24 hours ago, when he and i were checking on the president, that there was that momentary episode of a high fever and that temporary drop in

the saturation, which prompted us to act expediently to move him up here. fortunately, that was really a veterans correspondent, limb -- very transient, limited episode. a couple hours later he was back up, mild again. i'm not going to speculate what that limited episode was about, so early in the course but he's doing well. >> what are the expected findings on the lungs and why is the president not wearing a mask in the videos and photos that have been released. >> the president is wearing a mask any time he's around us and we're wearing our n-95s, full ppe. he's the patient and when we can, when he'll move out into public, we move him out and about other people when he's not in full ppe, i'll assure you, as long as he's under my care, he'll be wearing a mask. >> the room is negative pressure? >> i'm not going to get into specifics of his care. >> can you answer the question on the lung function? the lung function question, dr. conley. >> i'm sorry. >> the lung function question,

can you talk about that. >> i would share, like every patient, we perform lung spirometry on him. he's maxing it out. we told him, see what you can do, it's over 2500 milliliters each time. he's doing great. >> are there scans showing any irregularitieses in the lungs? >> you disclosed that the president was administered oxygen. >> i was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, his course of isness has had. -- illness has had. didn't want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction. and in doing so, it came off that we were trying to hide something which wasn't necessarily true and there you have it. he is -- the fact of the matter is that he's doing really well. he is responding and as the team

said, if everything continues to go well, we're going to start discharge planning back to the white house. that's it. thank you, folks. >> doctor conley, on his lung scans -- >> can you explain what you found on the lung scans? howie: good news as we heard from doctors at walter reed national medical sens center, president trump's condition as he battles the coronavirus said to be continuing to improve, he's in very good shape according to the doctors. dr. sean conley, more explicit this news conference saying late friday morning the president developed a high fever, that his oxygen level dipped below 94%, dr. conley said he recommended oxygen. the president said he didn't feel he needed it. nevertheless it was administered. dr. conley said he had been trying to convey an upbeat attitude yesterday. it came off -- it was not his intent, that they were trying to

hide something, that was not his intent. i think today's session was more effective at clearly communicating the state of the president's health and as i say, very good news, much more upbeat and much more definitive reception. stay tuned to this fox news channel and this fox station for continuing coverage of his story. i'm howard kurtz in washington. howie: and we're back with our fox news audience, back with the panel. i want to go around briefly to everybody on what we just heard. it was interesting to me that suddenly we're hearing specifics about the levels of oxygen, all questions that dr. conley had declined the to answer yesterday, i think perhaps there was a reassessment of how forth had coming or detailed to be with the american public. mollie hemingway, your thought? >> i think it's very good to be as transparent as possible, something the american people need to know. also, the media need to stop acting like a pack of highy

thats -- hyenas, the way they demand a level of debate for president trump a way they didn't for ruth bader ginsburg when she was dying of cancer, the way they ask no questions about joe biden's cognitive decline or other issues he's dealing with. we can see the disparity and hostility really come through and it's not good for this time. howie: let me bring in philippe reines. you heard the news conference, you heard yesterday's news conference, i'm sure, or read about it. what do you think about mollie hemingway saying reporters are acting like a pack of hyenas. >> it's never good when half of a medical press conference is spent on correcting your tone of voice and how you presented information yesterday. if i heard him right, the president was on oxygen two days ago and that's something that they omitted yesterday. now, if reporters are pressing

him, god forbid reporters should ask follow-up because the first answers are always we are so proud to be part of the team, the president wanted to tell us. mollie, if it was joe biden or hillary clinton, you would not be upset about how hard the press is asking. the press took the trump campaign's lead and wants to know if goa jo joe biden would n inspection. you can't say they're out-of-line. especially since the trump campaign, donald trump's credibility on medical information is bow bout as low s you get. one thing he suffers from on top of all this is micomegia as does hogan gidley. he's the kind of leader that won't wear a mask. he's someone who dictated his own -- howie: i've got to break in. i want to give mollie a brief

chance to respond. i want to see if i can get to our other guests. >> i think the medical team shoes shoulshould be as transpas possible. the media should have the same standards for how they cover health issues for all people, regardless of personal hatred and lotloathing for the preside. >> one of them is in the hospital and one of them isn't. it's a false ebbing vein sigh. if donald trump -- equivalency. if the commander in chief is taken to walter reed, it's legitimate to ask a separate set of questions, especially when you're making the doctors available and when the doctors are been contradicted by the white house chief of staff. this is not the media. this is mark meadows saying one thing on background. howie: i have to break in one more time. let me get a wrap from jedediah bila. dr. conley saying i was trying to reflect and upbeat attitude of the team yesterday, a little bit of a walk-back perhaps?

>> yeah, a bit of a walk-back for sure. i think the doctors handled it much better today, no question, probably listening to people's feedback and deciding that they needed to be more transparent. when it comes to the questions, if you've had this virus, these questions are fair and the reason is, when you get this virus, all you're told to do is monitor your oxygen. by the hour sometimes. and you do get odd symptoms of chest nightness and -- tightness and that's what you're told, oxygen saturation i is key in terms of what will happen to your body in the next few days. i don't think that question was too invasive from media. thisic goinis going to be sometg we'll follow for several weeks. we know there are long haul people who suffer from covid for many weeks. for me, i had symptoms three weeks later. let's be aware of that. maria:we are out oftime. as usual, we have to put the opinions on this show.

i'm howard kurtz. thanks for watching. there will be continuing coverage of this. i'm glad we got the good news from today's briefing and obviously the story will continue. we'll a stay on it and we'll see you next sunday with more media buzz. want to brain better?

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>> a fox news alert, from walter reed medical center in maryland, where we got an update on the president's health where he remains in the hospital for a third day. doctors saying he could be discharged as soon as tomorrow if his condition continues to improve, noting his oxygen levels dropped for a second time yesterday, requiring doctors to give him a steroid. welcome to a special edition of america's newsroom. the news conference from the president's team of physicians coming after a day of mixed messages on his health. white house chief of staff mark meadows confirmed the president's condition deteriorated following his diagnosis friday. this morning, steve cor