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out talking points against him as though he were a political opponent. >> the white house campaign to undermine dr. fauci is dishonest, disgusting, deranged and at a time of a deadly pandemic it is the ultimate in irresponsibility. >> i don't know the political benefit of going after one of your top medical experts in the middle of a pandemic. i don't see the upside. >> there has been a sunlight slight uptick in -- slight uptick in covid deaths this month but the death toll is nowhere near where it was in april. that's good news in a difficult situation. they don't want you living in fear. what they want you to be is demoralized, dumbed down and dependent on the government. howard: things really escalated when white house trade advisor peter navarro trashed fauci saying he has been wrong about everything i have interact with him on. >> well, he made a statement representing himself. he shouldn't be doing that. no. i have a very good relationship with anthony. >> it is a bit bizarre. i don't really fully understand it. and i think if you talk to reasonable people in the white house, they realize that was a major mistake on their part because it doesn't do anything but reflect poorly on them. howard: joining us now to analyze the coverage, guy benson, host of fox's guy benson radio show on sirius xm. susan ferrechio, chief congressional correspondent and ray suarez, host of kqed's world affairs. guy, the sniping between trump and fauci who spoke for the first time in a couple months and peter navarro seems like a major distraction from the battle against covid-19. are the media over-playing it? guy: in this case, no. i think in the past the media have had a narrative of trump versus fauci and they fueled wit the thinnest -- with the thinnest rule. you have major white house officials, peter no navarro, trashing fauci in a public op ed, i don't see how this is helpful to anyone involved. if you look at the polling, donalpresident trump is trailine biden on the issue of handling coronavirus, he's underwater by double digits on that question and to basically present to the american people and project internal anger and recriminations and sniping back and forth, that's not going to restore faith in the issue, where we see whether or not the president has a chance of re-election. howard: usa today by the way now says that the navarro op ed wasn't adequately fact checked and didn't meet its standards. susan, why the white house campaign against this 79-year-old doctor who is being more aggressive in pushing back, he's been barred from both tv interviews but on facebook, pod casts, print interviews, are the media open ofl openly routing fy fauci. >> yes, they are actively routing for dr. fauci. we are at a tipping point with the coronavirus situation, with the lockdowns continuing, people are frustrated. there's questions about whether schools will open at all in the fall. the president's up for election in november. we pitted against fauci on whether we stay in lockdown mode or we start to use a more liberal approach to reopening in some areas and the two are pitted against each other and they have been all along. all along. but the stakes have never been higher than they are right now and that's why i think you see the two loggerheads at this moment. howard: right. there is an election. ray, when the add menstruation tells -- administration tells hospitals to stop sending their information to the cdc, sending it to the federal health department instead, although we talked to a fox medical contributor who said it's more efficient that way and when information abruptly disappears from the cdc website the press says president trump is trying to control more information for political reasons. is that a fair accusation? >> ray: well, it's a reasonable question to ask, given the president has doubted the dire nature of the pandemic from the beginning. has said things about the numbers, about the extent of the spread of disease that turned out not to be true, often undercutting dr. fauci during the course of a briefing where fauci would say one thing and the president would deny it during the course of the same briefing. so, yeah, i mean, if i was covering this story for one of the major american dailies, i'd be worried about whether i was getting the real scoop. i'd be worried about whether the numbers were being fixed. there was no problem with the cdc's recording of numbers up until now, so why do this this many months into the pandemic? howard: the president called fauci a bit of an alarmist in an interview with fox's chris wallace. wallace asked him about the u.s. having the seventh highest mortality rate in the world and then there's a part in between where kayleigh mcenany comes and provides more information to the president. take a look. >> when you talk about mortality rates, i think it's the on of sit. i think we have one of the lowest mortality rates. >> that's not true, sir. >> we're going to take a look. >> we have 900 deaths in a single day. >> do you have the numbers, please. number one low mortality rate. i hope you show this. it shows what fake news is all about. >> i don't think i'm fake news. howard: guy, chris wallace explained that he was relying on johns hopkins university figures. what do you make of that exchange? >> i think you can see this question two different ways. a lot of people in the media and i think a lot of people in the country listening to the media would believe we have the worst mortality rate in the world which is not true. setting aside the fact that china's obviously lying about their numbers. our mortality rate has been better than a lot of other of countries that have been hit hard by this disease. the raw number of deaths has been higher. so i think president trump was probably talking about one of those things. chris wallace was talking about another one of those things. and so they were maybe perhaps talking past each other which seems to happen a lot lot when discussing coronavirus. and again, i think trump has a good point to make in terms of mortality rates compared to some of the other of countries, especially in europe. a lot of americans i think looking forward over the next three and-a-half, four months are wondering, okay, that's fine for now. whatwhat are we doing to get outbreaks under control. i don't know if a lot of people have full confidence in that process right now. howard: all right. susan, lengthy piece in the new york times today saying the president is responsible for the latest virus surge because between april and june he shifted responsibility to the states, quoting the piece, an attempt to escape blame for the crisis, perhaps one of the greatest failures of presidential leadership, that's a news story. what's your take? >> the new york times has done great reporting on flaws within the cdc at the beginning of this pandemic and now they're following up with a blame story that president trump is responsible for this latest wave. i think there should be more scrutiny, frankly, of what the latest wave actually is. obviously, we have a huge surge in cases because we reopened parts of america, people are getting back out. but the number of deaths is not increasing the way it did early on in the pandemic and the hospitalizations are even starting to stabilize in some of the hot spots. so i think the reporting was overly harsh and was blamed the president too much for really just an administration working with career professionals at the cdc to deal with really an unprecedented pandemic. lockdown and then how do we reopen. they're just trying to figure out how to do it. howard: well, what i thought the piece really played down the tremendous political pressure on governors and mayors to get the economy back open. chris wallace, donald trump is talking about democrats and defunding the police. take a look. >> it's really because they want to defund the police. and biden wants to defund the police. >> sir, he does not. >> look, he signed a charter with bernie sanders. >> nothing about defunding the police. >> oh, really? it says abol abolish. let's go. give me the charter, please. >> all right. howard: ray, biden has said repeat edly he doesn't favor defunding the police. chris wallace pushed back on that. your thoughts? ray: it was an effective moment in the interview. often when people are interviewing the president they let him stay stuff like that and don't push back. and that creates the impression, which is the president's desire, obviously, that joe biden does favor defunding the police. so it was a good moment in an interview that's pretty interesting and i hope all your viewers watch it. howard.>> howey -- howard: let me continue here. i want to say that chris wallace also asked about some of the negative tweets aimed at him and said look, i put democrat as well as republicans on and the president did acknowledge that point. quick once around on the president replacing his campaign manager, brad parscale, putting in long time republican operative bill sepien, the press says the president realizes he's in trouble, he says to chris wallace i'm going to win because these are fake polls. quick thought. >> i would say actions speak louder than words or polls. if the campaign were going well for the president, i don't think they would have had a big shakeup at the top. there's a recognition that something needs to change and now something has. howard: susan, pundits say that parscale was damaged by the tulsa rally, disappointment, and maybe his high profile. sepien who worked for chris christie when he was governor of new jersey stays off the media radar. maybe that was appealing to the president. >> the president said this morning in the interview saying it was about parscale being better at the digital end of things. the president is right i think to make changes at this point. i think he is afraid he's not going to win. if you look at the polls, it's not just the national polling, it's the battleground states which were pivotal to his victory last time. he's losing in just about all of them right now and clearly something needs to change because if these numbers stay the same, he's not go to win, no way. howard: right. comeback for sepien, he's a peripheral figure in the bridgegate scandal in new jersey. in 2016, president trump had a bunch of campaign managers, paul manafort, kellyanne con way. a lot of people are saying it doesn't matter all that much who the campaign manager is. ray: political writers love to talk about inside campaign intrigue, especially now when there's not much campaigning going on. neither major party nominee can really get out there and campaign and sketch out their platform. so it's similar of to criminologists watching the mayday parade in moscow and seeing who was standing where. campaigns hire and fire people, they promote and demote of people. howard: particularly in this campaign, donald trump ultimately is his own campaign manager. let me get a break. when we come back, the new york times in turmoil as the top editor resigns, blasts the liberal colleagues for bullying her. people used to care. heck, they'd come all the way out here just for a blurry photo of me. oh, that's a good one. wait, what's that? that's just the low-battery warning. oh, alright. now it's all, "check out my rv," and, "let's go four-wheeling." maybe there's a little part of me that wanted to be seen. well, progressive helps people save when they bundle their home with their outdoor vehicles. so they've got other things to do now, bigfoot. wait, what'd you just call me? bigfoot? ♪ my name is daryl. howard: bari weiss, an opinion editor at the new york times, stunned the media word with a scathing resignation letter, acautioninaccusing the paper of mccarthyism. she said she was constantly bullied by her colleagues. i learned to brush off comments about how i'm writin writing abe jews again. i other employees -- other employees smear me on twitter. weiss described herself as a moderate, has long complained about social media mobs. >> saying i'm offended is a way of making someone radioactive, a way of smearing their reputation. howard: guy benson, this isn't some outside critic, this was a top editor at the newspaper, who said her colleagues made her life miserable and salsberger did nothing to stop the atmosphere. ray: it was a devastating resignation letter, sounds like she has the receipts, so-to-speak, in terms of slack conversations inside the times newsroom and there was more than a slight hint there might be legal action coming the times' way, based on the way she was treated. she talked about a hostile work environment. i think more broadly speaking, this goes to an institution, the new york times, in crisis. howie, for years the new york times was a very liberal newspaper and it is now becoming an ill-liberal newspaper where you have a left wing mob in the newsroom dictating what ideas make them feel safe or unsafe and, therefore, can or cannot be discussed or published on the even opinion pages of of the times. bari weiss eventually decided this is not worth it anymore for me and she went out in a blaze of glory and told a lot of important truths. howard: ray, let me get you in on this. bari weiss made mistakes. she is making serious charges, saying there's a point of intoll jens where pushing op-eds of a different viewpoint can hurt an editor's career. ray: she says in effect that the people who run the place have given over their oversight to twitter as a way of describing how a mob mentality makes decisions for the paper. even if just a portion of what she says in her letter is true, they better have some really serious soul-searching going on there at the times. if you have people trashing each other by name in a forum where management is a participant in that forum and sees the posts, something is definitely not in good control in the editorial section there and, look, the new york times is an important journalistic institution and it needs to be healthy. it's a good thing if it's healthy and well-run, a good thing for everybody. and i hope they get control of their problems if those problems exist in the way that bari weiss describes them. howard: yeah. well, acting editorial page editor says the times will continue to public voices and viewpoints across the political spectrum. susan ferrechio, the point about twitter being the ultimate editor of the new york times, makmaybe could you say that aboa lot of media organizations that live in fear of backlash from something controversial. susan: i think twitter changed the media landscape because it's changed how we look -- review reporters, we see what they think all day on twitter without their tweets being edited beforehand so we have a better idea where they're coming from and it's also i think pushed these mainstream newsrooms further to the left, not just the new york times but the washington post as well. some of their editors posted controversial far left things that kind of give you the impression that these newspapers are only publishing for certain group of americans and not others. i mean, weiss was brought into the new york times after the trump election for a reason. to help represent people who don't think along the same lines as some of the people in the new york times newsroom and now she's been pushed out. basically, they're rejecting the idea that they can be a newspaper for everybody. they're saying we're only a newspaper for a certain group. that's terrible. we have fewer and fewer newspapers here. howard: i have half a minute here. susan: we're left with the newspapers that represent everybody else. howard: no mention of this at all on cnn or msnbc. imagine if it were a conservative publication. i want to get to this quote, where she says why go through the agony of trying to get a piece in when it's so heavily edited. we can assure ourselves of job security and clicks by publishing our 4,000th op-ed arguing that donald trump is a unique danger to the country and the world. >> it's a great line. it's obviously true. we remember what happened with senator tom cotton's op-ed a few weeks ago. someone was reassigned because he wrote a mainstream op-ed in the newspaper. what susan says, bari weiss is not a pro trump partisan. she was anti-trump, owe posed him, did -- opposed him, did not vote for him. because she wasn't fan a fanatiy anti-trump, it was so hostile, she's out. howard: ray, i think even liberals should be concerned if the culture at the times has gotten to the point of intolerance of other views. ray: bari weiss says even in the newsroom you can't speak your mind. that's a bad newsroom atmosphere. i guess i'd have to disagree with guy benson about whether the suggestion to put american troops on the streets of american cities is a mainstream suggestion. >> 58% of the country supported it, so -- howard: it was a suggestion from the united states republican senator. by the way, new york magazine has forced out columnist andrew sullivan who has quite a following. he says that even though he's anti-trump, his views make people at the magazine feel like he's harming them just with his virtual presence, not even going in the answer. he's going to go back to blogging. thanks very much. ray suarez, susan ferrechio, guy benson. just ahead, top straited gist, jason -- strategist jason miller. still ahead, the left wing boycott because the boss likes trump. howard: the media are taking on president trump for an instagram photo, let's put that up, that shows him posing with beans and other products from goya foods and he tweeted the radical left smear machine backfired. this began when the ceo appeared at the white house for an hispanic initiative and said we are blessed to have trump as a leader, sparking backlash. >> you tell me how a president in the middle of a pandemic has got time for this bull [bleep]. are you kidding me. hawking products. goya, i don't care who it is. howard: had to [bleep] that one. joining us now, griff jenkins, a fox news correspondent in washington. why does the press seem more concerned with president trump posing with goya kidney beans. >> i don't know. let me just say, as a reporter this week when the story popped up and i had to report on it, i was shocked that a can of beans was the next political battle front between president trump and his critics. just for context, bobby nonway was at the white house for a hispanic prosperity initiative which the ceo of the largest hispanic food group in the nation appeared. he also defended the fact that he appeared under president obama as well when asked to do so. but what's very fascinating is that very quickly, first it was ivanka trump, senior advisor and daughter of president trump who posted with a can of beans and of course already you have seen the possible ethics violations that she brought and of course president trump doubling down on the criticism of ivanka by having that photo op and it's clearly irritated many like chris cuomo, you heard from right there. howard: yeah. there was an ethics complaint that ivanka may have violated a rule against federal officials promoting products. she's not trying to sell beans and corn, she was trying to take a stand on behalf of the company. some democrats are supporting the boycott. to me, the main story is what about -- why doesn't the press focus on the fact there there's a boycott against a company simply because of the political views of the chief executive. >> a significant one. are they reporting on what has been the backlash of the boycott, a group of trump supporters seizing on this clash if you will by doing a buy-cot, trying to get people to go out. trump supporters were posting pictures of them buying beans and whatnot. it's an interesting thing. the ethics complaint you mentioned, very significant. the law says you can't use your position as an alleged ivanka did to endorse a product. clearly, this wasn't just a random endorsement. this was a political reaction. in a statement that she was trying to make, because of the attack on bobby nunway. howard: maybe the real story is too boring for the media, that president trump is trying to win hispanic votes by siding with a businessman who is under attack for supporting him. i don't think it may not be all that complicated. coming up, should the press be chastising the president for slamming joe biden from the rose garden? jason miller is next howard: president trump summoned reporters for the news garden, held forth for 63 minutes, devoting much of the speech to the presumptive democratic nominee. >> joe biden is pushing a platform that would demolish the u.s. economy, totally demolish it. let him define the word carbon, he won't be able to. >> it wasn't a briefing. it was a campaign rally speech, minus the cheering crowd, of course. there's really nothing to cheer about right now. >> the venue is the rose garden, by the way, owned by all of the taxpayers. goes out there and delivers a campaign speech, using journalists effectively at props. howard: joining us now, jason miller, a 2016 advisor, just joined the