because doing right by our members, that's what's right. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa howie: this is media buzz. i'm howard kurtz. we've got hogan gidley standing by. the contrast between the dueling presidential town halls were so dramatic it's like they were conducted on different planets. savannah guthrie hit president trump with 20 minutes of confrontational questions and a sometimes dismissive tone. >> you don't know if you took a test the day of the debate, you say you don't know if you got a test on the day of the debate? shouldn't you know better, shouldn't the white house know better. you're the president, you're not like someone's crazy uncle.

you were asked to denounce white supremacy. in the moment, you didn't. you were so in doubt about our democracy. >> how can you say that? you do read newspapers, you do watch the news. howie: at the same hour, abc's george stephanopoulos took a different approach, treating it like a policy seminar. >> there's no record of you calling for social distancing, limited social gatherings, mandatory -- >> not back then. >> in january, february. how you can you contain the pandemic without closing the economy. if you lose, where will that say about where america is today. >> it could say i'm a lousy candidate and didn't do a good job. howie: joining us now, emily compagno, gillian turner, a fox news correspondent and jon williams, co-host of the five. emily, as i said, savannah

guthrie coming out with fists up, first 20 minutes, challenging the president on his own covid-19 infection, on questions about white supremacy, at one point likeening him to a crazy uncle. i happen to like aggressive presidential interviews. the question is about her tone. were her tone and questions fair, in your view? >> i didn't think they were fair. they were under the guise of it being a town hall. the losers were the american people who were tuning into a town hall to look for questions and answers that they don't know yet. insped, they were in-- instead, they were invited to a 20 minute sparring session. the losers were up, that lost out on the opportunity for valuable information. howie: it did look at times like savannah guthrie was debating president trump. do you think she was under a lot of pressure because some at nbc, msnbc liberals like ry rachel md

maddow, as well as actors and show runners at nbc felt that the network shouldn't air the he debate at the same hour as abc, or airing ital all. >> we know some folks at the network didn't feel like it should be airing on their network, period. a quick note on savannah's performance, this was under the guise of a town hall. at the same time, everybody tuning in knew that these town halls were substituting for a presidential debate. i think savannah guthrie took that attitude on when she went with it. she said basically the moderator has a bigger role to play here. they have more responsibility to push back, to really probe these candidates because this is replacing a moment when the candidates themselves should be going head to head and savannah guthrie did that. howie: on that network,

"saturday night live" depicted it as a wrestling match with gotly bashing -- savannah guthrie bashing alec baldwin over the head with a chair. how would you contrast this with george stephanopoulos' more passive approach on abc. >> i think she did elicit answers, with the president saying i don't know what qanon is, saying they don't like pedophilia. is he negligent, not knowing what qanon is. when asked about the test before the first debate, his answer was maybe i did, maybe i didn't. what kind of answer is that? i think no one forced the president to do this town hall. he agreed to do the town hall and a he yo agreed to know it

knowing that savannah guthrie was the host. so why play victim? howie: let me turn to abc. stephanopoulos asked good, solid questions, mostly about policy as opposed to biden's credibility or character. he deferred to the audience, there were many more town hall questions, mostly friendly to biden. the only time stephanopoulos really followed up was when biden stuck with his relatively evasive stance about court packing, where he said earlier he wasn't a fan but he didn't go further. >> a lot of the questions were repetitive, questions to which we already heard the answer. i felt that we lost out in terms of the access of information. it was sort of like watching a really slow car moving down the road. and i thought the issue, you know, 180 degrees is not a correction. that's positive. meaning that the passive approach, it didn' elicit thougl

answers that we need for the voters that are listening, trying to decide. howie: abc, one of the town hall questioners selected by the network was a former obama administration speech writer, not identified as such. how can abc justify that and your take on the stephanopoulos style of questioning. >> i don't think that can be justified. i think you have to be clear. ideally, you would of have poem there that were undecided voters. as for the style, mercedes schlapp said it was like mr. roger's neighborhood. i think a lot of voters want a return to normal. if that was biden's intent to convey we can get back to normal, you can have a president that you can look up to and say to your children, this is the way to behave, i think that was pretty effective for biden.

