esco qqq howie: i knew it, i knew from the moment that cnn's don lemon denounced unvaccinated americans for their idiotic behavior that we were headed into a surge of anger against those who haven't gotten the shots. that's why i played it last sunday. then the new york times did a major piece on rising resentiment against the vaccinated. but i say that's driven by the pundits. >> if you're unvaccinated and you are going around without being tested, you are an arrogant selfish sob. howie: piers morgan revealed that he got a mild case of covid

although he's vaccinated, denounced a lot of delewded, ill informed, shamefully scare mongered or complacent americans, some who believe in conspiracy theories. president biden offered a similar message. >> if you're not vaccinated you're not as smart as i thought you were. howie: with covid cases surging, i'm worried, frustrated, i'm i all for persuading the unprotected americans to get the vaccine. their reluctant isn't just about politics and the cdc's incredibly muddled messaging on masks is making things worse. i'll tell you this about the unvaccinated, ripping them and ridiculing them, slamming and shaming them isn't going to work. it just ticks them off and the piling on pundits ought to know better. i'm howard kurtz and this is media buzz. ♪

howie: ahead, conservative author ben shapiro who of argues that liberals are pushing the media and other institutions in a authoritarian direction. joe biden's decision to all but mandate vaccines for federal workers and contractors have pushed local and business officials to take similar steps is combining with cdc's overbrought mask guidance to fuel a polarized media argument over whether americans should be forced to get the shots. >> if you're not vaccinated, you put your doctors and nurses at risk, the same pipeline essential workers -- frontline essential workers who put their lives on the line over the past year have gone through hell. >> even biden admitted that covid deaths are way down, nowhere near their peak. so why are we continuing to hold america hostage for a disease that is surviveable. >> it's all the drummers and people of -- trumpers and people on the right side of the aisle that say you can't force people.

i think the narrative needs to flip to who is the voice of the vaccinated. >> the vaccines work, the only people who are getting sick are the vaccinated but the vaccinated still have to wear masks. why is that? >> i do expect more members, more members of the press getting angry about the fact that a lot of these jack ass are literally putting their children's lives in danger because they're trying to make a political point. howie: joining us now to analyze the coverage, mollie hemingway, senior editor at the federalist and fox news contributor and clarence page, columnist for the chicago tribune. the media are generally in favor of vaccine mandates and usually sympathetic to president biden. it's not shocking that think that biden's idea, telling 4 million federal employees to either get the vaccine or you have to show twice weekly covid negative tests is a great idea. >> it's not surprising that they would support something like this but their personal views shouldn't play into how

they cover this and there are significant issues that have been raised by federal employees unions and civil rights practitioners saying that this is something that is not going to be appropriate for federal employees. there's the americans with disabilities act which prevents people from enforcing medical tests on employees unless they're absolutely necessary. the biden administration came out in such a way to say they're really doing this more to force people to take vaccinations rather than making the argument that this is medically necessary for their jobs. the media need to cover all of these issues which are really important, in part because the more politicized the vaccine debate gets, the more resistance you face to vaccination as well. howie: it's gotten really politicized. clarence, are the media in praising the biden speech and his new order giving short shrift to the argument that this is an infringement on civil liberties that people shouldn't be pressured to get a shot they don't want. >> not all media are praising

biden, as you know. i won't name any names. anyway, the fact is that i think we're learning a lesson here not just the media, but medical establishment, et cetera, that just because you tell people common sense doesn't mean they're going to believe it. we have the same problem as in the presidential campaign when a lot of members of the press were making cynical, sarcastic statements about donald trump and trump supporters, we saw this backlash that people were morey gear -- more eager to support donald trump. people who were halfway on the vaccine are getting polarized now, whether to have it or not. frankly, i think as we're just beginning to discover that there is a -- there has been a deleterious economic effect by people declining -- so many people declining to get vaccinated. i think as that increases, we're going to see some more minds change just as we've seen minds change recently, as people see

their friends and loved ones get the virus. howie: there's been an uptick, which is good, meanwhile the cdc's mask guidance has real impact. the d.c. mayor imposed a mask mandate which is why i have to wear one of these in the washington bureau despite relatively low numbers here. the cdc chief tells bret baier on friday that the biden administration is looking into the idea of a national vaccine mandate, covering the whole country. an hour later she walks it back on twitter, no, no, no mages nal mandate. i was talking about individual companies. have you ever seen such botchedded communications. >> it was a disaster by the cdc, whether about mask guidance or about what's happening with the vaccine. we 164 million people that have been vaccinated. one-tenth of 1% have gotten sick, one-one thousandth of that people have died. it's an incredibly good vaccine.