trump campaign as senior strategist. this is your second tv interview since joining the campaign. let movies start with a two part question. the president did make news at the briefing about china but then delivered an hour long partisan campaign speech. how do you back up the president's charge that joe biden and his bosses from the radical left will totally destroy the beautiful suburbs? >> absolutely. well, as we've seen, joe biden has taken this very bizarre lurch left in the general election. i've never seen this before, someone wins the democratic primary and try to make themselves out to be the furtherrest left candidate. if we didn't know better, we would think bernie sanders won the primary. to the point -- howard: do you want to run against bernie sanders? >> joe biden, he signed onto bernie sanders' 110 page communist manifesto that will destroy america, 4 trillion in new taxes, a green new deal. howard: how would it destroy the suburbs? >> because what they want to do -- joe biden -- look, in all fairness, i'm not sure if it's joe biden or the crazy left wind handlers, he has signed on to cory booker's plan to get rid of single family zoning in the suburbs, they want to have little downtowns. well, guess what? a lot of folks moved to the suburbs because they want to have space, they don't want to be downtown. but the democrats want to go and remake america. they want to go and have cities encroche our ---encroach our, steal the tax basis. this would be disastrous. no american living in the suburbs wants to be downtown, otherwise that, would live downtown. howard: president trump told chris wallace in the interview that aired this morning on fox news sunday that biden wants to defund the police. we played this earlier. he said it's in the agreement with bernie sanders who you like to reference. chris wallace pushed back and said correctly there's no mention of defunding the police in this agreement. so did the president misspeak? >> no, the president was spot-on. joe biden and the radical left absolutely want to defund the police. joe biden when he was asked the question, do you want to redirect money, that's liberal code for defunding the police. look at liberal reporters, who said that's code from the left for defunding the police, joe biden said yes, absolutely. if you take a look at the crazy bernie sanders platform he signed onto, they want to quote, unquote, reimagine policing. howie, what does that mean, reimagine policing? i'll tell you -- howard: let me stop you there. i want to jump in. after that exchange, the president tweeted about this and he said that biden may use different words, but that's what he wants to do. now, jason, you've been in politics a long time. if that's the standard, i could say president trump wants to deport all the dreamers. you would say no, he never said that. well, i think that's what he wants to do. seems to me you want to run against some of the more extreme elements in the democratic part. biden hasn't actually said these things. >> howie, this isn't let's make a deal. what if we literally took your salary and gave it to chris wallace. would you say that you'd be defunded or would you simply say your salary has been redirected. that would be defunding. that would be defunding media buzz which would be a total shame because it's a great show. that is exactly what joe biden and the radical left want to do here. they want to take money away from policing, you look at ilhan omar, aoc, aoc by the way is one of bernie sanders' -- that's who we're essentially talking about is the general election mom knee, but one of joe biden's top advisors, they want to absolutely defund police, redirect money away. they want to get rid of civil asset forfeiture which would be a big deal, make sure that local police departments don't get surplus military equipment. they want to make sure that they get rid of qualified immunity which would absolutely gut local police. howie, you won't be safe in joe biden's america. howard: all right. i've seen that on your commercials. i'm not throwing anybody lifelines, i'm talking about what the candidate said. brad parscale who as you know recently stepped down as campaign manager, replaced by bill stepien, he said in a statement that the media is a criminal network that has very you few honest people. do you agree with that? criminal? you were a contributor at cnn for a while. are most of us criminals? are we breaking the law? how do you defend that? >> i don't, howie. that's not my opinion. that's not how i perceive the media. look, i like to give it back as much as i take it. and have some good, strong pushback. i think when we talk about some of the polls that are out there, i think there is a concerted effort to intentionally try to suppress president trump's vote. that's not how i refer to the media. i think most folks in the media are trying to do a good job. there are certain folks who are trying to suppress the president's vote, absolutely. howard: suppress the president's vote. all right. let me play for you a recent sit-down between the president and katherine hairrage. this is what a lot of people have been asking. >> why are african-americans still dying at the hands of law enforcement in this country? >> so are white people. so are white people. what a terrible question to ask. so are white people. more white people, by the way. more white people. howard: so in percentage terms a government study shows nearly three times as many black people as white people are killed by law enforcement. certainly white people are killed as well. why did the president say it's a terrible question. it's a question a lot of people are asking. >> the president was there to talk about other policy matters. it was presented in a way to put him into a box there. what we should have had in the interview was a more in-depth conversation about president trump's recent actions on police reform. howard: he could have brought it up. >> he was hoping to have a deeper conversation into. it got into where president trump -- they were trying to juxtapose president trump against the bad actions of others. i don't think it was fair. the president was right to push back on it. it is worth pointing out what president trump has done with police preform. why hasn't joe biden done any of this in 47 years? howard: all right. here's another question, which is if you look at the polls out today, fox news poll has the president trailing by 8 points, that's an improvement for the president. washington post says 15 points, there's a wide range there. the president said in the wallace interview these are fake polls. my question to you, particularly in light of the campaign shakeup is, is your guy now the underdog. >> no, we run every day like we're the underdog. we work hard and fight like we're trailing. it's how we did it in 2016 and how we'll do it in 2020. i think we're going to win. i want to break down the polls. one important question for you, howie, do you think that from 2016 until now that 27% of all republicans just vanished into thin air? do you think that's the case? howard: go ahead and make your case. >> because that's exactly what the washington post abc poll is saying. the exits both in 2016 and in 2012018, including cnn's existsd republicans at 38%. there's a 27% decrease. no, 27% of republicans haven't magically disappeared. that's what some folks in the media, not all, but some, want to do to intentionally drive down and suppress president trump's vote. it's ridiculous. our numbers show it's either tied or leading in every place that we need to get to 270, confident about where we are, howie. howard: jason miller, good to see you. hope you come back. nice to have you join us. >> thank you. howard: after the break we go to the other side with a democratic strategist and later the washington post discloses a huge sexual harassment scandal at the redskins. apples as the first ingredient. and key nutrients you want. so you can have a daily multivitamin free of stuff you don't want. one a day natural fruit bites. a new way to multivitamin. whether it's bribes ...or an overdue makeover. get all your pet essentials right when you need them, with curbside pickup at petsmart. just order online, drive up, check-in, and pick up. i have the power to lower my blood sugar and a1c. because i can still make my own insulin. and trulicity activates my body to release it like it's supposed to. once-weekly trulicity is for type 2 diabetes. it's not insulin. it starts acting from the first dose. and it lowers risk of heart attack, stroke, or death in people with known heart disease or multiple risk factors. trulicity isn't for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. don't take trulicity if you're allergic to it, you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. stop trulicity and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, changes in vision, or diabetic retinopathy. serious side effects may include pancreatitis. taking trulicity with sulfonylurea or insulin raises low blood sugar risk. side effects include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, belly pain, and decreased appetite, which lead to dehydration and may worsen kidney problems. we're committed to helping ensure trulicity is available and affordable. learn more at trulicity.com. we asked joe biden's aides for a guest but the campaign was not able to join one today. joining us now, hank sheinkopf, a veteran democratic strategist. why doesn't joe biden do more interviews and talk to hotterrers more often -- talk to reporters more often. the cynical media explanation is he's ahead in the polls, why risk making mistakes, he can stay home in delaware and let the media spotlight be on president trump. hank: why do anything and let the president -- the president's doing a very good job right now, into red states and the complete craziness that's going on in america's streets and the economy, put them together, it's a -- howard: the answer to why do anything is that as a major party nominee, you have some responsibility to communicate with the press and to show that the people who might have doubts about you that you can hit major league pitching. hank: that may be true but strategically it's better for joe biden to do that when trump's numbers fall, and should they fall, why give the incumbent any opportunity to attack biden directly, when the attack can be by the public when you're doing it that way. he's the president. howard: i hope the former vice president will go out more including on this program. i hope to get his campaign people as well. same question i asked jason miller. biden said he doesn't support defunding the police. the president told chris wallace, yes, he does. they got into a dispute over that. the trump campaign says biden will be the captive of radical democrats and regards police as the enemy. hank: that's a great strategy, directed at suburban women, that trump needs to hold onto or get back, states where people are feeling some concern and most of the country is. but deep concern in those states. and to bring back his base at the same time. it's a smart strategy. the rhetoric is correct. but it might not be good for america. it's more about politics than it is about leadership. howard: well, certainly there's an effort to tie joe biden to some of the more radical elements. obviously he's had to try to align himself with bernie sanders to win over some of those voters in november which brings me to the $2 trillion climate bill that he announced this week. much more ambitious than joe biden supported in the primaries. and the press is casting this as a bow to bernie wing but it also gives the republicans and the trump campaign a pretty big fat target given the size and the cost of that plan. hank: no question about it. what the trump people likely do is make him into a job killer if they haven't done that already. what the bernie sanders or left wing of the democratic party will do is tout it as their victory. in order for biden to win he believes whether it is true or not that he has got to grab enough of the so-called progressives within the democratic party to turn out. the trump issue is somewhat different. he has a more united party, with less factualism, it's become the good trump party, not the republican party, and he can count on a definitive portion of the electorate that's already his. he's never changed to drop much below 40%. there is public opinion polling that shows the job is less difficult in some ways than biden's. howard: the president and his campaign have not been subtle saying joe biden has lost a few steps, he has said he should play a cognitive test. let me play you more from that interview. >> i'm going to ask you a correct question about joe biden. is joe biden senile? >> i don't want to say that. i say he's not competent to be president. joe doesn't know he's alive, okay. howard: the president also said let biden sit for an interview like this, he'll be on the ground saying mommy, mommy, take me home. all of that is it effective in cold political terms? is it unfair? and how should the press deal with it? >> is it effective? no. is it unfair? no, there is no fair in political combat. you've got to win. aggressive tactics require especially when the polling data being released shows you're in serious trouble in some places. will biden bite the bait? if he does, it would be not the smartest thing. let the president continue to drop, covid spreads, the tragedy of deaths of more americans and the unemployment numbers will increase. that's a problem. howard: spoken as a true political operative, what matters is winning. hank sheinkopf, we appreciate it. good to see you this morning. hank: thank you, howie. howard: still to come, heads are rolling at the washington redskins after a newspaper expo expose of sexual harassment and the great twitter hacking silences the elite. howard: three top executives at the washington redskins were fired or resigned after the washington post published a devastating account, former employees said they were harassed or hit on. one of them is emily applegate. >> someone makes a comment about what you're wearing and it snowballs from there. it really gives most people no time to comment on my appearance. there were many times i would be in the car crying on the way home. howard: we're back with griff jenkins. griff, this story abou about harassment, the team changing its name is the least of their problems right now. it's a reminder a newspaper can still do outstanding investigative work. griff: absolutely. kudos to the two writers who wrote that devastating expose because there was so much hype, howie, on twitter, on social media, because the story was being worked on but you had people in the sports media community and in local washington sports coverage saying something is coming, something is coming. we were really breathless, hyper ventilating, a lot of rumor about what it contained. in the end, we got an unbelievable personal account and it wasn't just that the team's former female employees, two reporters that covered the team as well involved in the whole thing. so the -- howard: let me jump in to say that the owner, dan snyder wouldn't talk to the paper and now says such behavior has no place in our franchise, ordered an investigation. but the damage to the brand from this detailed story i think has been done. do you agree? griff: absolutely. ronlron rivera, is wondering wht did i sign up for. he has such a number of problems. but perhaps it will be under this new coach and ultimately a new name that they can change the culture both inside and outside in terms of how this club runs their operations. howard: right. let's close with this. there was a major twitter hack this week by part of a bitcoin scam, the biden and obama accounts, elon musk, bill gates and others of. for a couple hours, the verified account, people with blue check marks, full disclosure, you and me are in the category, were frozen. people had a lot of fun saying class war against the blue checks and overthrow the blue checks. why all this resentiment? griff: because they have a bigger platform, the blue checks, like you and i than the -- there was a great piece, calling it the great -- it was basically -- they were saying that those that normally don't have as many followers and as much influence in twitter and on platforms, well, they were muted. my favorite tweet by the way was from a non-blue check mark person, howie, that said, hey, blue checks, if you need to tweet, dm me and i'll do it for you, 10 o 1 bucks at a -- 10 but a time. howard: i think we're pretty nice guys. look, the reason that people have blue checks is they're well-known or have large followings. the trump account wasn't affected because he has special security. you seem to be taking it in stride. i didn't try to tweet during those hours. i didn't know i was silenced. griff: didn't affect me as well. however, it is interesting because, you know, twitter, social media is the frontier now, particularly during the pandemic when we're in quarantine, that we go to get our news and certainly some have more you power than others. howard: griff, thanks so much. that's it for this edition of media buzz. i'm howard kurtz. we hope you like our facebook page, we post my daily columns there and we can continue the conversation on twittedder. check out my podcast, media buzz meter. you can subscribe at apple itunes, google podcast, get it on your amazon device. there's the promo graphic. we're back here next sunday, 11:00 you eastern, a lot more to talk about with this environment, covid, the campaign and just about everything else. see you then with the latest buzz. they will, but with accident forgiveness allstate won't raise your rates just because of an accident, even if it's your fault. cut! sonny. was that good? line! the desert never lies. isn't that what i said? no you were talking about allstate and insurance. i just... when i... let's try again. everybody back to one. accident forgiveness from allstate. click or call for a quote today. cranky-pated: a bad mood related to a sluggish gut. miralax is different. from allstate. it works naturally with the water in your body to unblock your gut. free your gut, and your mood will follow. eric: more testing, more cases, yet a higher rate of infection as coronavirus is spreading. the u.s. seeing nearly 70,000 new infections yesterday. this as the world health organization reports a record increase in cases for the second straight day. the world wide total rising by 260,000 cases in one day, while across our country people are told to wear masks and please take the proper precautions. hello, everyone for this sunday, welcome to america's news headquarters. i'm eric shawn. hi, arthel. arthel: hi, i'm arthel neville. parents are growing more concerned about school plans for their children as president trump pushes