howie: doesn't this contrast -- everybody who wrote about this said wow, it was just a stark black and white, night and day difference. doesn't it fuel the argument that the media are biased, that they're determined not to give joe biden a particularly hard time? >> yes. civility is not mutually exclusive from thoughtful content so i don't believe that you don't need -- that you have to have a disrespectful or attacking or talking over one another forum to elicit difficult questions and thoughtful answers. i think you can have a respectful, thoughtful platform that elisits that content. a return to normal can include difficult questions that gets at the answers the american people deserve. howie: this was telling -- this is my own assessment. 90% of the clips that were played on all networks and websites and so forth after the dueling town halls were about

trump, trump's controversial comments about this, that and the other thing, trump going up against savannah, once again suggests that even when you had the biden town hall that's 30 minutes longer, he continues to dominate the news. >> that's what he does the best. most of the last four years have been dominated by news about president trump himself, what he writes, what he says, what he tweets, what he tells other people behind closed doors. a quick note on stephanopoulos, he went into this trying to contrast himself with the other town hall by appearing thoughtful. and sort of calm and contained and not sparring. but at the same time as emily says, still very big responsibility here for him to push back on vice president biden and to probe him, because again, these were town halls substituting for presidential debates. howie: jon, on that point, i -- juan, on that point, not a single question from george

stephanopoulos on the hunter biden story. even if you have problems with the story as reported by the new york post, you would think you would want the former vice president to have a chance to respond to it. that's why i said, it was like a policy forum, nothing wrong with a policy forum but boy, very different from the absolute grilling that the president got on nbc. >> well, two points. one, yes, it was different. but remember, and this was a surprise to me as someone involved with television, the biden town hall got better ratings than the trump town hall and i thought for sure trump is the more entertaining combative, interesting character so i thought for sure -- i don't know what it said that biden's show outdrew him. as to your second point, howie, i think when you look at the way that it was conducted, i think that lots of it those do with the two candidates themselves and so you're looking at two people who are different. i don't think that biden and trump are a similar personality.

howie: that's the understatement of the decade, i think. and the slight edge for biden in the ratings was particularly striking because the nbc town hall was simulcast on msnbc and cnbc. as you mentioned, this was to be the night of the second debate, it was to be moderated by steve scully. he has been suspended by c-span. he posted on twitter a message to an aide turned fierce critic anthony scaramucci, how he should handle the criticism with president trump. let's look at him sitting down with the president last year. >> do you think you're a uniter as president? >> if i got fair coverage, i wouldn't even half to tweet, respect for you and also the fact that you do a good job of covering. >> then you look at this guy scully, he turned out to be a fraud. you look at scully, he was a

never-trumper. howie: c-span called it a serious mistake when scully claimed to have been hacked over the scaramucci mess average he told the ap -- message. he told the ap i falsely claimed i was hacked. they were errors in judgment. i apologize. your take. >> i don't know that lying is the same thing as having an error in judgment, just to push back on that point. this is a classic case of the coverup being worse than the crime. scully tweeted something rather than apologizing for it or correcting himself, he decided to double down with a bold-faced lie. got caught. shocked a lot of people. disappointed a lot of people. i don't know where c-span goes from here with this. howie: my understanding is that scully felt leak he was unfairly beaten up for having had a six week internship in joe biden's mail room 42 years ago. >> it doesn't excuse lying. still can't lie. howie: i was about to say that he felt this way, one of his kids was you attacked on social

media and all of that reached a tipping point for him which he reacted emotionally and did commit the cardinal sin of lying. there is no question about that. nobody is defending that, not even him. but it just shows you the kind of fres pressure you ask be undr when you're attacked over this long-ago internship. time to get a break. when we come back, how are the media treating amy coney barrett after her testimony blanketed the airwaves. and layer, trump campaign spokesman, hogan gidley. memory, focus, accuracy, learning, and concentration. try our new gummies for 30 days and see the difference.

transitions light under control. ♪ upbeat music transitions signature gen 8, available now in 4 new style colors. transitions.