it's really damaging to peoples' willingness to accept the vaccine and otherwise. they're making it political and everyone can see that they're making it political and what little they've shared about how they have come to their decision making has weakened the credibility and confidence that people had in the cdc. they probably had too much confidence in the cdc in the past but they're losing the credibility they built up and it's not good when you're still in a global pandemic. howie: this at a time when in the united states yesterday 77,000 new covid cases, that compares to 15 you thousand in the beginning of -- 15 you 15,000 inthe beginning of june. the washington post hit the cdc for abruptly changing the mask guidance and not releasing the data behind it. they obtained documents that the cdc said that the delta variant of the coronavirus is as contagious as chicken pox and

can be more harmful to the vaccinated than previously thought. why do we have to depend on leaks to find out what the science is, the non-published studies that the cdc is relying on? >> precisely because the cdc has seen the mixed reactions the public gave on the initial mask guidance. and dr. fauci as well. you know, people who are anti-vaxx continue to quote old statements based on old data and this is a new disease. remember, this is a new pandemic we're dealing with here, much like the early days of the aids crisis back in the '80s. you saw fauci move too slowly on that. president reagan moved too slow di. howie: wait, clarence, are you defending the centers for disease control for making this new guidance, but sitting on the data, not putting it out because of a fear of overreaction.

what happened to the administration will be transparent, we're going to trust people with the science. >> you're right, it runs counter to say you're going to be transparent and you're not transparent. but this is all new information that the cdc is gathering right now and i think they're gun shy, looking at the kind of wild backlash reactions they've received so far. and i don't blame them. howie: the biden white house criticizing the new york times among others when they tweet out something like it's as contagious as the chicken pox when the officials said if you fail to include the lower infection rate for vaccinated people, it's less than 1%, you're doing it wrong. with such private companies as facebook, google, netflix, washington post, new york times, all saying vaccinations are required for their employees, you can't go to a broadway show if you can't show you've been vacation nailed, doesn't a -- vaccinated, doesn't that present a different debate for the media because these are private companies? >> it's absolutely different for private companies versus government employees and that's

an important distinction. it's true that we're not talking about who is affected by these mandates and i think that the media presentation has been that it's a bunch of right wing yokels who aren't getting vacation nailed. the people -- vaccinated. the people least likely to be vaccinated are african-americans and hispanics. if they're banned from working or public participation, that could have an uneven racial impact that is not healthy. you want to encourage people, answer legitimate questions they have about why they're not getting vaccinated around why it's good to get vaccinated. it's true that the criticism of the media companies for being just talking about the pandemic porn as opposed to giving people facts is legitimate. there's nothing wrong with the biden administration doing that. what we focused on early in the pandemic is focused protection, making sure that our older citizens are the ones that are really protected and we have done a great job with that. the fact is, it's different if you're 4 rather than if you're

95 and we have vaccinated our older population. howie: it is different in the sense that there's this conventional wisdom in the media that it's just republicans over democrat whose are more weary. when you interview people as the new york times does in a story today you find out that people are worried about the fact that the fda hasn't given final approval, what the side effects may be, if they're in a rural area they may not have access. what about media people like don lemon, piers morgan, who are saying you haven't gotten the shot you're arrogant, selfish, ignorant, how does that help the situation? >> well, you were right before when you said that the media need to be accurate, they need to be thorough. there are a lot of different reasons people have for not getting the vaccine. a lot of them would like to get the vaccine but it's not very close. that accounts for a lot of african-americans. i had to go about 30 miles to get my own vaccination. i got the vaccination.