JerseyNew-yorkUnited-statesMoscowMoskvaRussiaWashingtonDelawareChinaWhitehouseDistrict-of-columbiaAmericans republican party doing to defend and -- i mean, why not just say we're not going to accept the results of this election? it's outrageous. >> zombie pals in congress are looking to make this transition into a complete horror show. the only thing that's going to stop them is the outrage. >> gathering facts is the long thing our media seem to want to do. instead, they're demanding to shut up and accept joe biden, period. >> it's embarrassing for the country, and it's terribly embarrassing for the republican party. nobody in that party but for some very notable exceptions dare tell the emperor he has no clothes on. he has no case. >> after years of being lied to, smeared, slandered and, frankly, censored now by america's most powerful institutions, bureaucrats and the deep state, the hacks in the media mob, the 99%, we're not just going to take their word for anything. howard: joining us to analyze the coverage, mollie hemingway, fox news contributor, susan ferrechio with the washington examine or, and in los angeles, leslie marshall, radio talk show host and also a fox news contributor. mohli e e -- mollie just tweeted of biden he won because the election was rigged. there's been an explosion of news stories on this, some liberals counting this as a grudging concession. do you except the reality? accept the reality? >> there are two issues here for the media on how they should be handling this situation. one is the constitutional process by which we determine who has won the presidency, and the second are all the a issues surrounding how credible this election has been, this move to widespread mail-in balloting and whether the appropriate measures were taken to make sure this was a safe and secure election. on the constitutional issue, there will be an electoral college vote at some point, and that's what will determine the president. the media can assert or say that they, in their estimation, i think believe that joe biden is unquestionably going to be that person, but they've also lost so much of their credibility in recent years that, you know, they said this wouldn't be a close election, they said this is going to be a massive blue wave, they have spent many years lying about president trump, and half the country no longer acknowledges their legitimacy. and, in fact, if the media saw something, they're more lakely to doubt it. howard: right. >> the orish -- other issue is the media do need to be looking at the credibility of this election this year more than all others. howard: well, there's no question the media don't have the legal right to decide the election, but i think it's less about the network projections now including on fox, let me turn to leslie on this, than it is about the actual vote counting. now, moments or short time after the tweet i just read, president trump reacting to the freakout on twitter has this follow-up tweet, he only won in the eyes of the fake news media, i concede nothing. trump is a master messenger on twitter. do you think he was trying to send a signal9 with the first tweet? maybe he wants to kind of acknowledge there's going to be a transition but without conceding? >> howie, quite frankly, i have two children. i i've seen this before at target when they were toddlers and they were screaming and they wouldn't give the toy, and i'm not going to give them the toy, and donald trump's not going to get the toy. the toy in this case is the presidency. homeland security has said no election fraud. electoral commission has said no election fraud. the trump administration has nearly zero success in the courts whether you have attorneys say can't do this numb, courts -- howard: leslie, we'll get to that in a moment. just address the tweets briefly, please. >> this is what he's been doing throughout his administration. has been leading this nation through a social media network. he -- this is what he believes, and this is what people who follow him believe and they want to believe despite the facts. look at 2016 and now, howie, michigan. .3% he won by. wisconsin, -- howard: all right, i get it. i'm going to get to -- >> -- did not bring those places to court or allege there was fraud, and he won -- [inaudible] howard: susan, i want to ask you about some comments by cnn's jim acosta. after january 20th, he says, trump just goes back to being another crackpot on the internet. on what planet is that appropriate for a white house correspondent? >> it's not, and it's part of what mollie was talking about, how the larger story about this election is the media and that they announced biden the winner, and he may well be the winner. but the media lost credibility through its coverage of the president over the last four years. jim acosta was kind of leading the way with his combative add attitude in these press conferences, and cnn, which was supposed to be the neutral network where you could really find out what's happening objectively. that's all gone by the wayside, and you combine that with the way this election was conducted, all new mail-in balloting where all the states had different rules, and the outcomes came -- it creates all this doubt. i don't think the doubt should be laughed at, i don't think trump should be treated like he's a toddler questioning this. there are a lot of questions about this, and the jim acosta comment is part of why the public really doesn't trust what's going on. howard: mollie, president trump and his team have every right to pursue their legal challenges. on friday, however, just on friday they lost rulings or, you know, had legal setbacks in michigan, arizona and pennsylvania. arizona's republican governor says he believes biden will win the state, there's not enough fraud to overturn. so my question is just as a straight news story covering the legal developments, it doesn't seem to be looking good for the trump team. would you disagree? >> i'm not sure. legal developments will be what they are, and we have to wait and see how they conclude, and there will be new filings, and they should be covers honestly and accurately. there is the issue that the media should have curiosity about what was just referenced, this massive move to mail-in balloting which has much less scrutiny than normal voting in person, and it should have, in fact, much more. so you have a certain level of fraud in every election, expect media just -- and the media just seemed to have no concern or curiosity about it at all. if they cover it, they downplay it. and this was after four years of completely amplifying democratic claims that the 2016 election was stolen by donald trump. they spent many years in matter how ludicrous the claim was amplifying it and devoting all of their media coverage to it. and here you have a totally normal thing, which is a certain amount of election fraud in every election, but this year with that massive move to mail-in balloting, no signature checks, kicking observers out while they counted those ballots, this is something that the media if the election had exactly the opposite in terms of where the numbers with right now, they would be digging into every last little thing, and they're not doing it in this case because they want to support their candidate, joe biden. howard: all right. i want to briefly touch on a couple of these allegations. susan, the president retweeted a report being reported that dominion, which makes these voting machines, delete lded nearly a million of these votes, there was some problems with9 with the human error on the of the ware, but his own -- software, but his own department of homeland security says no evidence of deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised. >> democratic political connections to the dominion system, so it's one of those things that's going to create doubt. and it's also electronic, with the push of a button things can disappear. i think it helps to undermine the trust in this particular election amongst millions of people who voted for trump who now question whether this thing was completely rigged. and whether or not the media -- that's still tens of millions of voters who have doubts in this election. that's why i think it's important to look at all aspects of this, especially the ones where there are political connections like the dominion system. howard: there are widespread doubts, there's no question about that, and that is part of the story. leslie, another allegation touted by trump lawyers and the campaign, pennsylvania postal worker alleged back dating of ballots received after election day. he he later recanted his charge to inspector general investigators. so, you know, we should as journalists look at all these things, but also if it turns out to crumble, then we have to report that too. >> absolutely. we want the facts here. look, you know, i don't want to win and i don't want my candidate to win my cheating, and i would hope the orr side doesn't -- the other side doesn't either. the problem here, when susan speaks of casting doubt, well, there's some doubt on my side of the aisle. how come you don't question north carolina? north carolina was called around the same time arizona was, yet trump won that state. and that's part of a problem. they're only questioning the legitimacy of the votes counted in states that he lost which doesn't smell right to a lot of voters. and there are people i know here in california that are republican that voted for the president but that have accepted what looks like is certainly going to be the outcome of this election which is that joe biden is president-elect and will be the next prime minister of the united states. president of the united states. howard: okay. mollie, i want to play a clip from the president on friday, let's start with that and a question on the other side. >> i will not go -- this administration will not be going to a lockdown. hopefully the, whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration it will be. i guess time will tell. howard: so "the new york times" says that by dominating the story of the transition as the president's doing, that he hopes to keep millions of his supporters energized and engaged for whatever comes next. there's some talk he might run in 2024. are the media giving him what he wants for his post-presidency which is that he remains a dominant media figure? >> well, he just is whether or not they give him whatever they give him. he just had a re-election campaign where he gained 10 million new voters. he is clearly going to have a lot of power many in terms of deciding whether he wants to run again if he is not determined to be the winner of this election. he can easily run again, and he is the most popular, he's simultaneously the most hated and the most popular politician in this country, and we pay so much attention to the people who are just consumed by fear and hatred of hill. but you have 73 million people who love him. that's a lot of power, and the republican party knows that, the media know that, and it's just going to be what we're going to deal with. howard: right. what's fascinating that joe biden, he's giving speeches, he's announced his white house chief of staff, and yet he's being totally overshadowed in this transition so far kind of like what happened during the campaign. ahead, jason miller of the trump campaign joins the program. but when we come back, the surge in coronavirus becomes a major media issue, and that's fueling some press criticism of the president. ♪ if your dry eye symptoms keep coming back, inflammation in your eye might be to blame. 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? 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nothing. he is inside the white house. he is not talking about the pandemic. >> they going to do this again, are they going to allow this president to manage the transition as terribly as he managed the coronavirus and willfully doing nothing, willfully refusing to use the powers of his presidency to do the right thing and help mitigate this pandemic? howard: the one bit of good news, pfizer close to marketing a vaccine it says is more than 90% effective has been welcomed on the right. >> president trump knew from day one that the only way for this nation to get out of this pandemic, he did call it the china virus in that speech, was to as fast as possible to get a vaccine under development. howard: mollie, as the press sees it, the president is laser focused on the election battle and hasn't addressed the pandemic since friday. doesn't that open the door to some media criticism? >> just, first, i want to make sure we mention in the fist segment it was -- first segment it was said that post office whistleblower recanted about what he had claimed about e witnessing bad things happening. that's not true. he released audio of exactly what he said, and you can listen to that yourself. it's like a two hour audio interview, and he says he did not recant in contradiction to what the washington postclaimed. howard: okay. >> as for the situation with the coronavirus situation, it is a global pandemic, it has been hitting other countries extoo manically hard in recent weeks. we're seeing an uptick here. the media does seem to be continuing their push for lockdowns, and they did that in part using polls saying that people were broadly supportive of this approach of how to handle a global pandemic. i think it's worth noting as we reflect on how completely fraudulent and erroneous many media polls were with how they covered whether or not it this s a close election between joe biden and donald trump, it's also interesting about how those polls drove coverage about coronavirus and what people's actual feelings are. and so polling, i think, is an issue not just with politics, but also with how they handle the coronavirus coverage. howard: on that point, leslie, a top adviser, dr. michael osterholm, says we may need a 4-6 national lockdown to get the virus under control. biden himself has not embraced it, but some are saying, a that, this is what -- aha, this is what biden planned all along. >> wrong. my husband is in the medal community. -- medical community. it's not that we're having a little bit of a spike. what we are having is we've broken our own record, we have winter coming, and in nearly all 50 states we're going to be indoors a lot more. that is a huge concern to the medical community that they don't have the capacity with health care workers and with beds in these hospitals to care for these individuals. all we want is to get this covid-19 virus behind us. what can they do in the interim until the vaccine is available especially when you have a third of americans saying they're not going to take any vaccine that's out there, biden or otherwise. what can be done. lockdown is one of the things they look at but, howie, lockdown has negative ramifications also not just to the economy, but to people's mental health as well. howard: right. i don't drink during the show, by the way. [laughter] susan, you look at the president's twitter feed, and it's most lu about contesting the election. there's lots of tweets and retweets, criticism of fox news, he says he was the golden goose for fox, almost nothing on the virus. is it too easy for liberal commentators to blame this rather chilling new autumn surge on the president? >> i think it's completely ridiculous, fractionally. frankly. the president all along listened and followed the guidance of dr. fauci and husband e coronavirus task force. he helped secure the contract with phaser for 100 -- pfizer for 100 million doses of the vaccine that's supposed to be 90% effective. the country is producing enough ventilators to send them overseas. there's been enough protective gear, and there has been enough capacity in hospitals. now we're entering flu season, this is spikes in part of the country, some areas are topping off, and i think we're probably going to see a reduction in some of those cases. it's also flu season. you know, it's been months now we've been in lockdown, our kids have been out of school since march. there are people missing doctors' appointments and screenings, they're still staying away from check-ups. you have to walking the risks here -- weigh the risks here of lockdowns versus something more modified. and the media always jump -- he was doing daily briefingses, and they criticized him for that too. he can't win. howard: that's true. mollie, the president sented out a fundraising letter about the pfizer vaccine, probably didn't have the courage to make this historic announcement before november 3rd because hay hoped -- they hoped it would keep me from winning bug. quick thought on that, please. >> if the vaccine was announced prior to election, there's speculation people would feel not like taking it. this has been something people have talked about a lot. this was amazing work done in this public/private partnership and, you know, getting a vaccine in just a few short months that everyone should be thankful for, and that didn't happen under -- that did happen under the trump administration. howard: the next challenge will be in distributing it. mollie, susan, leslie, thanks very much for a good conversation this sunday morning. up next, the pundits are upset with mike pompeo, bill barr9 and the firing of pentagon chief mark esper. has the criticism been overblown in that's next. ents, get startea comprehensive exam and full set of x-rays with no obligation. and if you don't have insurance, it's free. plus, get 20% off your treatment plan. enjoy flexible payment options and savings when it matters most. we're here to make your smile shine bright so you can start the new year feelin' alright. call 1-800-aspendental 7 days a week or book today at aspendental.com howard: the media are now focusing on the conduct of some cabinet members and the firing or possible firing of others especially after this exchange with secretary of state mike pompeo. >> at what point does a delay hamper a smooth transition or pose a risk to national security? >> there will be a smooth transition to a second trump administration. howard: joining us now, fox news correspondent griff jenkins. the media went haywire over his answer, and there was some speculation that maybe, well, he was joking. >> well, i talked to some of the reporters that covered the secretary of state and said, you know, what's going on here. they said this is a guy who likes to deliver one-liners, he practices them. but this one certainly did back fire. later the secretary of state went on with bret baier and was asked were you being serious, and pompeo did not take the opportunity to say he wasn't being serious, to say it was a joke and to move on. howard: right. >> you have america's top diplomat to goes around the world advocating for free and fair election, and yet now you're putting in question a smooth transition and we will see what kind of questions keep coming towards him. i think this week and the coming days. because this was a case that certainly backfired for the secretary of state. howard: right. now, as you know, the president fired defense secretary mark esper a little bit after the election and installed a few loyalists at the pentagon. the media's question is why do this presumably leaving in ten weeks anyway, was it political payback? >> it's no secret that the president's been upset because e sper said he did not support using active duty forces to quell protests. but there's questions about whether it's about pulling troops out of afghanistan. our own jennifer griffin confirmed prior to esper's firing, he sent two memos, one of them which warned of the dangers of pulling out of afghanistan too quickly. that may have triggered it. now the acting secretary of defense, chris miller, sent a message to the troops, and it's a little mixed. he says the war isn't other, but at the same time he says it's time to bring the troops home. if the troops do, indeed, come home, and we know e sper wasn't going to do that, perhaps we'll get our answer then. howard: right. well, donald trump still is president, and he has the right to pursue his foreign policy as long as he is in office. attorney general bill barr made headlines by authorizing federal prosecutors to conduct probes of specific election allegations i i -- should the media have slammed barr for that memo e is. >> the criticism is fair, howie, because it has caused an uproar at the department of justice. you have, that memo was issued by barr on monday. by friday 16 federal prosecutors sent a letter to him saying that they have not found evidence of substantial allegations, that the memo was not based in fact, and the top guy here at the doj that oversees election fraud resigned in protest. and so i think you will see the department of justice continue to have people speak out because, ultimately, you have career prosecutors that feel they're being thrust into political partisan battles. howard: right. in the fairness, the media did kind of play down the other part of the memo where barr said no investigations were specious, speculative, far-fetched claims. great job as always, great to see you. >> thanks, howe but. howard: and coming up, as the president keeps contesting the election and joe biden holds his first postelection presser, topical pain adviser jason -- campaign adviser jason miller joins us in a moment. ♪ i'm erin. -and i'm margo. we've always done things our own way. charted our own paths. i wasn't going to just back down from moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. psoriatic arthritis wasn't going to change who i am. when i learned that my joint pain could mean permanent joint damage, i asked about enbrel. enbrel helps relieve joint pain, and helps stop permanent joint damage. plus enbrel helps skin get clearer in psoriatic arthritis. ask your doctor about enbrel, so you can get back to your true self. -play ball! enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders and allergic reactions have occurred. tell your doctor if you've been someplace where fungal infections are common. or if you're prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for heart failure, or if you have persistent fever, bruising, bleeding or paleness. don't start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. visit enbrel.com to see how your joint damage could progress. enbrel. eligible patients may pay as little as $5 per month. ♪ howard: well, the networks projected joe biden as next president, many journalists were is celebrating and literally during the news coverage at msnbc. >> this is fantastic! [laughter] you're aglow. i can see from the here. >> i've stayed up for 447 days waiting waiting for this election to be over! e. howard: and when joe biden took questions as the first time for president-elect are, the reporters main lu kept inviting him to criticize president trump. >> how do you expect to work with republicans? >> have you tried to reach out at all to the president? how will you move ahead if the president continues to concedesome. >> what do you say to americans that are anxious about the fact that president trump has yet to concede and what that might mean for the country? >> well, i just think it's an embarrassment, quite frankly. the only thing