howie: in days of hearings, cared by the cable news networks, supreme court nominee amy coney barrett was a highly poised witness as republicans praised her legal credentials and democrats tried in vain to

get her to expose her views on abortion, gay rights and obamacare. >> i'm not here on a mission to destroy the affordable care act. i'm here to apply the law and adhere to the rule of law. >> you have the trump administration republican attorney general are trying to kill the aca before the court. all the republicans act like your a psychopath if they bring up the fact they want to kill the aca, which they obviously want to do. >> since democrats can't contest her qualifications or of match her intellect, they decided to launch a series of desperate attacks and smear attempts. >> here a judicial nominee saying in writing i oppose abortion and roe versus wade is barbaric. >> these exposed the absolute hatred that defines this new radical and insain insane and ee socialist democratic party. she did it with a calm demeanor

and solid command of facts without a single note in front of her. howie: some liberal media youths. howieoutlets acting shocked and amazed that judge barrett would hint on her views, as if no supreme court nominee had ever done that before. >> that's right. the washington post called it a pattern ofy vase i'veness that she was -- evasiveness that she was committing. i saw it as respect for ongoing court cases and acknowledgement that if she were to comment on a hypothetical in these hearings, half the country would claim her for a certain ruling and she would have to recuse her c i think it's dishonest for the senators that it doesn't behoove anyone for her to comment on this at all. howie: liberals have to admit that barrett was a knowledgeable and disciplined witness who didn't allow herself to be drawn into fire ease exchanges --

fiery exchanges with senators that could be replayed again and again on television. >> i think that's right. i think she -- her whole presentation with the family behind her was very effective and as you've said, i think she was pretty calm in responding. now, let me say i differ on this point of evasiveness. i think she was very evasive. i think most nominees, democrats and republicans especially since bork in the late '80s have decided the way to go is not to say much. she went beyond that. on the privacy issue, griswold, going back to a 1965 decision, chief just at this time roberts, clarence thomas, alito, have said yes, we agree with that decision. judge barrett wouldn't even talk about it. and she says no man's above the law. but she won't say oh, yeah, can president trump pardon himself? boy, that seemed very political. howie: all right. my point was that both democratic and republican

nominees have engaged in certain versions of this. gillian, i want to play a clip of amy coney barrett talking about the impact of the no, nomination fight on her and her family. >> we knew that our lives would be combed over for any negative detail. we knew our faith would be carea character. we knew our family would be attacked. howie: the new york times says she a super mom of, having seven kids which was talked about quite a bit, is now kind of an asset for women in public life who might otherwise be viewed as too ambitious. >> yeah. i think she comported herself during that answer beautifully. when we look at specifically the coverage of the hearings, what really struck me was one of the ways i think a lot of journalists did her a disservice was by making the hearing about president trump because of

media's obsession, covering him 24 hours a day, to the exclusion of all else. this didn't give her a lot of room to try to stake out territory for herself. constant references to the affordable care act, to other legislation that president trump has in his crosshairs were legitimate but they didn't give her any room whatsoever and that i think was a disservice to her as a woman. howie: emily, on that point about obamacare, made me think about whether the media oversimplify these issues. everything was like is she for or against the affordable care act. it turns the case for the supreme court on the severability, meaning is one part having been ruled unconstitutional, does that knock out the entire law. on that, her views are more nuanced. >> i think that's right. i think the senators over-simplified. they failed to make clear the difference between some of her prior rulings on procedural

issues, whether the plaintiff had met its burden of proof. they were shrinkin sling ing so her. she calmly explained that in every specific case there was a specific reason why which i think those who are clamoring outside of the courthouse and the hearing room right now are failing to acknowledge, aca included. howie: some of the center wouldn't shut up, they gave speeches. what particularly upset liberals was judge barrett saying she wouldn't recuse herself from any post election challenge by the president who appointed her. >> that's the big one. what upset the left is the rushed process and the fact that the president has made clear what he wants done on the affordable care act, what he wants done on abortion and he picked her. so you have to be kind of blind not to think oh, maybe this is a -- she's in there to do her job. howie: all right. juan williams, emily compagno

and gillian turner, thank you for joining us. up next, twitter and facebook censors a new york post story on hunter biden and that turns into a fiasco. ♪ it's still warm. ♪ thanks, alice says hi. for some of us, our daily journey is a short one. save 50% when you pay per mile with allstate. pay less, when you drive less. you've never been in better hands. allstate. click or call for a quote today.

howie: two social media giants have gone to war with the trump campaign over a new york post story alleging that hunter biden sent up a meeting with his dad while he was vice president and ukrainian energy executives, based on e-mails obtained by rather odd of circumstances by rudy giuliani. facebook limited distribution of the piece. twitter barred users from sharing the story and locked the post account, accusing the paper of distributing hacked material. twitter escalated by temporarily locking the trump campaign's account and kayleigh mcenany's personal account. joining us now is griff jenkins.