a lot of other folks aren't as -- haven't got the time necessarily to be able to track down a place to get their vaccine. i think over time you're going to see the numbers change. i'd like to see the stories break it down as to why people aren't getting the vaccine because they've got a lot of different reasons. howie: we're seeing more of those stories. i think that yelling at them and shaming them is just precisely the wrong thing to do. mollie, this sniping in the house, nancy pelosi reimposing the house mask mandate and she was getting into a car and said to a reporter that kevin mccarthy is a moron. i think the press enjoyed that where if mccarthy called the house speaker a moron there would be an uproar. >> in this last year or two, nancy pelosi has broken down all the norms whether it was ripping up the state of the union speech, she kind of made it difficult for people to visit the capitol complex.

she is running her house in a bit of a tyrranical way. she is having trouble right. howie: ahead, ben shapiro in a wide ranging interview on how the media treat conservatives. when we come back, a media clash over the house's new january 6th committee and emotional testimony by four police officers who were under attack during the capitol riot. this past year has felt like a long, long norwegian winter. but eventually, with spring comes rebirth. everything begins anew. and many of us realize a fundamental human need to connect with other like-minded people. welcome back to the world. viking. exploring the world in comfort... once again.

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howie: the coverage of the new house committee investigating the capitol riot reflected the intense partisanship surrounding its very existence, that hasn't changed despite the heart breaking testimony from four police officers who had to fight

the mob on january 6th. >> at best, i would collapse and be a liability to my colleagues. at worst, be dragged down to the crowned lynched. >> i could feel myself losing oxygen and recall thinking to myself n this is how i'm going to die, defending this entrance. >> it's disgrateful to think the -- disgraceful to think you can ignore the officers who are recovering from their injuries today. >> they came across as political actors. that doesn't help anything. howie: mollie hemingway, i get the critical coverage surrounding the formation of the committee by nancy pelosi. i don't understand how the police officers can get anything from admiration from the press for the life threatening ordeal they wept through. >> the context is this is a

theatrical effort by nancy pelosi to deal with this situation and in the case of one of the officers, he didn't just make anti-trump comments, he actually celebrated the violent and deadly riots of the previous summer, he joked about president trump being under a security threat when it was believed it was -- when he had to be rushed off a stage, he made a bunch of anti-trump, anti-conservative comments. it doesn't take away from what he went through. the entire situation is the media are cheering on these hearings and they're not thinking about the context that we had a summer where the media themselves and other elites really celebrated political violence, downplayed the harm caused in terms of the dozens of deaths, the billions of dollars of damage, the attacks on the white house, federal courthouses in portland, police precincts across the country. that's something that a lot of americans would like to have investigated in part because corporations gave money to the groups that were behind some of

this, we're at much more danger of something like that continuing than this few hour riot that went bad and awful at the capitol. that's something the media is not doing a good job covering at all. howie: i flatly disagree they're celebrating violence. the coverage could have gone better. one of the officers talked about a stream of racial epithets when he was trying to defend the capitol. did they get a pass for criticizing donald trump and making political comments that mollie cited. >> did who get a pass? howie: the officers who testified, couple of them were pretty anti-trump. >> the officers, whether they were anti-trump or pro-trump to me is irrelevant. the we is why can't i see more consistency from republicans who usually are the first to support the police and want to protect the police and want to punish those who attack the police physically, we saw all that melt away in this new polarization.

yes, i support the police as long as you support donald trump, that's what you saw in the hearings the other day and that's what we're continuing to see from republican leadership on capitol hill and that's not a political biased statement. this is the fact. howie: mollie, the press wanted this committee obviously don't seem to care that nancy pelosi knocked off a couple of puerto rico trump republicans. -- pro-trump republicans. did the gravity of the testimony cast the beginning of the investigation in a more serious light. >> if i want to talk about consistency, you have to deal with the fact that we had a political party that embraced a movement to defund the police for an entire year and now we're pretending that they care so much about the police. howie: hold on. the entire democratic party didn't embrace he defund the police. >> the defund the police movement which the media and other democratic partisans strongly celebrated which was supported across the country by democratic politicses was