that, how can i say this tactfully? i think it will not help the president's legacy. howard: joining us now, jason miller, senior adviser to the trump reelection campaign. jason, what did you make of the reporters' questions to joe biden and his tactful response for the president continuing to concede the election? >> howie, good morning. i think it's one step above asking him if he got a vanilla or chocolate milk shake. let's be clear what msnbc's celebrating. they're not celebrating because of joe bide, where he finished up on election night. they're celebrating because they think kamala harris is one step closer to the presidency. so west virginia got to call it for -- we've got to call it for what it is. howard: all right. now, the president, as we noted earlier, has set off of a whole lot of media frenzy by tweeting of biden, he won because the election was rigged. they're also taking a swipe at fake news media, and later tweet says, no, i'm not conceding anything. but the wording of the tweet seems to suggest that maybe the president's trying to send a signal that he acknowledges that he may not be president after january 20th but not formally conceding. what is your take on that? >> no, not at all. the president's not conceding anything. in fact, what the president was speaking to is the mindit of the media -- mindset of the media. the fact of the matter is states have not yet certified who actually has won their respective contests. we still have a number of very specific legal challenges that are going. we do believe that the state of pennsylvania was systemically compromised, and that election is going to go through the courts. they review that. we do believe there were instances of systemic fraud in the state of michigan especially as we go through wayne county and get into the particulars there of ballots being run through multiple times, officials putting up cardboard, not e allowing our observers to watch ballots be counted, a lot of very specific issues we're concerned about. and we haven't even gotten into the ballot harvesting in georgia. we need to make sure we go through because, howie, this isn't just about this election, this is about the senate runoff elections coming up in the january and the future of elections in america. howard: jason, karl rove says that joe biden won. pastor robert jeffress, big trump supporter, says biden has won and christians should pray for him. the las vegas review journal, owned by sheldon edelson, says there's no evidence of fraud that would overturn the election. so it seems like some of your allies, while they still support donald trump, are not with you on the cause here. >> well, howie, if you take a look through karl rove's op-ed, what he was saying is that a traditional recount probably doesn't go and move the needle that much. but what we're talking about here, again, ballot harvesting in georgia where we haven't had the opportunity to match up signatures, as we look at the untoolsal nature -- unconstitutional nature in which the election in pennsylvania was conducted, the fact that almost 700,000 ballots were counted without the ability for observee comingled and mixed together raises some serious questions about the legitimacy of those elections. and when the president talks about rigging an election, what he's talking about is how democrats could use the guise of covid as an excuse, the i chaos surrounding covid as some kind of guise to go and change our election laws, to rig it for the democrats. and i think that's a very serious thing that's going to impact all elections going forward. howard: well, as i say, the president has every right to pursue these legal challenges, but it hasn't been going all that well for you, for your legal team. just on friday, as i mentioned earlier, rulings in arizona, pennsylvania and michigan went against the trump team. so you would say given the difficulty of actually overturning margins not just in one state, but in three contested states, wouldn't you acknowledge that this is looking more and more like a long shot? >> not yet. i think we have to go through and make sure that each state certifies under their proper timeline and process. as we think back to the contested elections of whether it be 2000 or even 2016, many in the media encouraged the candidate who was behind coming out on election night to go challenge and ask for recounts and to go through all their legal remedies. and so that ability should be granted to president trump here. and i would say one other key point here, howie, how much fraud is okay? for example, at the campaign we've put out a list of number of dead voters who voted two weeks ago both in pennsylvania and in georgia. i think we're going to put out our list for nevada, maybe even michigan today. and the frequent refrain that i would hear from reporters is, well, this is just a small list of dead voters. well, if we can find these dead voters voting in such a short period of time, isn't it incumbent upon secretaries of state and on these state legislatures to make sure the voter rolls are accurate? if we can find it this easy, how much more is there out there? this is, i think, our resolve to do this, to make sure that the election, that everyone can have confidence in it. howard: that's what we need the find out. now, there was, as you know, a big maga rally here in washington yesterday with, many thousands of people showed up to protest, and there were also some, there was also some violence and some harassment and attacks by people associated with antifa of pro-trump supporters. do you think that has gotten enough media coverage? >> not at all. and i really think it's shameful that some of the competing networks whether it be cnn or msnbc have not covered it the way they should. the fact of the matter is these were peaceful protesters, so to speak, folks who were going to talk about their support for president trump, and out of nowhere antifa and these blm protesters come in and start hitting them. some of the videos, howie, that dewe saw were absolutely horrific. and this is, we said during the campaign you won't be safe in joe biden's america, these aren't trump supporters showing up and committing the violence. i think the media needs to cover this, and i do think that whether it be the d.c. police or the doj, there have to be immediate crackdowns on groups like antifa because this isn't how society is supposed to wok. howard: let me jump in, your reaction to what barack obama said as he kicks off the blitz for his book. take a listen. >> it is one more step in delegitimizing not just the incoming biden administration, but democracy generally. and that's a dangerous path. howard: jason. >> well, i think former president obama has been butt or ever since he wasn't -- bitter ever since he wasn't able to get crookedhill true elected in 2016. his influence is waning. so much of the campaign talked about his failing obamacare and the problem it caused with the raise in premiums and such. i think he ought to just enjoy his netflix deal and ride off into the sunset. howard: all right. you're obviously not going into the sunset yet. jason miller, thanks very much for joining us. after the break, how are the media framing the debate over the future of the gop? will it still be dominated by donald trump? jonah goldberg is on deck. ♪ ♪ because every day matters. and having more of them is possible with verzenio, the only one of its kind proven to help you live significantly longer when taken with fulvestrant, regardless of menopausal status. and it's the only one of its kind you can take every day. verzenio + fulvestrant is approved for women with hr+, her2- metastatic breast cancer whose disease has progressed after hormonal treatment. diarrhea is common, may be severe, or cause dehydration or infection. at first sign of diarrhea, call your doctor, start an anti-diarrheal, and drink fluids. before taking verzenio, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection. verzenio may cause low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infection that can lead to death. life-threatening inflammation of the lungs can occur. talk to your doctor if you have new or worsening trouble breathing, cough, or chest pain. serious liver problems can happen. symptoms include tiredness, appetite loss, stomach pain, and bleeding or bruising. blood clots that can lead to death have occurred. tell your doctor if you have pain or swelling in your arms or legs, shortness of breath, chest pain and rapid breathing or heart rate, or if you are pregnant or nursing. every day matters. and i want more of them. ask your doctor about everyday verzenio. ♪ ♪ howard: many are now engaged in the heated debate about the future of the republican party and whether it will still be driven by trumpism. joining us now, jonah goldberg. let me start by asking you, you just heard jason miller explain e in his view why the president continues to contest the election. what do you make of the president's stance? >> i think, look, i don't often say these words, but i agree with joe biden. it is embarrassing to the country. he lost. it's obvious that he lost are. i don't put a lot of stake in quacks who get paid to say things they don't necessarily believe to be true. but as you pointed out, almost every single time any serious, you know, theory about how the election was stolen is brought before a judge, it's essential lu laughedded out of court. and so this is just prolonging something for a person for reasons having to do with the president's ego or his post-presidency plans rather than reality. howard: has it been hard for you as a conservative who was strongly opposed to this president, you moved from national relief to launch the dispatch with other trump critics on the right, and with 48% of people still voting for this president, will it continue to be hard for you? >> look, the last four years haven't been exactly a picnic, but -- and they've had their challenges. but, you know, i come from a school of conservativism that says you're not supposed to put all of your -- put not your faith in princes. and the idea that conservativism is going to get redefined as basically a blind loyalty to donald trump was something i was not onboard for unlike quite a few people in my profession. so it's been difficult. it's been with interesting to see who's more partisan and who's less conservative than i anticipated. there have been some great wins for conservativism under donald trump, and there are some real losses. so it's been a mixed bag. howard: okay. well, you asked in a recent column why other republicans, senate races, house races, state races did pretty well in this election, and you had donald trump getting more votes than he did last time, lost by wider popular vote margin and, of course, most states have yet to be certified, than he won in 2016. what's the answer? why? >> i think the huge amount of it, which is a point i've made for a very long time, is that donald trump never even pretended, and if the key word is pretended ors never pretended to be the president of the whole country. every other president in living memory at least makes an effort to expand their coalition are, to seem like they're more than president of their own base, and donald trump didn't do that. he spent four years doing fan service for his biggest fans both in media and as voters, and that turned off more people than it attracted which is why husband approval ratings were so low for his entire presidency. i honestly my if he cut out the tweeting and behaved himself 20% of the time, he probably would have won. but he was too self-involved and all that, and i think that one of the consequences of that has been a real corruption of what it means to be a conservative and a real, and some real damage to what even it means to be a republican which is a less important thing to me. howard: right. although i do have to say that by concentrating on turning out his supporters, he made the election closer than many in the media had -- >> speaking of the media, look -- howard: the president got overwhelmingly negative coverage from the media and even more so in the final weeks and months leading up to the election. did that contribute to his loss, and how damaging do you think his attacks on fake news have been to the news business? >> look, i don't think anybody covers themselves in glory in this whole mess. there's a weird symbiotic relationship between trump and the mainstream media for the last four years. i think you could make the case that media coverage hurt donald trump, i could also make the case that his attacks on media and the unfairness of mainstream media sometimes to him helped turn out those voters. you just have to listen to most trump supporters who come on, say, fox news. a huge part of their argument is all about, you know, sticking it today me media and -- sticking it to the media and fighting back, and donald trump loves that stuff. he played right to type for that, and there was this weird codependent relationship between the mainstream media which loved to be attacked and sort of celebrate their own courage for speaking truth to power like some people at cnn do while at the same time donald trump loved the vitriol because it proved to his fan base -- again, which is all he really cared about -- that he was fighting for them. the i'm looking forward to the stupid cycle being over. howard: it was also very good financially to some of these organizations that liked to beat up on trump. and finally, you know, donald trump wants to maintain a, be a major voice in the future of the republican party. axios reports he's thinking of starting an online network to compete with fox news. talking about maybe running again in four years. my major question is given his popularity, do you think the gop can or should divorce itself from trumpism? >> should is a tough one. i don't think it can at least for the short term. he's too popular among important segments of the party, and he has too much of an ability to freeze out potential 2024 runners from throwing their hats in because they don't want to be seen as disloyal to the president. so he can do a lot of mischief for a while. i look forward to him actually starting a competing media operation to fox. for a bunch of different reasons. but i think, look, one of the things that he is -- howard: we've got to go. >> -- the last four years everyone was allow corral to trump and the gop, that's changing. howard: jonah goldberg, thanks very much. still to come, jeffrey toobin loses one of his jobs, and historian jon meacham loses one as well for helping joe biden. that and more, next. ♪ ♪ ♪ howard: the new yorkers has fired staff writer jeffrey toobin after investigating that incident where he exposed himself during a zoom call. a 27-year veteran who had been engaged in a sex call tweeted i will always love the magazine, will miss my colleagues. he had earlier apologized for an embarrassing hi stupid mistake. he is also a legal analyst for cnn which did not respond to a request for comment, don't they have a responsibility to say whether he'll be back on the air? jon meacham is a pulitzer prize-winning journalist, a former "newsweek" editor who i have known and respected for a long time. but meacham, who spoke for biden at the democratic convention, has made a pretty bad mistake. "the new york times" reports he has been privately helping joe biden write speeches including his acceptance speech last weekend. as a nbc and msnbc contributor, he praised biden before the victory speech. >> this is a moment where the life of the nation is intersecting in a fascinating way with the personal life not only of president-elect biden, but also the vice president-elect. howard: and afterwards, he praised the speech that draws in part on the theme of his 2-year-old book on saving the soul of america. >> i am not the historian you are, and i certainly don't have the blitzer on my shelf that you do -- the pulitzer. do you concur that that is the way we are used to hearing from our presidents? >> absolutely. tonight marks the entire election results, marked a renewal of an american conversation where we're struggling imperfectly to realize the full implications of the jeffersonian promise of equal few. equality. howe meacham did not disclose his role at helping with the speech, and msnbc have dropped him as a paid contributor. they did not respond to my request for comment, and most of the media have ignored this deception. meacham is a very smart guy, it would be better if he would address what he did and whether he has any regrets. well, trump derangement syndrome isn't subsiding. cnn anchor christian amanpour has compared donald trump's tenure to the nazis' reign of terror. >> it was the warning shot across the bow of our human civilization that led to genocide against a whole identity. after four years of a modern day assault on those same values by donald trump, the biden/harris team pledges a return to normal cliending the truth. including the youth. howard: i'm sorry. if you have to invoke hitler to slam a president who just won 48% of the vote, that's beyond the pale. and milwaukee's fox affiliate suspended top anchor ted perry for posting this on facebook: 020 takes alex trebek but believes mitch mcconnell? just end already. there are we all love the late jeopardy host, but how biased does a journalist have to be to suggest a republican senator should have died? that's insane. well, that's it for this edition of "mediabuzz." i'm howard kurtz. we hope you'll like my facebook page, continue the conversation on twitter@howard kurtz. check out my podcast, you can subscribe at apple itunes, google podcast or get it on your amazon device. so much going on in the aftermath of this election, we'll be back here next sunday 11 eastern, see you then with the latest buzz. ♪ ♪ staying on top of your game takes a plan. that's why at aetna, we take a total, connected approach to your health and wellness. with medicare advantage plans designed to surround you with the care you need every day. aetna medicare advantage plans. ♪ ♪ arthel: the u.s. set a new record for coronavirus cases almost every day over the past week. the latest yesterday as more than 184,000 americans tested positive for the virus according to johns hop countries university. hello, everyone, and welcome to "america's news headquarters." i'm arthel neville. eric: thank you for joining us today, i'm eric shawn. the total number of infections in our country has topped nearly 11 million. 10.8 million, to be exact. and, sadly, that is more than any place else on the globe. in fact,he