griff, twitter's ceo, jack dorsey, said the lack of explanation was unacceptable. twitter backed off and said we'll allow hacked material as long as it's not posted by the hackers, put a warning on it. it took two days to apply that to the story. hotchow much of a black eye is s for at whic twitter. >> if jack dorsey and mark zuckerberg wanted to limit people wanting t to look at the story, it ended up amplify it. twitter revised the story, saying they'll label questionable tweets and will no longeer remove hacked content. that's what twitter said about it, that unless it's directly shared by hackers or accomplices, they won't block it, they'll simply label it questionable. now you have the judiciary committee, chairman lindsey graham, planning to subpoena them.

so it's going to theoretically get them, we don't have a date yet, but get here by the end of the week. howie: basically it backfired and brought far more attention to the story. it was blacked out by cnn and msnbc in the first 24 hours. there's been almost no instances that i know of of twit i -- twir blocking or limiting distribution of stories that are negative about donald trump or his campaign. didn't these companies give ammunition to the president and conservative whose say they are biased against the right? >> i think that's exactly right. it play's into the president's hand when he accuses of being attacked and censors. you have kayleigh mcenany, she's the press secretary, so to go after her is the he'd doo editog that facebook's and twitter's critics will say. jack dorsey has taken a level of

editorializing in many people's minds that is unpress tended and we'll have -- unprecedent and we'll have more questions than we do answers about it. howie: there are questions about the new york post story. rudy giuliani said he got the hunter biden e-mails from a hard drive, from a computer repair shop in delaware that's run by a guy named john mcisaac. he talked to reporters. let's take a brief look about how he thinks it was hunter biden who brought in the laptop. >> i'm legally blind. if he came in late at night, my eyes are tired. howie: so the story is not exactly air-tight. it's not even clear the -- the biden campaign denies the meeting that was reported by -- in the e-mails that actually took place. >> so fox news has yet to independently authenticate these allegations and these e-mails and that's why you've got people like the homeland security committee chairman, senator ron johnson, asking the fbi to tell us whether or not this is

actually valid, this laptop, these e-mails and whether or not this points towards russian disinformation. we don't know. but at the end of the day, when you're running for president of the united states, when biden simply discounted out of hand that he wasn't going to answer the question, i think that raises a lot of eyebrows because, again, the elements of this story suggest washington insider self interest, influence peddling, and that's the take-away. howie: right. and the washington post reported yesterday according to former officials that the white house was warned last year that rudy giuliani was the target of a russian disinformation campaign, that he was interacting with a guy in ukraine who is suspected now of being a russian spy, guliani told the daily beast -- he called the charges against himself a bunch of bull but he said it's a 50/50 chance that the ukrainian official he dealt with is a russian spy. a lot of this remains murky. griff, great to see you. thanks so much. coming up, from network town hall to the coverage of amy

coney barrett, hogan gidley of the trump campaign is on deck.

howie: and joining us now is hogan gidley, the national press secretary for the trump campaign and of course former deputy white house press secretary. hogan, what's your take on savannah guthrie's handling of the nbc town hall and wasn't she right to be skeptical when the president was unable to say whether he had a covid test on the day of the first debate. >> first things first, i need to correct juan williams from a previous segment on your show today. it was actually 16 million people tuned in to watch the president on nbc, 14.1 on abc so it was in fact the president of the united states who got more viewers, first things first. howie: are you including the cable networks that cared eat? just to clarify. >> the numbers that came in, 16 million watched it for nbc, 14 for abc. the fact is, the president

obviously always gets more ratings. people tune in to see the sitting president of the united states and what he's going to do to improve their lives for the next four years. as far as savannah guthrie is concerned, 4 43 questions she gt in the town hall, supposed to be questions from the american people. they only got 10. she asked all the questions. she answered all the questions. and when she wasn't doing either of those, she was interrupting the president's answers. the fact is, the deck is always stacked against the president. but he doesn't care. he goes on the tough shows. he takes the tough questions. and he answers for what he has done to improve the lives of all americans, regardless of race, religion, color or creed. we saw that at the nbc town hall. howie: let's look at one of those answers, savannah guthrie asking limb about the spoo the y group qanon. >> i know nothing about it. i know they're very much against pedophilia. they fight it very hard.