something -- politicians was something we saw in the past year. >> and republicans. >> republicans have not supported defunding the police. that's not true. >> you're saying that democrats do that. you've gotten -- it's not accurate. it's worth a much longer discussion. we're not going to get that today. i want to throw a word in for truth here. >> i've seen much more consistency between the wide variety of americans across the political perspective who owe pose political violence, whether or not it's affecting the white house or federal courthouses or the capitol. there's been consistency there. that's not what you see in the committee where you have people who actually believe that the 2016 election was ill legitimate, adam schiff perpetrated the lie that the previous president wasn't legitimate and colluded with rausch sha. you have people who voted against certifying the election. this entire thing is a joke. the context is important and that's why people aren't taking it as seriously as the media are pretending to because everyone knows this is not legitimate and

not trying to find facts. howie: i've got 20 seconds for you to respond. >> i'm sorry, i have a technical problem. i'm not able to hear. howie: let me pick it up by saying i do think the media have to acknowledge that the hearings helped them politically, doesn't mean there shouldn't be an investigation. by the way, this is headed in a direction where now we have the justice department officials, in which donald trump in the final weeks told an official at the department just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and we'll be hearing a lot more about that. up next, the white house and the hill moving toward a back from the dead infrastructure deal and the president giving mitch mcconnell some credit? good morning, mr. sun. good morning, blair. [ chuckles ] whoo. i'm gonna grow big and strong. yes, you are. i'm gonna get this place all clean. i'll give you a hand.

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howie: the political headline a few days ago was pigs fly, mcconnell weighs giving biden

a bipartisan win. well, after months of gridlock, mitch mcconnell was one of 17 senators backing a test vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. joining us now, mike emanuel. between mitch mcconnell voting on this thing and taking off pro-vaccination ads on kentucky radio stations, he's getting good press which is rare for the republican senator leader. >> most media folks don't care for mitch mcconnell. he's not a sound bite machine. he tells you exactly what mitch mcconnell wants you to know and not flowery sound bites. they see him as an obstacle to the joe biden and chuck schumer agenda. when he is one of 17 to start the infrastructure package and is pushing americans to get vaccinated, a moment of good press for mitch mcconnell. we'll see how long it lasts, howie. howie: mcconnell doesn't famously care for what the media

thinks. this package could collapse on infrastructure, it's not really paid for. after months on life support the president is giving -- press is giving president biden a lot of kudos because he campaigned on the idea of working across the aisle. >> this plays into the narrative that president biden likes out there and his white house team likes out there that he can reach across the aisle, he can work with republicans and so 17 is a significant number. let's give him credit on that. after covering capitol hill for a decade i will tell you nothing is done until it gets to the president's desk for his signature. so this could bounce around some more. there could be some more obstacles. congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez today threatened that basically if the t senate doesn't pass the $3.5 trillion democratic progressive wish list that there will be no bipartisan infrastructure bill getting through the house and so we'll see where it goes from here. howie: the 17 different ways this could go down and the bill isn't even written yet so caution is the watch word there. i want to ask you about the new

npr he'd things -- ethics policy, it says editorial employees can march for certain values, including people not facing discrimination. that sounds like it's okay to support black lives matter, gay rights, legislation, you aborti. wouldn't that raise questions about the impartialtiy. >> i think what would be fascinating would be if an npr employee said i want to go to a pro life rally or a pro second amendment rally you would probably see a lot of executive heads explode npr and probably a decision to modify the ethics policy once again but bottom line they say if you want to go participate, come and talk to your boss and then we will look at allowing you to participate

going forward as long as it's doing it in a constructive way, helping society. howie: i don't think journalists should be marching in demonstrations. you have your rights but you give up some of that when you become a journalist. most news organizations don't allow that sort of thing. mike, nice to talk to you. next, he's been slammed by npr because his daily wire is so popular, ben shapiro on the media and what he calls the authoritarian left, right after this. ♪ someone once told me, that i should get used to people staring. so i did. it's okay, you can stare. when you're a two-time gold medalist, it comes with the territory.