New-yorkUnited-statesArizonaGeorgiaNevadaAfghanistanWashingtonCaliforniaWisconsinPennsylvaniaMichiganWest-virginia concerned about american policy. we all have an affinity to our homeland where we came from. like me, i'm sure he has the same affinity. >> not as sienlt-immigrant bigotry, and it's an odd question of patriotism coming from sean duffy. >> both have testified that they want heavy american -- because they want to weaken russia. >> some of the president's allies even reverting to smearing with racist and xenophobic trope about his immigrant background, a dual loyalty attack. howard: we'll take a closer look. the president wins a clear and decisive victory by authorizing a raid that kills the world's most wanted terrorist, but the press responds with grudging praise and sharp criticism before quickly dropping the story. katie hill, the congresswoman who resigned over an inappropriate relationship with a staffer, now blames right-wing media. is that true? plus, a washington nationals crowd, that's the world champion washington nationals, boos the president and some give that move a standing ovation is. come on, it's a flipping baseball game. i'm howard kurtz, and this is "mediabuzz." ♪ ♪ howard: it's a huge story, an historic story, and yet it felt like an entirely predictable story. 231 house democrats voted to formally back an impeachment inquiry e against president trump. the speechifying and the news conferences drew live cable coverage, but the arguments from the politicians and the parade of pundits all sounded familiar as nancy pelosi pushes this closed door investigation toward public hearings, and the president was dismissive. >> so when you talk about the impeachment hoax, it's a hoax because the letter was perfect. the democrats are crazed. they're lunatics. in the meantime, we have of the greatest economy ever. howard: joining us now to analyze the coverage, emily jashinsky, susan appreciate show, chief congressional correspondent for the washington examiner x grace juarez, former correspondent for the pbs "newshour." emily, are the media so intense on portraying this against president trump that they have glossed over -- certainly been mentioned, but not exactly plaid out -- this was a purely party-line vote supported by zero republicans? >> right. and there were two democrats defected to vote with the republicans. actually, i think the media glosses over the democrats' process to get here. i think a very interesting part of this narrative is that nancy pelosi in march was saying that impeachment shouldn't be part of it. so while the vote was entirely predictable this week, it wouldn't have been predictable back in march, but nancy pelosi would have taken this extraordinary measure. howard: on the other side of the question, are the media paying enough attention to the fact that the democrats, for weeks, have demanded they open up the hearings and now they say, well, it's too late, and the whole process is a sham? >> well, in response to calls that a rule be adopted, a rule was adopted, and they don't like that either. it's going to be a fight until the tv cameras start to roll and people start to testify in an open manner that everyone can see. those are still going to be the complaints, and even once those people start to talk, there'll be complaints about what they have to say and whether it's truth or not. we are going to fight down to every last vote, every step of the way. why is this a surprise to anyone? howard: given the polarized atmosphere, it certainly should not be. super, you're up -- susan, you're up on the hill, what about what you might call the shifting of the goalpost where nancy pelosi did say in march, can't do impeachment, it has to be bipartisan. her rationale was it divides the country, and the fox news poll shows 49% -- down 2% from last month -- support impeachment and removal, but the rest of the country does not. >> it kind of echoes what ray is saying here which is the country's really divided about. this they're going to fighter to bitter -- fight to bitter end. if you look at polls, republicans do not support impeachment almost entirely, democrats do. so there's no shift from when pelosi was worried about this in march. they have the same predicament right now while they're doing impeachment that the public is divided along party lines. and this is going to end up in the senate where it's going to be defeated, it's going to be over. so what's the end result going to be for everybody here? well, we've sullied the president enough that he's going to lose in the next election, or is this going to embolden the republicans and help them pick up votes as it did when bill clinton was impeached in that's the larger question. howard: makes me wonder whether the avalanche of coverage is changing minds. everybody seems so locked in to their position. the key witness this week was alexander vinman, lieutenant colonel, born in the ukraine. his testimony was pretty strong in that he was on the call. again, this call leaked because it was behind closed doors. he went to a white house lawyer to complain, he said the rough transcript had some key omissions, and yet there were attacks on him, dual loyalty, he cares more about ukraine, and that or or caused cnn anchors to condemn sean duffy -- >> who was provided to give the republican perspective so they could have a contrast. he was actually just doing his job. would i have said what he said? no. but i think there's a very fair skepticism among republicans about the motivations of some of these whistleblowers for very justified reasons. i'm not saying that was at all the case here, but i think that's where it's coming from. howard: right. and, ray, you had this with the bush administration justice department official who went on fox and says this sounds like espionage, but later he went on cnn and said he regretted his words, he meant the ukrainians, not colonel vinman. people are attacking their own over this sr. -- very sensitive question of the witnesses and their motivation. >> all in a scramble to prejudge what the result. everybody wants to write the last story of impeachment before we've even started the damn thing. vinman's testimony is not a matter of public record. nobody knows for sure what he said on the record except what's been leaked since after his testimony. the dark art of discrediting in the modern media with world is to start whispering about other things other than what he said, and that's what happened with vinman. howard: what explains what you call the rush to prejudge? why not cover the story one step at a time based on what we know? his opening statement was put out. leaked, to be sure. so is it that we -- everyone wants to fast forward, everyone in the media wants to fast forward the process, predict what's going to happen? >> yeah. i think people think process is boring x reporters who, you know, already want to rush this thing along to get to the next step already are trying to write the next story when there's so little that we actually know on the record about what was said by volger -- >> we do know what was said by president trump, because we have a transcript of the call. >> i would argue process here that the media's ignoring is really important here. because process can shape the outcome, and i think it has to some degree because of the way democrats are conducting this, the question about how this started with the intelligence community. you see the president tweeting about this now and then, and you see some outlets, including our own, writing about how did this start, who did schiff work with ahead of time to launch all this. it looks like they knew a lot of things ahead of time and were deciding is this something we can use to launch impeachment and are they, in essence, awe auditioning the witnesses now to decide who should go public -- howard: right. and the counter is republicans also had closed door hearings during benghazi. let me bring you back to vinman, he certainly had serious questions about why the military aid to ukraine was held up. heed asked for, he was asked for help by the ukrainians were help with dealing with rudy giuliani's demands. the media can question his judgment or interpretation without saying he's partisan or without saying he's loyal to a country he left when he was 3 years old. >> you can definitely -- i think the media should raise questions about all the witnesses here. what i'm hearing from people in these depositions -- and i can't reveal a lot of details -- is what they're hearing from witness after witness is their interpretation of what the call was about. we know what the call is, we have the transcript. these witnesses are talking about their view of the president's foreign policy. and that's what it's boiling down to, was it right or was it wrong. howard: right. >> at the time that refugees were coming in from the soviet union under the jackson-vanek amendment, i never thought i'd live long enough to see people question soviet jews who arrived during that era and a man who goes on to become a lieutenant colonel in the united states army, now questioning his loyalty to ukraine? bizarre. howard: and won a purple heart. "the new york times" sunday review today, how to beat trump in 2020. four opinion writers show the way. people wonder why the coverage seems loaded, but the president says witch hunt, worst in american history. democrats say they're following the constitution, solemn responsibility. is it inevitable that the media are going to be attacked by both sides as they attempt to cover this? >> oh, absolutely. we have to remember the media incentive that we cannot forget about during this entire process is ratings in a lot of cases and clicks in a lot of cases, so there is that incentive. but i think it'll color their coverage through the rest of the process. might not necessarily deserve that. howard: "the washington post" has a report growing number of republicans are ready to acknowledge that, yes, donald trump used military aid as leverage to get an investigation going of the bidens in the ukraine, but it's not an impeachable offense, it doesn't rise to that level. nothing happened in the end. if they do acknowledge that and the stories reporting this are not fake. >> well, they have -- senators have been telling me now for weeks that they don't like what the president did on the call, but that doesn't rise to an impeachable offense. that's not changed -- howard: on the record? >> oh, yeah. no, no, they've been telling us that in the hallways. i think the story is really about the words quid pro quo, because they want to be able to check the president who has gone out and said there's no quid pro quo but now, oh, wow, we've got the republican senate. they've always said we don't really support what he did on the phone. we don't think that's an impeachable offense. i don't think that's changed. howard: i think that's a fair a argument. ray is this more reminiscent of the clinton impeachment than the nixon impeachment? we have the rough the transcript, the text message. in clinton's case, it was sex and lies. and the media argument was, okay, he did manager that was -- something that was wrong, trump, but it does not rise to level of -- >> we have been living in the age of the star investigation for years by the time the clinton impeachment process dropped. similar to watergate where a long trail of stories led to the smoking gun time where it looked like nixon was actually in jeopardy -- howard: this one came out of nowhere. suddenly, the ukraine story exploded. >> yes. howard: that's one difference. let me get a break here. when we come back, are the media undercutting the president's successful mission to kill the world's number one terrorist? ♪ ♪ ♪ hey. hey. you must be steven's phone. now you can take control of your home wifi and get a notification the instant someone new joins your network... only with xfinity xfi. download the xfi app today. ♪ ♪ howard: it was an absolute clear cut victory in the war on terror, a special operations raid that led to death of isis leader abu bakr al-baghdadi. president trump drew mixed reviews for a free-wheeling 40 minute news conference. >> he died after running into a dead end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way. he died like a dog. he died like a coward. >> he sounded not like a president of the united states, he actually sounded like saddam hussein after torturing people. >> he's turned it into a weird kind of torture, like he enjoyed the guy's demise and some sort of street fight has been won by the good guys -- >> and they're picking apart the fact that trump likes to tell a story that reinforces memories for us that -- because we want to take part in this? >> because of donald trump's unpopularity with the mainstream media, the whole thing gets muted. howard: emily, look, killing al-baghdadi, major blow in the war on terror. look, most presidents would have stopped with the speech and not taking questions and the humiliating language that trump used. >> yeah, absolutely. used it e as basically a way to find some negative in the story, and i think this is a case study in the media's intense bias against donald trump in that they turned the what should have been a day of coverage, especially that day in particular, glass half full into glass half empty. and those clips were aatrociously over the top reactions to what happened. i don't think donald trump went -- maybe it was unusual presidential behavior, i don't think it was beyond any line, anything like that. so the coverage of this was particularly disgusting. howard: yeah. and you had to watch the post taking so much heat. ray, look, it was unusual to see the president's sort of emotional, rambling account, but that's his style. it's an in your face style, and i believe the press has never gotten used to. of. >> we're years into this, and really we haven't been able to calibrate as a profession how to cover this guy. i'm not in the morning meetings that are making some of these decisions, but i don't know if i would have launched two reporters to fact check whether the president could have heard the whimpering and the screaming. in the midst of the chaos in northern syria that's happening right now with the movement of the russians and the turks into kurdish areas, there's so much chaos in that part of the world. if you get al-baghdadi, good on you. it goes on your balance sheet, absolutely. howard: absolutely. >> whether or not he was whimpering or screaming or crying, you have to decide what in this novel, weird world of presidential news conferences are we going to be cover and what are we just going to leave alone. howard: absolutely. now, "the new york times," susan, while raising legitimate questions said this delta force operation succeeded in spite of rather than because of trump. and then you had the president saying conan the dog got more publicity than me. of course, it was the president who made conan famous. >> yeah. and, you know, the president would do himself a favor by avoiding that kind of petty argument on twitter that he's not getting enough credit for something like that. he can just talk about it the way he did, a big victory for america, and then the larger issue -- which is an important issue -- is what's going on in syria right now because of our decision to move those troops. howard: what about the coverage of the dog? >> the coverage of the dog was, as you were saying, a real symptom of this incredible bias against the president. to go and have people fact checking, and if you looked at the headlines, first they were blaming the president saying he photoshopped -- when they figured out it wasn't real, which took a while -- he photoshopped it himself, the medal of honor winner who they then went is and found, he said i don't see anything wrong with this, i think the dog's a real hero. they made themselves look so stupid. i was reading through these twitter feeds where everyone is is attacking the president, "the new york times," "the washington post," and all i could say was, you've got to be kidding me. howard: slate ran a piece, that why does donald trump hate dogs? [laughter] in less than 24 hours, the media began to pivot back to impeachment, and it was almost lie they couldn't wait to get back to their preferred narrative. >> oh, absolutely. because it's something that makes the president look good. as gross as the press conference may seem to media, what he was saying about the death of a terrorist probably resonated with a lot of american people watching that, proud of their military, proud of their country, proud of their president. howard: everybody should be proud of the military and the incredible they did, including the dog. but, now, this was not quite on the par with killing osama if bin laden because al-baghdadi had sort of faded from public view, but do you agree with the assessment the media, either consciously or unconsciously, wanted to sort of diminish this achievement by -- and now here's the latest on impeachment, by going back to that, pounding that storyline? >> we -- well, up until now three presidents out of 45 faced impeachment. and the fact that that's what's dominating the news right now, it's tough to get beyond that. that's a big deal. howard: no one's questioning how big a deal it is. >> killing al-baghdadi is a big deal too. howard: right. >> so, what, is there a statutory number of hours or column inches we have to spend on it? howard: well, it was literally by late the next afternoon that the al-baghdadi story started to fade, and maybe it is the drama and import of impeachment, but i had a feeling that the press enjoyed the notion of moving on. >> well, certainly donald trump enjoyed the notion of moving on when he undermined obama's victory lap by saying you shouldn't give him any credit for killing osama bin laden, it was the navy seals -- >> i just think one story is a lot more exciting than the other. howard: thanks very much for joining us this sunday. ahead, congresswoman katie hill blames right-wing media after she resigns. but first, some left-wing pundits are just in heaven as donald trump gets booed at a washington nationals game. seriously. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ howard: the underdog washington nationals won the world series, as you've been hearing from all the baseball-biased pundits who live here, after a string of incredible comebacks. this moment of unity was briefly shattered when president trump showed up for game five and was jeered in heavily democratic d.c. okay. politician gets booed at ball game, not a big deal. the chants of lock him up, though the, pretty rough. but detractors say he did nothing to stop the anti-hillary chants at his campaign rallies. what was surprising was how some political pundits absolutely reveled in the booing. >> yea, boo, yea! >> one of the most exciting parts except the president's facial expressions as he realizes how the crowd's reacting to him. >> that is what happens when you unleash something ugly like the lock her up chant lobbed at clinton. it's out there now. howard: new york times columnist jennifer wiener just couldn't help herself. quote: i watched the video over and over, scrutinizing every second of the footage, waiting for the exact moment when mr. trump's smirk key grin gives way to stony petulance. but then she chides herself with the joy she felt from trump's pain and finally we -- democrats, liberals, resistance -- are supposed to be better than that. when they go low, we go high. except, it turns out, going low feels wonderful. some left-wing pundits get off on a hostile crowd, even if they feel kind of guilty in the process. by the way, you might have missed my interview with fox's veteran sportscaster joe buck when i tried to warn him. something of a photo op. >> one of these? see, now, if i'm seen with this -- howard: yes. >> -- then for all your viewers, so i have to just drop that -- howard: okay. >> i'm here to call it. howard: america, he did not fall into the trap. >> yeah, well, i'm smarter than that. howard: breaking news, i just got a chance to meet the nats' general manager mike rizzo and to look at the team's world series trophy. never actually seen one of those in person. he was here at fox, and there was a long line of people to meet him. up next, mike huckabee. and later, the coverage of elizabeth warren's massive tax plan to cover, to fund medicare for all. ♪ the good news? our protection lasts all day. the bad news? your patience might not. new depend® fit-flex underwear offers your best comfort and protection guaranteed. because, perfect or not, life's better when you're in it. be there with depend®. howard: joining us now from florida to h in on this tumultuous political week is mike huckabee, former arkansas governor who ran for president in 2008 and 2016. governor, what do you make of the party-line vote in the house to proceed with impeachment, the coverage of it, and what about the notion that many in the media perhaps seem sympathetic to this effort? >> oh, you mean you've detected that the media might be sympathetic to an impeachment of donald trump gee, i didn't catch that, howard. it escaped me completely. you know, i think the big thing to remember is that impeachment was and should be something that rises above partisanship. it certainly did during the nixon impeachment. over 40 members of the -- 400 members of the house of representatives, in fact, all but four voted for impeach. so you had the overwhelming majority of republicans who joined because they really believed there was something there, and they felt compelled to go there. that's not what's going on here. this is an impeachment in search of a reason, and they've been looking for one since day one. it was russia, then it was obstruction, then it was racism, now it's ukraine. they've yet to come up with a good reason, and when you ask them to name the specific crime, they can't do it. it's just nebulous stuff. howard: right. >> i think it's an embarrassment to the country. howard: of course, the nixon impeachment never reached the house floor because of resignation, but in 1998 it was the republicans with a largely e party-line vote to impeach bill clinton. did you support that move against one of your predecessors as governor of arkansas? >> you know, i was governor. i largely stayed out of it. i wasn't in congress, for one, so i wasn't part of the evidence, and i felt that something as a republican governor of bill clinton's home state, i needed to stay away from that. so, no, i didn't get involved and push for it. i was pained by it because i thought it was an embarrassment to the cup as well as to the state of arkansas. -- to the country as well as to the state of arkansas. but you mentioned it, there were over 30 democrats who did vote for impeachment. you had zero republicans, zero, not even francis rooney who doesn't like the president and some others who don't, and they didn't even vote for this. of. howard: right. on the other hand, whether you will agree with it or not, it is a stone cold fact that democrats in the house are moving towards impeaching this president, and the press can't exactly ignore a story of that magnitude, correct? >> they can't ignore it, it's just that they should report it objectively and fairly, which they cannot bring themselves to do. they're gloating over it. they went wait for it to happen. [inaudible conversations] howard: let me jump in for one second. i didn't mean to interrupt you, but when there are witnesses who who work for the white