but i know nothing about it. howie: now, qanon, some qanon followers spread baseless conspiracy theories about satan worshiping child sex trafficking rings won by democrats. some people were surprised that the president was sort of mixed in his response. >> he's not mixed in the response. he was clear he didn't know much about the group at all. when the american people got the chance to ask the questions that concerned their futures, not just for them and their families but for their children, their friends, they asked serious yes, questions about the economy, serious questions about jobs coming back, questions about covid. savannah guthrie takes her time to ask about a crazy conspiracy theory to which the president said i don't know what you're talking about. he doesn't know anything about the group, he was clear. that's what the mainstream media is trying to push, things that don't address issues that face

real americans. they know the president has answers for those issues, they know the president's policies have improved the lives of all americans. so they don't want to talk about that. instead, they want to go down weird rabbit holes and try to make that the story the next day and obviously it was and the media played right into it. howie: let me turn to the amy coney barrett hearings. as i said earlier, i think the media portrayed the supreme court nominee as certainly small and well-qualified but with a lot of complaints about how she wouldn't commit or discuss her views on all these controversial topics, not just obamacare and abortion, but even legal birth control. your thoughts? >> again, amy coney barrett is well qualified for this post and the democrats know it so they're going down swinging, trying to attack this woman, not just for her faith, for her family, but all of these other issues and the fact remains she's going to be confirmed, hope any this week. she -- hopefully this week. she will be the ninth justice on the supreme court. and she's following the ginsburg

rule which, again, is what infuriates democrats so much. it was set in place after bork's nomination and the catastrophe thaten suethat ensued there. ginsburg said i'm not going to tell you how i will rule on things before i see the evidence. amy coney barrett is using the same logic, the same reason that justice ginsburg did and it infuriates democrats. they've been furious every single time this president has put forth a nominee for the court even though the constitution mandates he do just take. he picked someone perfect. we think she's going to sail through this week. howie: all right. i won't get into what happened in 2016 because i want to move on to facebook and twitter. especially twitter. censoring the new york post story on hunter biden and his e-mails. twitter temporarily locked your campaign's account for just trying to share the story, published in a major newspaper. do you think the moves are

purely ideological? >> it is absolutely stopping free speech. it is absolutely campaign interference. for these entities to try to inject themselves. listen, this whole joke notion that they're not going to put out hacked material, none of this information was hacked, by the way. or they're not going to put forth hacked material or uncrop prated stories, -- uncorroborated stories, if that's the case, they would never run a story on donald trump because everything is ill-gotten. we know joe biden has lied to the american people thanks to the e-mails about knowing all of the things hunter biden was doing with ukraine and china. those two countries were actually given to joe biden with the responsibility of building relationships with america. ukraine is corrupt. burisma is corrupt. china is obviously corrupt. and it's communist. and those countries gave millions of dollars in contracts to hunter biden and a you don't even ask the question.

all of donald trump's children went to congress and had to answer for a fake witch hunt hoax about russia that was proven false and no one's even asking the biden campaign about this. and by the way, since the information broke, they've not refuted it at all. they've not said it was false. they know it's true. they know it's a problem. and the american people now know it too thanks to donald trump. howie: well, i agree with you about the unfair social media suppression of the story. other questions i think remain to be answered. one last question, that is new york times yesterday had this story, fearing blood bath, republican senators begin to edge away from trump, talk about a leaked call involving senator ben sasse where he says the president flirts with dictators. is there concern about this in your campaign and concern about what happens on november 3rd. >> no. history proves that to be incorrect. the fact is, the folks who

embraced this president on the campaign trail typically do better, they get more coverage and end up winning their seats. that's one thing to point out. second, for says to make -- sass to make those comments is short-sighted. the president of the united states has done more to improve the lives of all americans in 47 months than joe biden has done in 47 years. the target here are the democrats and their radical move to the left to embrace socialism and this president has fought against that every step of the way. one of the reasons so many in the establishment on the right and left don't like this president is because he took power away from those people and gave it right back to real americans. they don't like being out of power. they don't like having control. this president is standing between their push to socialism and the american way and he's going to depend it. he's done so for the last four. he'll do it for the next four as well. howie: hogan gidley, thanks for coming by. after the break, joe biden still won't answer the court packing question and snaps at a reporter

when asked about the story a smile has the power to get you feelin' alright. at aspen dental, we're making every day a little brighter with our smile wide, smile safe promise. we've got you covered, in every way, giving deep cleaning a whole new meaning. and if you don't have insurance, we'll give you an extra safety net, too, with a free new patient exam and x-rays. at aspen dental, we're making it alright to feel safe and get smiling. we promise. call 1-800-aspendental.