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howie: some writers don't mince words. my next guest tweeted when it comes to conflicted guidance about masks, the cdc should shut the f up. i spoke with ben shapiro, author of the new book the authoritarian moment. ben shapiro, welcome. >> thanks for having me. >> the cdc's messaging on masks

has been an absolute mess. you say the media is peddling misinformation on vaccines and they should shut the f up, pretty blunt words. >> the media have done terrible work in twisting the bad information the cdc is giving out, there's headlines from the new york times suggesting that vaccinated people are transmitting the virus in the same way unvaccinated people are transmitting the virus, that's not true. people who have breakthrough transmissions may transmit the virus in the same way. however, vaccinated people are not getting breakthrough infectionses at the same rate unvaccinated people are getting infections. that's scaring people away from the vaccines, rather than drawing people to them. howie: you say you warn lefty people about the dangers of blowback. you say there is conges consequs

for treating conservative as humans. said there was a producer that said nice things about you and had to back off. >> there's been a movement particularly by the radical left to destroy anyone who reaches out across the aisle to make it unplat letable to have conversations to anyone who disagrees. i thought it would be a fun experiment to say that basically anybody in politics should put out a tweet to say the way they voted the way they did and say they are nice human beings and they would have dinner. a lot of people on the right were happy to do that. not a lot of people on the center left were you afraid to do that. they're more afraid of blowback. howie: from your book, nearly every major american institution is committed to the idea that all conserve of testifies are vicious racists, biggoted it yods. all conservatives? >> think about anybody who voted

for trump is a subset. the vast majority of conservatives voted for trump. the major institutions in our society, the fact if you said you voted for trump at your corporate workplace there's a serious problem for you socially and maybe in terms of career. that's true in you work in academia, in the media, you are persona non-grata, unless you work at fox news. howie: is it all trump related? would it apply to mitch mcconnell or mitt romney or george w. bush being painted with that kind of brush. >> i think trump makes it easier for the left to do that. painting the entire movement to trump is easier. the conservatives without drum p being in office are still being treated in this ways. i'm not seeing any signs of this abating we talked about an npr story about your huge foosk

facebooktraffic which says expey you may be furthering -- how do you you plead. >> if the idea is that we're conservative, i plead guilty. if the idea is that the only way to solve polarization is for their to be a monopoly, like one poll, then i strenuously disagree. that seems to be the idea behind the npr article. npr admitted we don't tell lies on the site, don't engage in conspiracy theories on the site, and at the bottom of the articles we print which says we're a conservative website. the fact that we are conservative was enough for npr to write a piece talking about how terrible is that we get heavy facebook traffic, should be telling. i never called for facebook to suppress npr's traffic, for example. howie: i guess it is the price of success. now, i've never been a fan of

donald trump's phrase, fake news, but you say it's real. you say the following, people who work there pretend to be news outlets but actually are partisan. major news organizations have moved sharply, clearly, blatantly more to the left during the trump years but not everybody who works at these outlets is a partisan activist. >> there are certain people who try harder than others who be objective. i think we probably know their names. i think there are a lot of people out there who are very openly partisan who maintain that they are objective and the networks overall maintain they're objective when they very clearly are not and that i think is an act of radical dishonesty. i would rather everyone comes out with where they are on politics. i don't spend a lot of time criticizing msnbc. cnn maintains they're objective while they push almost the same thing msnbc. howie: there was this incident some months back involving

politico where you were asked to guest edit the playbook come lomb for one day. within hours, 225 angry staffers were on a conference call, confronting management over this choice, a washington post columnist says this was medical a practice. what -- malpractice. what was going on. >> i invaded the sacred space which was the political playbook. what was you amedication about that, there -- amazing about that, don lemon wrote in the same week. he's a partisan political player. the mere fact that i wrote a piece for politico playbook, i warned them they would get this blow bask, that drove the staffers to get of on the phone to complain about it, it says something about the nature of how people perceive the institutions to not only have been captured but the institutions' doors must be closed so no one can get in that might argue with them. howie: it makes me wonder,

there's been so many incident in the newsrooms about this, about free speech which journalists are supposed to be in favor of. >> it's very troubling that the greatest advocates for crackdowns on social media seem to be in the fourth estate which would have forced the founding fathers. i think the press because they have become so activeist have moved away from the core obligation. howie: ben shapiro, the you authoritarian moment. thanks for joining us. >> thanks a lot. howie: after the break, the media are in an absolute tizzy after simone biles quit the olympics for mental health reasons. we'll look at that and more, next. (phone notification) where we've just lowered our auto rates. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ and savings like that will have you jumping for joy.