house go before these committees -- and, yes, it's closed door and, yes, this is leaked to the president -- and testified they had problems with the way military aid was handled, that they thought rudy giuliani was running shadow foreign policy, is that coverage not objective, in your point of view? >> these are people that maybe worked at the white house, not necessarily for this president. in some cases they were part of a larger bureaucracy. here's what frightens me, we have people who are saying, well, what about these very celebrated military people? and i'm not disparaging their military past. i salute and acknowledge and appreciate that. but, howard, there's something that's got to be remembered. if you haven't seen the tweets by lieutenant colonel jim rickman, i think everybody ought to take a look and see his assessment. here's the bigger issue. the reason that in our constitution we have a civilian president leading the military and a civilian secretary of defense is because we don't want military people making policy. military people carry out policy, but elected officials make the policy. here's what we need to remember. what we're seeing is that there were some people in the bureaucracy, in the military, in the deep state, if you will, they didn't like the policy. the proper thing for them to do to resign, not to try to undermine the policy and undermine the elected president who created it. howard: well, fair point. >> that is, for me, the heart of this whole issue. howard: some of them went through channels and reported this to superiors. let's talk a little geography. a few years back you relocated to florida, and now donald trump famously switching his legal residence from new york to state of florida. he says he doesn't feel fairly treated by new york city and new york state officials. do you think that's been the motivation here, or could it have more to do with the manhattan d.a. making efforts to subpoena his tax returns? >> well, i think he's sick of being completely disparaged daily by the people who run both the state and city governments of new york. when he announced he was going to palm beach, what did the governor say? good riddance. howard: that's what andrew cuomo said. >> think about. yeah. i wonder if his brother, chris cuomo on that network that nobody watches, i wonder if he will call out his brother if for being less than a very civil public servant, whether he likes donald trump or not? i've never heard, i don't think, of a governor who actually celebrated the loss of one of its wealthiest citizens. howard: well, in fairness, governor cuomo was responding to the criticism from trump. and by the way, i hear the taxes are a little bit lower in the florida than in new york. >> yeah, they're a lot lower. of it's not just donald trump. there are thousands of people who are leaving new york, thousands leaving new york to go to states where they're not put upon because they worked hard and have been successful. this is absurd for cuomo to blame donald trump. they ought to be blaming themselves for raising taxes, having ridiculous regulations and making it really difficult for people to be successful -- howard: mike, i've got about half a minute, and again, i didn't mean to cut you off, but i want to get you in on this. i just did a little reader about the president being booed at a washington nationals game. the media a made that a very big deal, why do you think they did? >> i don't know. politicians get booed at every sporting event in america. howard: has it happened to you in. >> oh, of course. each when my approval ratings were sky high in the 80s, i'd go to a sporting event, and people felt obligated to boo. that's what makes america a great country, hot dogs and booing politicians. howard: and on that note, governor huckabee, thank you for joining us. new york magazine asks how on earth is joe biden till winning, fourth place in iowa. and later, stephen colbert takes on me. ♪ ♪ great weather, great friends. you just saved a bunch of money by switching your boat insurance to geico. it was easy. folks, can it get any better than this? is that what i think it is? that is an armada of tiny sushi boats. awesome! i forgot to pack lunch. you had one job... chopsticks wasabi and soy! comin' in a little hot. it only gets better when you switch and save with geico. ♪ ♪ howard: beto o'rourke dropped out of the democratic race over the weekend after a campaign that never came close to matching the media hype. jeannie, the media practically drafted this guy. it was the "vanity fair" cover, we can put that up, which he said he was born to be in it. he called his speeches a near mystical experience. wasn't this mainly a media-created candidacy? >> it was to a certain extent. he got so much buzz from his senate race against ted cruz, and the media really hyped him for this race. but as he said, he simply couldn't find traction, and there was a new shiny object in mayor pete that came along and sort of stole all the thunder from behind beto. and we saw him have to drop out just the other day saying he simply doesn't have the means or the resources to go forward. so, you know, something we see with the media with all the time which is all the energy behind someone new that simply just gets denated very, very quickly. howard: -- deflated very, very quickly. howard: right. now, politico says there's a collision course between the impeachment process which is expected to drag on until probably the end of the year in the house which would mean the senate trial in january, and, of course, iowa and new hampshire happen in early february. is that a problem, and isn't the impeachment saga already diverting most of the spotlight from the 2020 democrats? >> it's absolutely fascinating. this is uncharted territory for us historically. we've never had an impeachment in an election year, and i think there's going to be a lot of people questioning what the democrats in the house did and how it impacts the 2020 candidates. we see six major candidates who would have to spend their time in the senate when they otherwise would be out on the campaign trail if, as you mentioned, the senate trial -- if there is a trial -- starts in january. we see the iowa caucus february 3rd, the new hampshire are primary a week later, and you go right down to nevada and south carolina. there's a potential that you have six candidates who want to be on the campaign trail who are stuck in the senate or making the very difficult decision, i've heard some democrats talk about, to maybe say, hey, i already announced i was going to vote for impeachment, i'm going to stay. so they're in a -- howard: talk about unintended consequences. let me move on here because the press has been predicting joe biden's demise. so this new york magazine cover has the headline, how is this guy still winning? it describes his campaign as the zombie campaign, the staff is aware that he might collapse. it's a fair piece overall, but why if pundits still writing biden's obituary? >> i think part of it has to do with the fact he's simply not giving interviews to the press. the pieces in new york magazine, that reporter wuss on the trail with him -- was on the trail with him for six months, and he didn't give one interview. and i think also the reality is the energy of the democratic party is not on joe biden's side. that latest iowa poll that we saw has people under 45 only 2% are supporting joe biden. howe right. >> i think that is something that the media keeps hearkening to as well with. so that piece is fascinating to me because, you're right, it's a fair piece of journalism, but the guy is also ten points ahead in most national polls. howard: right. he has done a couple of interviews with "60 minutes" but iowa has biden in third -- excuse me, biden in fourth. technically, mayor pete in third. is it time for the press to start taking pete buttigieg more seriously? >> i think they have taken him seriously, and i think the one thing we need to keep saying about this poll, it has just under 500 responses, respondents, rather, at a 5% margin of error. so they're all still within the margin of error. but the big story is that mayor pete is really the only candidate who has sort of defied expectations in this thing. you know, this mayor from a small town who is now third in this poll in the race in iowa. so that is a big story. but i think the bigger story is it's a dead heat on the democratic side. elizabeth warren at 22 and biden at 17. howard: oh. warren finally comes out with this 20 trillion tax plan to explain how she's going to pay for medicare for all, says it would kill two million jobs in the health industry, and it's pretty complicated stuff as was noted in this portrayal by kate mckinnon on "saturday night live." >> i'm going to tax the banks. duh. let me stop you right there. we're talking trillions. you know, when the numbers are this big, they're, they're just pretend. howard: quick question here, the press adequately scrutinizing her complicated plan, and this kind of snl portrayal, has that become a kind of liability if she's playing with numbers? >> these numbers are so astronomical, and i think kate mckinnon, she's amazing at this, and she makes a really important point. when you're talking $20.5 trillion or 52 trillion overall, how are you going to pay for medicare, you know, i go back to what nancy pelosi said, people sort of like their private insurance. we can talk about making things better, but it's a big cry from $20.5 trillion for an entirely new government-run health care plan. howard: jeannie zaino, great to see you. after the break, the reporter who prompted katie hill to who prompted katie hill to resign has been working with the when we started our business we were paying an arm and a leg for postage. i remember setting up shipstation. one or two clicks and everything was up and running. i was printing out labels and saving money. shipstation saves us so much time. it makes it really easy and seamless. pick an order, print everything you need, slap the label onto the box, and it's ready to go. our costs for shipping were cut in half. just like that. shipstation. the #1 choice of online sellers. go to shipstation.com/tv and get 2 months free. the amount of student loan debt i have, i'm embarrassed to even say. we just decided we didn't want debt any longer. ♪ i didn't realize how easy investing could be. i'm picking companies that i believe in. ♪ i think sofi money is amazing. ♪ thank you sofi. sofi thank you, we love you. ♪ ♪ ♪ howe katie hill decided to resign after coming under investigation by the house ethics committee after the freshman democrat apologized for an inappropriate affair with a female campaign staffer but denied a relationship with a male staffer on her payroll. she blamed two media outlets for posting pictures of her that she said were leaked by her estranged husband. >> i didn't want to be peddled by papers and web sites used for the dirtiest gutter politics that i've ever seen and the right-wing media to drive clips and expand their audience by distributing intimate photos of me taken without my knowledge. howard: the story was broken by a reporter whose own role has come under scrutiny. >> i care that she holds to ethics standards that she votes for. but, of course, i don't, didn't like being smeared as some kind of revenge porn peddler or vast right-wing conspiracy because that's simply not what happened. howard: and we're back with emily ya shin sky. jennifer wrote these stories as managing editor at red state, a conservative site. she's also worked for politicians who ran against katie hill, and she currently owns the republican consulting firm in california, and on twitter she endorsed knight, former lawmaker, for his old seat. is she a journalist? >> it's tough, because i do think there's such thing as partisan journalism, i think there's such thing as ideological journalism. i think it's possible for people with particular viewpoints to participate in journalism. howard: and to be perfectly up front about the fact that they have those viewpoints. >> absolutely. but the problem in this case, this site is literally called red site, so we -- red state. we know they're coming from the right. that said, there was some unprofessionalism. i think that did not do service to story of the people of this district. jennifer van warren tweeted out that she knew katie hill personally. i went back and looked at all of her coverage, and nowhere in the eight stories she wrote about katie hill was that disclosed. while she may have been acting as a journalist, i don't believe this was ethical journalism. that said, katie hill is the much bigger story here. katie hill's moral failures, i think -- howard: just to finish on this point, how do red state and the daily mail publish the pieces with her photos which she, of course, is understandably upset which led toerer resignation without disclosing that this journalist had worked for the congressman that katie hill defeated? >> absolutely. the consultant, opposition researchers in d.c. and elsewhere get this stuff all of the tile. it's their job to go out and look for it. it's not their job to publish it themselves just because they have access to a news outlet. no, i think this was absolutely a lapse in journalistic judgment on red state's part. they're capable of better. they do it all the time. this was a lapse. howard: okay. so few people in the media, i think, wanted to touch this story originally. and i understand her point about revenge porn. nobody would want such photos published. she is in the middle of a messy divorce. but she chose to resign after disclosures that, for example, she paid the female campaign staffer many thousands of dollars in consulting fees. she could have stayed and fought the allegations, but now she is portraying the herself as the victim of conservative media. >> right. ultimately, she did not resign because of some vast right-wing conspiracy or because of conservative media, she resigned because as sloppy as this reporting was, it clearly showed she was unfit to represent the people of her district. that is the bottom line. she resigned because of that. these stories could have been reported in a damning way without the photo, and she still would be resigning. howard: right. but at the same time, of course, photos like this get so much attention. that becomes a debate. i guess it was also a debate of would this have happened to a man, and was she treated -- >> i think it has happened to men. anthony wiener, joe barton. this is sensationalist. you get clicks, waives, whatever it is. the media has incentive whether it's a man or a woman. howard: right. which still, i think, makes us uncomfortable especially when they're published without somebody's permission and, as i said, in the middle of a divorce. still to come, my response to stephen colbert after i somehow made a brief cameo appearance on "the late show." ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ howard: i got into a spar with stephen colbert back in his comedy central days, now the host had a little fun with my wild, crazy and kind of testy interview with rudy giuliani. >> rudy has been on tv doing damage control, minus the control. [laughter] >> we got anonymous whistleblower who says that donald trump did something wrong. donald trump, like hunter biden says, i didn't do anything wrong. >> we have the transcript and the president's remarks -- >> wait, wait. before you interrupt me, howard -- >> classic legal defense. [laughter] sir, your client stands accused of multiple can accounts of arson. how does he plead? >> your honor, the defendant pleads -- shh. howard: i am so tired of you trying to get laughs by taking my show out of context and -- well, that's pretty much what happened. by the way, the whole shushing thing did not work. that's it for this edition of "mediabuzz." i'm howard kurtz. check out our buzz meter, we rip on the day's hottest stories, and you can subscribe. apple itunes, google play or on your am device. also hope you'll like my facebook page, and let's continue the conversation on twitter @howard kurtz. got a lot to talk about impeachment, baseball, nationals and all of that. this is the time in the program where i tell you we look forward to seeing you next sunday, 11 ian is the time, with the >> good morning to you, it is monday november 4th, happening right now at 4:00 a.m. on the east coast, escalating impeachment calls to identify the whistleblower growing by the day and now that the person is offering written testimony to gop questions we have the latest with why republicans say that's still not enough and clean sweep, the governor of texas ordering a crack-down on homeless camps. were we have people camping, walking around bothering people asking for money. >> i've literally seen people urinating on this sidewalk, right
New-yorkUnited-statesArkansasNevadaNew-hampshireWashingtonIowaJuarezMexicoFloridaCalifornia that espionage. >> i don't know that he's concerned about american policy. we all have an affinity to our homeland where we came from. like me, i'm sure he has the same affinity. >> not as sienlt-immigrant bigotry, and it's an odd question of patriotism coming from sean duffy. >> both have testified that they want heavy american -- because they want to weaken russia. >> some of the president's allies even reverting to smearing with racist and xenophobic trope about his immigrant background, a dual loyalty attack. howard: we'll take a closer look. the president wins a clear and decisive victory by authorizing a raid that kills the world's most wanted terrorist, but the press responds with grudging praise and sharp criticism before quickly dropping the story. katie hill, the congresswoman who resigned over an inappropriate relationship with a staffer, now blames right-wing media. is that true? plus, a washington nationals crowd, that's the world champion washington nationals, boos the president and some give that move a standing ovation is. come on, it's a flipping baseball game. i'm howard kurtz, and this is "mediabuzz." ♪ ♪ howard: it's a huge story, an historic story, and yet it felt like an entirely predictable story. 