inflammation in your eye might be to blame.ck, looks like a great day for achy, burning eyes over-the-counter eye drops typically work by lubricating your eyes and may provide temporary relief. ha! these drops probably won't touch me. xiidra works differently, targeting inflammation that can cause dry eye disease. what is that?

xiidra, noooo! it can provide lasting relief. xiidra is the only fda approved treatment specifically for the signs and symptoms of dry eye disease. one drop in each eye, twice a day. don't use if you're allergic to xiidra. common side effects include eye irritation, discomfort or blurred vision when applied to the eye, and unusual taste sensation. don't touch container tip to your eye or any surface. after using xiidra, wait 15 minutes before reinserting contacts. got any room in your eye? talk to an eye doctor about twice-daily xiidra. i prefer you didn't! xiidra. not today, dry eye. howie: joining us now from ohio, on behalf of the joe biden campaign, tim ryan, a democratic congressman from that state and congressman, thanks for being here. the whole question of joe biden and court packing has gone for a couple weeks, it came up at the abc town hall. let's play the exchange with george stephanopoulos. >> don't voters have a right to

know where you stand? >> they do have a right to know where i stand. they'll have a right to know where i stand before they vote. >> so you'll come out with a clear position before election day. >> yes, depending how they handle this w. howie: we know republicans will confirm judge amy coney barrett. why can't joe biden tell the press where he stands on adding extra seats to the supreme court. >> we're hoping they'll reconsider jamming this nomination through, given the fact we have millions of americans who are unemployed, who are worried about public health and since may 15th they've had a bill at the senate desk and said we're going to hit a pause and now there's a flashy, shiny object they want to talk about it and there's more pressing problems. i tell you, we do have to review what's going on in the supreme court. it's a black box. we don't know what happens there. we don't know what kinds of ethics rules they are there, where they get money, where they get funding.

these things are important. we need to review that for sure. we'll talk about that at the appropriate time. howie: all right. president trump complained the day after the dueling town halls that george stephanopoulos had been a stuff guy with him during their interview but threw soft balls to joe biden. your take on the town hall with the former vice president. >> i thought the vice president was terrific. i think anybody who has any question on any of the issues, i think he answered them, very important around the national gas issue, where he's supportive of the natural gas industry. howie: it wasn't exactly a grilling. >> well, he got a chance to answer questions. these are questions from the american people. i thought he did a great job. i think the trump campaign is into almost a sporting event where one side is blaming the rest for everything. they're blaming the moderators, blaming facebook, blaming the governors, blaming the cities,

the mayors. look, you're the most powerful person in the world. take some responsibility for what you've done. i'm not saying everybody has to agree on every issue but my goodness, you're blaming low gal mayors and you're the -- local mayors and you're the president of the united states. i think blaming the rest is and that kind of thing is not conducive to leading the country. howie: the new york post story on hunter biden's e-mails, do you think it raises fair questions given rudy giuliani's role and talking about the rest, why did joe biden snap at a cbs reporter who was asking do you have any comment on the article, saying it's a smear campaign, the reporter was just asking a question. >> he's a dad. sometimes you react as a father. two republican senate committees have found nothing. the press has been investigating this for months. this is a complete non- issue. look, that's real joe biden.

he's a dad first. and that's who you want in the white house, somebody who understands and is impacted by people continuing to attack his son. i would act the same way after all of this scrutiny, after being cleared and they're still going after this kid. you know, enough's enough. tell us what you're going to do to fix the country. we're in shambles now and everything they're trying to throw against the wall to see if it sticks, two republican senate committees have cleared this and that's the most significant thing. howie: trump family members get a lot of scrutiny from the press. twitter and facebook as you know, as everyone knows, is under fire for suppressing the story from the new york post. are you concerned as a member of congress about the power that these social media giants have to blackout stories and what about the consistent i serve co, these are a bunch of silicon valley liberals who are basically siding with joe biden. >> we're learning now that -- this is going to be a national conversation that we're going to have to have in the coming months about regulating social

media. but the reality of it is, you can't push out content when you're considered providing news and information to the american people. you can't just push out a bunch of garbage and these, as i said, these -- all these charges have been discredited by republican led senate committee so tell the american people what you want to do i think it's entirely appropriate for facebook and twitter to say if it's russian propaganda, chinese propaganda, if it's russian bots, if it's fake news stories, it's appropriate. this was discred ited by two republican senate committees so i think it's appropriate for them not to push this out there we appreciate you coming on. tim ryan on behalf of the biden campaign. >> thank you. howie: still to come, top trump ally says he was wrong for not wearing a mask and a presidential joke makes big headlines. that's next.