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howie: when simone biles suddenly pulled out of the gymnastics competition at the tokyo olympics, blaming her mental state, she became media fodder both for those praising and denigrating her. >> i thought it would be a little better to take a back seat, work on my mindfulness and i knew the girls would do an absolutely great job. i say put mental health first because if you don't, then you're not going to enjoy your sport. >> simone biles' story to me is about making quitting not only acceptable, but heroic. praise-worthy. evidence of how brave she is. >> i found it soul crushing to

see a little pocket of doughy, white, right-leaning loser whose probably have a hard time getting dates attack her. howie: joining us now to analyze the coverage in i'd he , jim gray and in new york, kat kat. simone biles is being called a quitter in some corners, many are praising her for walking away. what accounts, what do you make of this media divide? >> well, it's just disappointing. i mean, you have to be at full strength to be able to compete so mentally she couldn't line up physically. this is not a cause for celebration. this is a great disappointment. i'm sure she didn't work to go all the way to tokyo, put in the work and hard effort and be a great champion in the past to go over there and not able to

compete. it's a fact of life. things don't always work out. and to say that she quit, if she goes out there and lands on her head, she's in serious shape and can injure herself and only she knows how she feels. for everybody to say they know better, i don't agree. howie: she said on instagram she felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. you have piers morgan writing are mental health issues the go-to excuse for any poor performance in elite sport, what a joke, just admit you did badly. he got dragged for that. seems like everybody is using her as a punching bag. >> i don't think that mental health issues are a blanket execute for anything. i have things that i personally struggled with and it's been hard to get to work and i'm proud for pushing through anyways. a few years ago i was going through a rough time. what i do is not gymnastics, as

jim alluded to. she said she had the twites where you -- twisties where you lose you a wearness of where -- lose awareness of where you are in the air. this is something that happened before. in the '80s, julisa gomez she was struggling with the vault, she pushed through. she injured herself so badly that she was paralyzed and ultimately died from the injuries at 18 years old. talking about gymnastics, it's something where if you don't have the mental -- you're not completely there mentally with it, you can absolutely kill yourself. it's completely different than a lot of of of other things that it's compared to. howie: the worst thing for a pundit who is having problems, you come in and sound silly on the air. i take your point about the training she did and the crushing disappointment for her to walk away from the team. the new yorker, the radical courage of simone piles, the new york times, simone biles dem straighted a huge champion mindset. i have to ask if this was a male

athlete, wouldn't people say he choked? >> i don't think it has anything to do with gender. i mean, look, we don't celebrate when a guy is injured and misses the super bowl. it's nothing to be celebrated. it's not courageous. she knows her body, she knows her mind and she couldn't perform. but part one of the fundamental tennets is to be able to perform under pressure. that's what sport is. that's why we look up to tom brady because he came back down 28-3. that's why we look up to tiger woods and michael jordan making that shot against russell with his final play with the chicago bulls. if you're mentally not fit and not ready to perform, it doesn't mean you injure yourself to try to prove you're tough. no, i don't see it like that. . howie: kat, do you agree gender

is not a factor with all of the columnists praising simone biles. i think one reason why she has gotten praise, she has become a huge figure before the evidence owns of of the past week, is she spoke publicly about being one of the hundreds sexual abuse victims of the heinous doctor, dr. larry nasser. that took courage. >> that's one aspect where i think gender could be at play, when we talk about the me too movement and larry nasser, first time competing in the olympics where this is public knowledge and this is the sort thing that -- i'm not saying it doesn't happen to men because it does and it has but it more often happens to women and most women have some experience certainly not on that level but with harassment from maybe a man who is in position of power over you. it is a very common experience for many women. so i think that that part in particular is where the gender could have played a role.