231 house democrats voted to formally back an impeachment inquiry e against president trump. the speechifying and the news conferences drew live cable coverage, but the arguments from the politicians and the parade of pundits all sounded familiar as nancy pelosi pushes this closed door investigation toward public hearings, and the president was dismissive. >> so when you talk about the impeachment hoax, it's a hoax because the letter was perfect. the democrats are crazed. they're lunatics. in the meantime, we have of the greatest economy ever. howard: joining us now to analyze the coverage, emily jashinsky, susan appreciate show, chief congressional correspondent for the washington examiner x grace juarez, former correspondent for the pbs "newshour." emily, are the media so intense on portraying this against president trump that they have glossed over -- certainly been mentioned, but not exactly plaid out -- this was a purely party-line vote supported by zero republicans? >> right. and there were two democrats defected to vote with the republicans. actually, i think the media glosses over the democrats' process to get here. i think a very interesting part of this narrative is that nancy pelosi in march was saying that impeachment shouldn't be part of it. so while the vote was entirely predictable this week, it wouldn't have been predictable back in march, but nancy pelosi would have taken this extraordinary measure. howard: on the other side of the question, are the media paying enough attention to the fact that the democrats, for weeks, have demanded they open up the hearings and now they say, well, it's too late, and the whole process is a sham? >> well, in response to calls that a rule be adopted, a rule was adopted, and they don't like that either. it's going to be a fight until the tv cameras start to roll and people start to testify in an open manner that everyone can see. those are still going to be the complaints, and even once those people start to talk, there'll be complaints about what they have to say and whether it's truth or not. we are going to fight down to every last vote, every step of the way. why is this a surprise to anyone? howard: given the polarized atmosphere, it certainly should not be. super, you're up -- susan, you're up on the hill, what about what you might call the shifting of the goalpost where nancy pelosi did say in march, can't do impeachment, it has to be bipartisan. her rationale was it divides the country, and the fox news poll shows 49% -- down 2% from last month -- support impeachment and removal, but the rest of the country does not. >> it kind of echoes what ray is saying here which is the country's really divided about. this they're going to fighter to bitter -- fight to bitter end. if you look at polls, republicans do not support impeachment almost entirely, democrats do. so there's no shift from when pelosi was worried about this in march. they have the same predicament right now while they're doing impeachment that the public is divided along party lines. and this is going to end up in the senate where it's going to be defeated, it's going to be over. so what's the end result going to be for everybody here? well, we've sullied the president enough that he's going to lose in the next election, or is this going to embolden the republicans and help them pick up votes as it did when bill clinton was impeached in that's the larger question. howard: makes me wonder whether the avalanche of coverage is changing minds. everybody seems so locked in to their position. the key witness this week was alexander vinman, lieutenant colonel, born in the ukraine. his testimony was pretty strong in that he was on the call. again, this call leaked because it was behind closed doors. he went to a white house lawyer to complain, he said the rough transcript had some key omissions, and yet there were attacks on him, dual loyalty, he cares more about ukraine, and that or or caused cnn anchors to condemn sean duffy -- >> who was provided to give the republican perspective so they could have a contrast. he was actually just doing his job. would i have said what he said? no. but i think there's a very fair skepticism among republicans about the motivations of some of these whistleblowers for very justified reasons. i'm not saying that was at all the case here, but i think that's where it's coming from. howard: right. and, ray, you had this with the bush administration justice department official who went on fox and says this sounds like espionage, but later he went on cnn and said he regretted his words, he meant the ukrainians, not colonel vinman. people are attacking their own over this sr. -- very sensitive question of the witnesses and their motivation. >> all in a scramble to prejudge what the result. everybody wants to write the last story of impeachment before we've even started the damn thing. vinman's testimony is not a matter of public record. nobody knows for sure what he said on the record except what's been leaked since after his testimony. the dark art of discrediting in the modern media with world is to start whispering about other things other than what he said, and that's what happened with vinman. howard: what explains what you call the rush to prejudge? why not cover the story one step at a time based on what we know? his opening statement was put out. leaked, to be sure. so is it that we -- everyone wants to fast forward, everyone in the media wants to fast forward the process, predict what's going to happen? >> yeah. i think people think process is boring x reporters who, you know, already want to rush this thing along to get to the next step already are trying to write the next story when there's so little that we actually know on the record about what was said by volger -- >> we do know what was said by president trump, because we have a transcript of the call. >> i would argue process here that the media's ignoring is really important here. because process can shape the outcome, and i think it has to some degree because of the way democrats are conducting this, the question about how this started with the intelligence community. you see the president tweeting about this now and then, and you see some outlets, including our own, writing about how did this start, who did schiff work with ahead of time to launch all this. it looks like they knew a lot of things ahead of time and were deciding is this something we can use to launch impeachment and are they, in essence, awe auditioning the witnesses now to decide who should go public -- howard: right. and the counter is republicans also had closed door hearings during benghazi. let me bring you back to vinman, he certainly had serious questions about why the military aid to ukraine was held up. heed asked for, he was asked for help by the ukrainians were help with dealing with rudy giuliani's demands. the media can question his judgment or interpretation without saying he's partisan or without saying he's loyal to a country he left when he was 3 years old. >> you can definitely -- i think the media should raise questions about all the witnesses here. what i'm hearing from people in these depositions -- and i can't reveal a lot of details -- is what they're hearing from witness after witness is their interpretation of what the call was about. we know what the call is, we have the transcript. these witnesses are talking about their view of the president's foreign policy. and that's what it's boiling down to, was it right or was it wrong. howard: right. >> at the time that refugees were coming in from the soviet union under the jackson-vanek amendment, i never thought i'd live long enough to see people question soviet jews who arrived during that era and a man who goes on to become a lieutenant colonel in the united states army, now questioning his loyalty to ukraine? bizarre. howard: and won a purple heart. "the new york times" sunday review today, how to beat trump in 2020. four opinion writers show the way. people wonder why the coverage seems loaded, but the president says witch hunt, worst in american history. democrats say they're following the constitution, solemn responsibility. is it inevitable that the media are going to be attacked by both sides as they attempt to cover this? >> oh, absolutely. we have to remember the media incentive that we cannot forget about during this entire process is ratings in a lot of cases and clicks in a lot of cases, so there is that incentive. but i think it'll color their coverage through the rest of the process. might not necessarily deserve that. howard: "the washington post" has a report growing number of republicans are ready to acknowledge that, yes, donald trump used military aid as leverage to get an investigation going of the bidens in the ukraine, but it's not an impeachable offense, it doesn't rise to that level. nothing happened in the end. if they do acknowledge that and the stories reporting this are not fake. >> well, they have -- senators have been telling me now for weeks that they don't like what the president did on the call, but that doesn't rise to an impeachable offense. that's not changed -- howard: on the record? >> oh, yeah. no, no, they've been telling us that in the hallways. i think the story is really about the words quid pro quo, because they want to be able to check the president who has gone out and said there's no quid pro quo but now, oh, wow, we've got the republican senate. they've always said we don't really support what he did on the phone. we don't think that's an impeachable offense. i don't think that's changed. howard: i think that's a fair a argument. ray is this more reminiscent of the clinton impeachment than the nixon impeachment? we have the rough the transcript, the text message. in clinton's case, it was sex and lies. and the media argument was, okay, he did manager that was -- something that was wrong, trump, but it does not rise to level of -- >> we have been living in the age of the star investigation for years by the time the clinton impeachment process dropped. similar to watergate where a long trail of stories led to the smoking gun time where it looked like nixon was actually in jeopardy -- howard: this one came out of nowhere. suddenly, the ukraine story exploded. >> yes. howard: that's one difference. let me get a break here. when we come back, are the media undercutting the president's successful mission to kill the world's number one terrorist? 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>> because of donald trump's unpopularity with the mainstream media, the whole thing gets muted. howard: emily, look, killing al-baghdadi, major blow in the war on terror. look, most presidents would have stopped with the speech and not taking questions and the humiliating language that trump used. >> yeah, absolutely. used it e as basically a way to find some negative in the story, and i think this is a case study in the media's intense bias against donald trump in that they turned the what should have been a day of coverage, especially that day in particular, glass half full into glass half empty. and those clips were aatrociously over the top reactions to what happened. i don't think donald trump went -- maybe it was unusual presidential behavior, i don't think it was beyond any line, anything like that. so the coverage of this was particularly disgusting. howard: yeah. and you had to watch the post taking so much heat. ray, look, it was unusual to see the president's sort of emotional, rambling account, but that's his style. it's an in your face style, and i believe the press has never gotten used to. of. >> we're years into this, and really we haven't been able to calibrate as a profession how to cover this guy. i'm not in the morning meetings that are making some of these decisions, but i don't know if i would have launched two reporters to fact check whether the president could have heard the whimpering and the screaming. in the midst of the chaos in northern syria that's happening right now with the movement of the russians and the turks into kurdish areas, there's so much chaos in that part of the world. if you get al-baghdadi, good on you. it goes on your balance sheet, absolutely. howard: absolutely. >> whether or not he was whimpering or screaming or crying, you have to decide what in this novel, weird world of presidential news conferences are we going to be cover and what are we just going to leave alone. howard: absolutely. now, "the new york times," susan, while raising legitimate questions said this delta force operation succeeded in spite of rather than because of trump. and then you had the president saying conan the dog got more publicity than me. of course, it was the president who made conan famous. >> yeah. and, you know, the president would do himself a favor by avoiding that kind of petty argument on twitter that he's not getting enough credit for something like that. he can just talk about it the way he did, a big victory for america, and then the larger issue -- which is an important issue -- is what's going on in syria right now because of our decision to move those troops. howard: what about the coverage of the dog? >> the coverage of the dog was, as you were saying, a real symptom of this incredible bias against the president. to go and have people fact checking, and if you looked at the headlines, first they were blaming the president saying he photoshopped -- when they figured out it wasn't real, which took a while -- he photoshopped it himself, the medal of honor winner who they then went is and found, he said i don't see anything wrong with this, i think the dog's a real hero. they made themselves look so stupid. i was reading through these twitter feeds where everyone is is attacking the president, "the new york times," "the washington post," and all i could say was, you've got to be kidding me. howard: slate ran a piece, that why does donald trump hate dogs? [laughter] in less than 24 hours, the media began to pivot back to impeachment, and it was almost lie they couldn't wait to get back to their preferred narrative. >> oh, absolutely. because it's something that makes the president look good. as gross as the press conference may seem to media, what he was saying about the death of a terrorist probably resonated with a lot of american people watching that, proud of their military, proud of their country, proud of their president. howard: everybody should be proud of the military and the incredible they did, including the dog. but, now, this was not quite on the par with killing osama if bin laden because al-baghdadi had sort of faded from public view, but do you agree with the assessment the media, either consciously or unconsciously, wanted to sort of diminish this achievement by -- and now here's the latest on impeachment, by going back to that, pounding that storyline? >> we -- well, up until now three presidents out of 45 faced impeachment. and the fact that that's what's dominating the news right now, it's tough to get beyond that. that's a big deal. howard: no one's questioning how big a deal it is. >> killing al-baghdadi is a big deal too. howard: right. >> so, what, is there a statutory number of hours or column inches we have to spend on it? howard: well, it was literally by late the next afternoon that the al-baghdadi story started to fade, and maybe it is the drama and import of impeachment, but i had a feeling that the press enjoyed the notion of moving on. >> well, certainly donald trump enjoyed the notion of moving on when he undermined obama's victory lap by saying you shouldn't give him any credit for killing osama bin laden, it was the navy seals -- >> i just think one story is a lot more exciting than the other. howard: thanks very much for joining us this sunday. ahead, congresswoman katie hill blames right-wing media after she resigns. but first, some left-wing pundits are just in heaven as donald trump gets booed at a washington nationals game. seriously. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ oh! you got a fast one there just can't get him to slow down this class will help with that we get it... you got it! we're petsmart! ♪ ♪ howard: the underdog washington nationals won the world series, as you've been hearing from all the baseball-biased pundits who live here, after a string of incredible comebacks. this moment of unity was briefly shattered when president trump showed up for game five and was jeered in heavily democratic d.c. okay. politician gets booed at ball game, not a big deal. the chants of lock him up, though the, pretty rough. but detractors say he did nothing to stop the anti-hillary chants at his campaign rallies. what was surprising was how some political pundits absolutely reveled in the booing. >> yea, boo, yea! >> one of the most exciting parts except the president's facial expressions as he realizes how the crowd's reacting to him. >> that is what happens when you unleash something ugly like the lock her up chant lobbed at clinton. it's out there now. howard: new york times columnist jennifer wiener just couldn't help herself. quote: i watched the video over and over, scrutinizing every second of the footage, waiting for the exact moment when mr. trump's smirk key grin gives way to stony petulance. but then she chides herself with the joy she felt from trump's pain and finally we -- democrats, liberals, resistance -- are supposed to be better than that. when they go low, we go high. except, it turns out, going low feels wonderful. some left-wing pundits get off on a hostile crowd, even if they feel kind of guilty in the process. by the way, you might have missed my interview with fox's veteran sportscaster joe buck when i tried to warn him. something of a photo op. >> one of these? see, now, if i'm seen with this -- howard: yes. >> -- then for all your viewers, so i have to just drop that -- howard: okay. >> i'm here to call it. howard: america, he did not fall into the trap. >> yeah, well, i'm smarter than that. howard: breaking news, i just got a chance to meet the nats' general manager mike rizzo and to look at the team's world series trophy. never actually seen one of those in person. he was here at fox, and there was a long line of people to meet him. up next, mike huckabee. and later, the coverage of elizabeth warren's massive tax plan to cover, to fund medicare for all. ♪ ♪ aleve it. aleve is proven stronger and longer on pain than tylenol. when pain happens, aleve it. all day strong. when you're looking for answers, it's good to have help. because the right information, at the right time, may make all the difference. at humana, we know that's especially true when you're looking for a medicare supplement insurance plan. that's why we're offering seven things every medicare supplement should have. it's yours free just for calling the number on your screen. and when you call, a knowledgeable licensed agent-producer can answer any questions you have, and help you choose the plan that's right for you. the call is free, and there's no obligation. you see, medicare covers only about 80 percent of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. that's why so many people purchase medicare supplement insurance plans, like those offered by humana. they're designed to help you save money and pay some of the costs medicare doesn't. depending on the medicare supplement plan you select, you could have no deductibles or co-payments for doctor visits, hospital stays, emergency care and more. you can keep the doctors you have now, ones you know and trust, with no referrals needed. plus you can get medical care anywhere in the country, even when you're travelling. with humana, you get a competitive monthly premium and personalized service from a healthcare partner working to make healthcare simpler and easier for you. you can chose from a wide range of standardized plans. each one is designed to work seamlessly with medicare and help save you money. so how do ya find the plan that's right for you? one that fits your needs and your budget? call humana now at the number on your screen for this free guide. it's just one of the ways that humana is making healthcare simpler. and when you call, a knowledgeable licensed agent-producer can answer any questions you have, and help you chose the plan that's right for you. the call is free and there's no obligation. you know medicare won't cover all your medical costs, so call now! and see why a medicare supplement plan from a company like humana, just might be the answer. howard: joining us now from florida to h in on this tumultuous political week is mike huckabee, former arkansas governor who ran for president in 2008 and 2016. governor, what do you make of the party-line vote in the house to proceed with impeachment, the coverage of it, and what about the notion that many in the media perhaps seem sympathetic to this effort? >> oh, you mean you've detected that the media might be sympathetic to an impeachment of donald trump gee, i didn't catch that, howard. it escaped me completely. you know, i think the big thing to remember is that impeachment was and should be something that rises above partisanship. it certainly did during the nixon impeachment. over 40 members of the -- 400 members of the house of representatives, in fact, all but four voted for impeach. so you had the overwhelming majority of republicans who joined because they really believed there was something there, and they felt compelled to go there. that's not what's going on here. this is an impeachment in search of a reason, and they've been looking for one since day one. it was russia, then it was obstruction, then it was racism, now it's ukraine. they've yet to come up with a good reason, and when you ask them to name the specific crime, they can't do it. it's just nebulous stuff. howard: right. >> i think it's an embarrassment to the country. howard: of course, the nixon impeachment never reached the house floor because of resignation, but in 1998 it was the republicans with a largely e party-line vote to impeach bill clinton. did you support that move against one of your predecessors as governor of arkansas? >> you know, i was governor. i largely stayed out of it. i wasn't in congress, for one, so i wasn't part of the evidence, and i felt that something as a republican governor of bill clinton's home state, i needed to stay away from that. so, no, i didn't get involved and push for it. i was pained by it because i thought it was an embarrassment to the cup as well as to the state of arkansas. -- to the country as well as to the state of arkansas. but you mentioned it, there were over 30 democrats who did vote for impeachment. you had zero republicans, zero, not even francis rooney who doesn't like the president and some others who don't, and they didn't even vote for this. of. howard: right. on the other hand, whether you will agree with it or not, it is a stone cold fact that democrats in the house are moving towards impeaching this president, and the press can't exactly ignore a story of that magnitude, correct? >> they can't ignore it, it's just that they should report it objectively and fairly, which they cannot bring themselves to do. they're gloating over it. they went wait for it to happen. [inaudible conversations] howard: let me jump in for one second. i didn't mean to interrupt you, but when there are witnesses who who work for the white house go before these committees -- and, yes, it's closed door and, yes, this is leaked to the president -- and testified they had problems with the way military aid was handled, that they thought rudy giuliani was running shadow foreign policy, is that coverage not objective, in your point of view? >> these are people that maybe worked at the white house, not necessarily for this president. in some cases they were part of a larger bureaucracy. here's what frightens me, we have people who are saying, well, what about these very celebrated military people? and i'm not disparaging their military past. i salute and acknowledge and appreciate