van joining me now "washington times" columnist kelly riddell. ood to have you with us host of "the mike gallagher show" on salem radio network. mike gallagher ghadafi with us. kelly let me start with you. this lester holt thing is turned into a bit of a wildfire. your judgment of his balance or bias? >> while i gave him an f rating. lou: let me write that down. >> that's a fail. just for the fact that you know i knew he was going to be tough on donald trump. i think we'll expected that but not too tough questions on hillary clinton is just inexplicable and trying to fact check donald trump on the spot. he did six follow-up questions with him and none with hillary clinton and he interrupted donald trump 30 times and he only interrupted clinton 19 times. i think i was a bit naÏve going into thinking maybe lester holt might be fair tonight and was very disappointed by the way he ran that. there was not allowed to be any laughter or applause during that debate and there was for hillary clinton so he allowed that to happen as well. >> i had the same l

joining me now, kelly riddell. and joe trippy, the democratic strategist and fox news contributor.ournalists were really angry, some of them were standing on chairs and shouting questions at trump as he walked away. did trump do a bait and switch to draw that almost nonstop cable coverage for what we thought were major remarks on the birther issue? >> he shouldn't have said he was going to take questions and then not take questions. >> i'm not sure he was saying that. >> cnn looked especially whiney because all their anchors were saying we were duped. for at least a year the networks have been taking trump's events live. they could have decided to go into the event when donald trump started speaking about the birther comments. they didn't have to take the whole event live. the other thing i would point out, donald trump has been smeared through the press for being the king of tax breaks for all kind of other problems he's had with his hotel chains. here he had an opportunity with two months left to go before election day to remind everything of the success he's had. why people like

kelly riddell, you saw the interview and the video. it seems like it was completely overblown. >> i agree. spin rooms are crazy places if you have ever been in one before. there are lots of reporters usually trying to get the candidate's attention. this is the narrative that she wants to put out there. the media is in and all-out freak out that donald trump could win this election. hillary clinton placed before him at the end of monday night's debate that donald trump was a chauvinist and it's a way for her to push that narrative forward and it's a sham. charles: when she made the claim last night, i was looking for something shock. her being manhandled. considering the circumstances, i saw nothing there. and it does add to kelly's points that maybe the progressives are going too far trying to smear donald trump. >> i would agree. that's overblown. but i think something interesting is happening here. i think there are two things that trump has to face. one is the insults and the tit for tat isn't working. as he continues to exacerbate

is there an explanation for the softball questions, here to break it down, kelly riddell and mark serrano. hillary, rcp polls have you down by 5%. what's the deal with troops? are you serious? third question, the rnc was mean to you in the tweets. what do you make of it? >> it's a complete dereliction of the press corps's duty, they are stenographers for hillary clinton and putting out her talking points. listen, there are so many unanswered questions when it comes to the clinton foundation and why she set up a private e-mail server at the state department. first, she hasn't acknowledged she violated state department protocols and policies. we don't know why she did it. no honest answer as to why she did it, and then a good question for her would be like what do you think the impact is of you having set up that server. to the rest of national security as well as other employees with the intelligence service. we don't have the answers to any of these questions, and the press seems afraid to ask them. charles: you know, mark, it really is becoming painfully transparent at this point with th