howie: right. and we saw naomi osaka get criticism when she bowed out of the french open. she competed but she lost and got a lot of heat in japan, sometimes in sports you win, sometimes you lose. let me get a break. still to come, the olympic athletes who engage in social justice protests and why some in the media are rooting against u.s. teams. this past year has felt like a long, long norwegian winter. but eventually, with spring comes rebirth. everything begins anew. and many of us realize a fundamental human need to connect with other like-minded people. welcome back to the world. viking. exploring the world in comfort... once again. welcome back to milkshake mustaches, high fives and high dives. to 3-on 3s...

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howie: the coverage of the tokyo olympics has of course become heavily politicized. the woke gestures by certain american athletes have some in the country actually rooting against them. >> the u.s. women's soccer team is a very good example of what's going on. they unexpectedly lost to sweden

3-0. [cheers and applause] >> and americans were happy about it. howie: news max host grant cinchfield said he's happy the men's basketball team suffered a loss. >> i found myself t rooting against, not just may began rapi -- megan rapino but the collection of overpaid warriors are very hard to root for. howie: was the conduct of these soccer and basketball players in tokyo so egregious that media people and a certain president should openly root against the american players. >> i'm not surprised that it happened this way. i think it's a symptom of a larger issue, right. the women's soccer team and others have done certain things to protest, they're protesting police brutality or certain

things in the country, many people see that as them protesting the united states so they may not want to root for them. i don't think that that represents a large percentage of people but certainly some. but then of course the people on the women's soccer team responded or certain pundits defending them, say it's because it's the women's soccer team and conservatives hate women and is like two screaming ships passing in the night, could could be a e where more nuance would be i think beneficial to us all. howie: this debate has been going on for several years, protests and takin knee in several sports. is the olympics different, though, because if you win, you stand up there with the american flag. >> well, i'm personally for every american athlete to do well but that's the freedom of choice that we have in this country. if some people don't want to root for them, they're free to do that, like the athletes are free to make their demonstrations and free to say what it is they're protesting. to try to curtail that is not going to happen.

these folks have ideas they that they want to put out there. they're using that platform and they're going to do it and that's the beauty of our country. and the other beauty is, if you think that rooting against an american athlete somehow satisfies you, then go ahead. howie: that's a great free speech argument. there is this question, is the olympics the place to do it. you're right, everybody gets to weigh in on whatever they want. kat, i want to touch on one other things which is a new york times sports writer did a glowing profile of the former olympic swimming champion, michael phelps, she was suspended and has now left the paper for having failed to disclose to her boss that's she signed a deal to co-author a book with michael phelps. what? >> yeah, i will say, look, i have written hundreds of columns throughout my career and i will say this to anyone who has not had a career where they do that. the way that it works is not you

get an you assignment and the only further communication is you file the piece, send the piece back. there's a lot of back and forth in between the pitch and the actual finished product. she certainly had every opportunity to disclose this at any time and it's something that was going to come out. she absolutely should have. it's absolutely absurd, absurd take that she didn't do so. howie: the times had to run an editor's note saying she would have not gotten the assignment to profile michael phelps if she hadn't gotten the book deal. the ratings for nbc with the olympics down 43% for first number of days, maybe that's because of the politics, maybe that is also because of the fact that it's covid and there are no fans in the stands. it's just an unusual year. appreciate your analysis, kat kat, jim gray -- kat timpf, jim gray, thanks for joining us. that's it for this edition of media buzz. i'm howard kurtz. we hope you like our facebook page, let's consider the conversation twitter.

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eric: a fox news you alert on several major stories, gunfire riching through new orleans -- ripping through new orleans french quarter last night. the crowds are running from the scene, police say they arrested a suspect and they're looking for at least three more. meanwhile, in new york city, a gunman on a moped shot 10 people outside a laundromat in queens last night, this is the latest violence in the city where crime's been spiking and the city's race for a mayor centers on public safety. hello,