howie: president trump said at the nbc town hall that he tells people to wear masks but the other day they came out with a statement that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it, meaning the virus. we're back with gillian turner. that's not what the cdc study says. it was a study of a small group of people. it contrasts with chris christie saying publicly that he's sorry he didn't wear a mask. he was hospitalized for a week and is now urging people to wear masks. >> well, president trump went into the hospital and came out and kind of doubled down on his previous positions. chris christie went into the hospital, came out, sort of sobered up about the experience. it must have been quite difficult for him. he's telling everybody, preaching the gospel of masks, social distancing, two very

divergent approaches. president trump is right when he says he tells people to wear masks. he does. the problem is that he also signals to people that they shouldn't wear masks, as do other members of the white house staff. so there are conflicting inconsistent messages. howie: yeah. and several news organizations reporting that scott atlas, the doctor who is on the coronavirus task force, had a tweet deleted saying masks work, no, and citing a bunch of places where he doesn't think they work. speaking of his staff, anthony fauci, they've been at oth for quite some -- odds for quite some time. let me play for you a trump campaign ad that uses dr. fauci. >> president trump tackled the virus head on, as leaders should. >> i can't imagine that anybody could be doing more. >> to take it completely out of context, and put it in which is obviously a political campaign ad, i thought was really very disappointing. howie: so factually -- fauci said that about himself about

the coronavirus task force back in march. nevertheless, the trump campaign is sticking with the ad. >> i think the media stepped up and provided a valuable service. they obtained a full transcript of fauci's r and published them to prove just how badly the trump campaign did misquote fauci and take him out of context. howie: yeah, fauci of course is not shy about pointing these things out and a lot of people -- this is round 27. >> i think we have to call a spade a spade. if you read the transcript, it's obvious. howie: the implication that he's talking about the president is not true. look, the president likes to have fun at rallies, he jokes around. one of the things he said in a light-hearted way the other day ended up making big headlines. let's take a look. >> what am i going to do? i'm going to say i lost to the worst candidate in the history of politics. i'm not going to feel so good. maybe i'll have to leave the

country. i don't know. howie: so the banner headline in the drudge report, trump may leave country if loses. does the media overreact? >> they do. he was making a joke at the expense of hollywood celebrities, some of whom have been threatening to leave since 2015. john legend was encouraging all americans to leave if president trump wins re-election. that same week he about a $17.5 million mansion in la. he is going nowhere. neither is anybody else. howie: i love the john legend angle. it's just interesting to me, like, look, the president says many controversial things. clearly he was having fun with the crowd. nevertheless, it made headlines. gillian, thanks for sticking around. that is it for this edition of media buzz. i'm outer -- i'm howard kurtz. if you want to check out my podcast, it's called media buzz

meter, we deal with the top stories. you can subscribe on apple itunes, podcast or amazon device. we're down to the last two weeks of the campaign, folks. we'll see you back here next sunday, 11:00 eastern, with the latest buzz. but now quickbooks helps me get paid, manage cash flow, and run payroll. and now i'm back on top... with koala kai. save over 30 hours a month with intuit quickbooks. to stir that fire, university of phoenix is awarding up to one million dollars in scholarships through this month. see what scholarship you qualify for at phoenix.edu.

arthel: just 16 days out from the election, the candidates are working to reach out to voters. president trump with a packed schedule today, he'll be heading to california shortly for a fundraiser there ahead of a rally later tonight in carson city, nevada, while democratic nominee joe biden is in battleground north carolina where early voting is well underway. hello, everyone. welcome to america's news headquarters. i'm arthel neville. hi, eric. eric: hello, arthel. hello, everyone. welcome. i'm eric shawn. both the trump and biden campaigns are putting a heavy emphasis and focus on