that. but, howard, there's something that's got to be remembered. if you haven't seen the tweets by lieutenant colonel jim rickman, i think everybody ought to take a look and see his assessment. here's the bigger issue. the reason that in our constitution we have a civilian president leading the military and a civilian secretary of defense is because we don't want military people making policy. military people carry out policy, but elected officials make the policy. here's what we need to remember. what we're seeing is that there were some people in the bureaucracy, in the military, in the deep state, if you will, they didn't like the policy. the proper thing for them to do to resign, not to try to undermine the policy and undermine the elected president who created it. howard: well, fair point. >> that is, for me, the heart of this whole issue. howard: some of them went through channels and reported this to superiors. let's talk a little geography. a few years back you relocated to florida, and now donald trump famously switching his legal residence from new york to state of florida. he says he doesn't feel fairly treated by new york city and new york state officials. do you think that's been the motivation here, or could it have more to do with the manhattan d.a. making efforts to subpoena his tax returns? >> well, i think he's sick of being completely disparaged daily by the people who run both the state and city governments of new york. when he announced he was going to palm beach, what did the governor say? good riddance. howard: that's what andrew cuomo said. >> think about. yeah. i wonder if his brother, chris cuomo on that network that nobody watches, i wonder if he will call out his brother if for being less than a very civil public servant, whether he likes donald trump or not? i've never heard, i don't think, of a governor who actually celebrated the loss of one of its wealthiest citizens. howard: well, in fairness, governor cuomo was responding to the criticism from trump. and by the way, i hear the taxes are a little bit lower in the florida than in new york. >> yeah, they're a lot lower. of it's not just donald trump. there are thousands of people who are leaving new york, thousands leaving new york to go to states where they're not put upon because they worked hard and have been successful. this is absurd for cuomo to blame donald trump. they ought to be blaming themselves for raising taxes, having ridiculous regulations and making it really difficult for people to be successful -- howard: mike, i've got about half a minute, and again, i didn't mean to cut you off, but i want to get you in on this. i just did a little reader about the president being booed at a washington nationals game. the media a made that a very big deal, why do you think they did? >> i don't know. politicians get booed at every sporting event in america. howard: has it happened to you in. >> oh, of course. each when my approval ratings were sky high in the 80s, i'd go to a sporting event, and people felt obligated to boo. that's what makes america a great country, hot dogs and booing politicians. howard: and on that note, governor huckabee, thank you for joining us. new york magazine asks how on earth is joe biden till winning, fourth place in iowa. and later, stephen colbert takes on me. ♪ ♪ great weather, great friends. you just saved a bunch of money by switching your boat insurance to geico. it was easy. folks, can it get any better than this? is that what i think it is? that is an armada of tiny sushi boats. awesome! i forgot to pack lunch. you had one job... chopsticks wasabi and soy! comin' in a little hot. it only gets better when you switch and save with geico. ♪ ♪ howard: beto o'rourke dropped out of the democratic race over the weekend after a campaign that never came close to matching the media hype. jeannie, the media practically drafted this guy. it was the "vanity fair" cover, we can put that up, which he said he was born to be in it. he called his speeches a near mystical experience. wasn't this mainly a media-created candidacy? >> it was to a certain extent. he got so much buzz from his senate race against ted cruz, and the media really hyped him for this race. but as he said, he simply couldn't find traction, and there was a new shiny object in mayor pete that came along and sort of stole all the thunder from behind beto. and we saw him have to drop out just the other day saying he simply doesn't have the means or the resources to go forward. so, you know, something we see with the media with all the time which is all the energy behind someone new that simply just gets denated very, very quickly. howard: -- deflated very, very quickly. howard: right. now, politico says there's a collision course between the impeachment process which is expected to drag on until probably the end of the year in the house which would mean the senate trial in january, and, of course, iowa and new hampshire happen in early february. is that a problem, and isn't the impeachment saga already diverting most of the spotlight from the 2020 democrats? >> it's absolutely fascinating. this is uncharted territory for us historically. we've never had an impeachment in an election year, and i think there's going to be a lot of people questioning what the democrats in the house did and how it impacts the 2020 candidates. we see six major candidates who would have to spend their time in the senate when they otherwise would be out on the campaign trail if, as you mentioned, the senate trial -- if there is a trial -- starts in january. we see the iowa caucus february 3rd, the new hampshire are primary a week later, and you go right down to nevada and south carolina. there's a potential that you have six candidates who want to be on the campaign trail who are stuck in the senate or making the very difficult decision, i've heard some democrats talk about, to maybe say, hey, i already announced i was going to vote for impeachment, i'm going to stay. so they're in a -- howard: talk about unintended consequences. let me move on here because the press has been predicting joe biden's demise. so this new york magazine cover has the headline, how is this guy still winning? it describes his campaign as the zombie campaign, the staff is aware that he might collapse. it's a fair piece overall, but why if pundits still writing biden's obituary? >> i think part of it has to do with the fact he's simply not giving interviews to the press. the pieces in new york magazine, that reporter wuss on the trail with him -- was on the trail with him for six months, and he didn't give one interview. and i think also the reality is the energy of the democratic party is not on joe biden's side. that latest iowa poll that we saw has people under 45 only 2% are supporting joe biden. howe right. >> i think that is something that the media keeps hearkening to as well with. so that piece is fascinating to me because, you're right, it's a fair piece of journalism, but the guy is also ten points ahead in most national polls. howard: right. he has done a couple of interviews with "60 minutes" but iowa has biden in third -- excuse me, biden in fourth. technically, mayor pete in third. is it time for the press to start taking pete buttigieg more seriously? >> i think they have taken him seriously, and i think the one thing we need to keep saying about this poll, it has just under 500 responses, respondents, rather, at a 5% margin of error. so they're all still within the margin of error. but the big story is that mayor pete is really the only candidate who has sort of defied expectations in this thing. you know, this mayor from a small town who is now third in this poll in the race in iowa. so that is a big story. but i think the bigger story is it's a dead heat on the democratic side. elizabeth warren at 22 and biden at 17. howard: oh. warren finally comes out with this 20 trillion tax plan to explain how she's going to pay for medicare for all, says it would kill two million jobs in the health industry, and it's pretty complicated stuff as was noted in this portrayal by kate mckinnon on "saturday night live." >> i'm going to tax the banks. duh. let me stop you right there. we're talking trillions. you know, when the numbers are this big, they're, they're just pretend. howard: quick question here, the press adequately scrutinizing her complicated plan, and this kind of snl portrayal, has that become a kind of liability if she's playing with numbers? >> these numbers are so astronomical, and i think kate mckinnon, she's amazing at this, and she makes a really important point. when you're talking $20.5 trillion or 52 trillion overall, how are you going to pay for medicare, you know, i go back to what nancy pelosi said, people sort of like their private insurance. we can talk about making things better, but it's a big cry from $20.5 trillion for an entirely new government-run health care plan. howard: jeannie zaino, great to see you. after the break, the reporter who prompted katie hill to resign has been working with the republican opponent. must be hot out there, huh? not especially. -[ slurping continues ] -what you drinking? gasoline. right, but i mean, what's in the cup? gasoline. [ slurping ] for those who were born to ride, there's progressive. oh! you got a fast one there who were born to ride, just can't get him to slow down this class will help with that we get it... you got it! we're petsmart! we're portuguese? i thought we were hungarian. can you tell me that story again? behind every question is a story waiting to be discovered. this holiday, start the journey with a dna kit from ancestry. this holiday, start the journey with a dna kit that could allow hackers devices into your home.ys and like all doors, they're safer when locked. that's why you need xfinity xfi. with the xfi gateway, devices connected to your homes wifi are protected. which helps keep people outside from accessing your passwords, credit cards and cameras. and people inside from accidentally visiting sites that aren't secure. and if someone trys we'll let you know. xfi advanced security. if it's connected, it's protected. call, click, or visit a store today. that's it. i'm calling kohler about their walk-in bath. [ sigh ] not gonna happen. my name is ken. how may i help you? hi, i'm calling about kohler's walk-in bath. excellent! happy to help. huh? hold one moment please. [ finger snaps ] hmm. the kohler walk-in bath features an extra-wide opening and a low step-in at three inches, which is 25 to 60% lower than some leading competitors. the bath fills and drains quickly, while the heated seat soothes your back, neck and shoulders. kohler is an expert in bathing, so you can count on a deep soaking experience. are you seeing this? the kohler walk-in bath comes with fully adjustable hydrotherapy jets and our exclusive bubblemassage. everything is installed in as little as a day by a kohler-certified installer. and it's made by kohler- america's leading plumbing brand. we need this bath. yes. yes you do. a kohler walk-in bath provides independence with peace of mind. call... for a free kohler® nightlight toilet seat with in-home quote or visit kohlerwalkinbath.com for more info. ♪ ♪ howe katie hill decided to resign after coming under investigation by the house ethics committee after the freshman democrat apologized for an inappropriate affair with a female campaign staffer but denied a relationship with a male staffer on her payroll. she blamed two media outlets for posting pictures of her that she said were leaked by her estranged husband. >> i didn't want to be peddled by papers and web sites used for the dirtiest gutter politics that i've ever seen and the right-wing media to drive clips and expand their audience by distributing intimate photos of me taken without my knowledge. howard: the story was broken by a reporter whose own role has come under scrutiny. >> i care that she holds to ethics standards that she votes for. but, of course, i don't, didn't like being smeared as some kind of revenge porn peddler or vast right-wing conspiracy because that's simply not what happened. howard: and we're back with emily ya shin sky. jennifer wrote these stories as managing editor at red state, a conservative site. she's also worked for politicians who ran against katie hill, and she currently owns the republican consulting firm in california, and on twitter she endorsed knight, former lawmaker, for his old seat. is she a journalist? >> it's tough, because i do think there's such thing as partisan journalism, i think there's such thing as ideological journalism. i think it's possible for people with particular viewpoints to participate in journalism. howard: and to be perfectly up front about the fact that they have those viewpoints. >> absolutely. but the problem in this case, this site is literally called red site, so we -- red state. we know they're coming from the right. that said, there was some unprofessionalism. i think that did not do service to story of the people of this district. jennifer van warren tweeted out that she knew katie hill personally. i went back and looked at all of her coverage, and nowhere in the eight stories she wrote about katie hill was that disclosed. while she may have been acting as a journalist, i don't believe this was ethical journalism. that said, katie hill is the much bigger story here. katie hill's moral failures, i think -- howard: just to finish on this point, how do red state and the daily mail publish the pieces with her photos which she, of course, is understandably upset which led toerer resignation without disclosing that this journalist had worked for the congressman that katie hill defeated? >> absolutely. the consultant, opposition researchers in d.c. and elsewhere get this stuff all of the tile. it's their job to go out and look for it. it's not their job to publish it themselves just because they have access to a news outlet. no, i think this was absolutely a lapse in journalistic judgment on red state's part. they're capable of better. they do it all the time. this was a lapse. howard: okay. so few people in the media, i think, wanted to touch this story originally. and i understand her point about revenge porn. nobody would want such photos published. she is in the middle of a messy divorce. but she chose to resign after disclosures that, for example, she paid the female campaign staffer many thousands of dollars in consulting fees. she could have stayed and fought the allegations, but now she is portraying the herself as the victim of conservative media. >> right. ultimately, she did not resign because of some vast right-wing conspiracy or because of conservative media, she resigned because as sloppy as this reporting was, it clearly showed she was unfit to represent the people of her district. that is the bottom line. she resigned because of that. these stories could have been reported in a damning way without the photo, and she still would be resigning. howard: right. but at the same time, of course, photos like this get so much attention. that becomes a debate. i guess it was also a debate of would this have happened to a man, and was she treated -- >> i think it has happened to men. anthony wiener, joe barton. this is sensationalist. you get clicks, waives, whatever it is. the media has incentive whether it's a man or a woman. howard: right. which still, i think, makes us uncomfortable especially when they're published without somebody's permission and, as i said, in the middle of a divorce. still to come, my response to stephen colbert after i somehow made a brief cameo appearance on "the late show." ♪ ♪ cine that treats bleeding disorders like hemophilia. so victor can keep doing what's in his blood. at bayer, this is why we science. ♪ ♪ howard: i got into a spar with stephen colbert back in his comedy central days, now the host had a little fun with my wild, crazy and kind of testy interview with rudy giuliani. >> rudy has been on tv doing damage control, minus the control. [laughter] >> we got anonymous whistleblower who says that donald trump did something wrong. donald trump, like hunter biden says, i didn't do anything wrong. >> we have the transcript and the president's remarks -- >> wait, wait. before you interrupt me, howard -- >> classic legal defense. [laughter] sir, your client stands accused of multiple can accounts of arson. how does he plead? >> your honor, the defendant pleads -- shh. howard: i am so tired of you trying to get laughs by taking my show out of context and -- well, that's pretty much what happened. by the way, the whole shushing thing did not work. that's it for this edition of "mediabuzz." i'm howard kurtz. check out our buzz meter, we rip on the day's hottest stories, and you can subscribe. apple itunes, google play or on your am device. also hope you'll like my facebook page, and let's continue the conversation on twitter @howard kurtz. got a lot to talk about impeachment, baseball, nationals and all of that. this is the time in the program where i tell you we look forward to seeing you next sunday, 11 ian is the time, with the late -- 31 eastern is the time, with the latest buzz. have a great sunday. eric: just arrived at joint base andrews with president trump, as you can see. this is a live shot of that gleaming and glorious airplane that is the one that carries the commander in chief just arriving from that trip to new york city. the president taking what may be described as a brief break from battling the impeachment inquiry to visit the madison square garden last night. the white house says it is prepared to defend the president as house democrats lining up for witnesses for this coming week. we'll see if the president says anything when he returns to the white house and comes down the stairs of air force one. hello, everyone, and welcome to "america's news headquarters," i'm eric shawn.
New-yorkUnited-statesArkansasNevadaNew-hampshireHungaryWashingtonIowaJuarezMexicoFlorida walks like that in the streets. bill: they're buddies! martha: i don't want my rats on my pets, not really! bye guys, see you tomorrow! jon: good morning to you, i'm jon scott. jane: i'm jane skinner, "happeninging now", captured by the taliban nine months ago, a new videotape has surfaced. we'll talk about it with family spokesperson. jon: a scare in the air, a passenger sneeks a smoke in the restroom and makes a joke about the shoe bomber. air marshals sprang into action, military jets are scrambled. we'll tell you thousand all turned out. jane: in the bottom, all eyes on tiger woods today, less than three hours from now he tees off the a the mars. his big comeback are not the only thing they're talking about. have you seen the ad with tiring and the voice of his late father? we'll show it to you. plus the "happening now" team, harris always at the breaking news desk is working the phones and the stories developing now. also at the national desk, tim gaughan is bringing in stories and video from around the country, and jenna lee with fbn has all you need to know, jenna, about your money. jon: a fox news alert from west virginia right now, rescue teams were hoping to reach four missing miners by noon, they're now evacuating the upper big branch mine. federal safety officials say the air quality underground is putting those crews in danger and they need to get out. steve centanni is live in montcoal, west virginia, what's happening there now, steve? >> reporter: right, a major setback to the rescue crews after waiting all this time. they were able to go back in, early this morning, at 5:00 a.m., and try to get to where those four remaining unaccounted for miners are located, but they just couldn't do it. they were testing the air along the way, there was just too much methane gas, carbon monoxide and hide hydrogen, an explosive mixture, so they had to turn around and go back out again. they didn't even reach the point where the bodies are located, which is 8000 feet back in, less than 2 miles. they had to turn around and go back. this is an unfortunate turn of events, but the bottom line remains the same, even though there's a setback and there will be a delay, the rescue crews can go back later once the air quality improves, because they're ventilating a shaft from a drill hole they dug in the mountain there, they're ventilating as fast as they k. they're putting a second hole in the same location so they can double the ventilation and get the tokic gas out of there. as for the hopes of remaining alive for the missing miners, that hasn't changed, they could be inside of a refuge chamber, an inflatable chamber that has enough air for 96 hours or more, considering there's only four guys, and food and water and other survival gear. so they may still be in there, this doesn't change that situation any. so there is still a shred of hope they could be alive and later on today, within a matter of hours, they hope to go in there and determine that. they had hoped to know that by now. they do not know that now, and there has been a setback, jon. jon: despite the bore holes they have completed, pulling the poisonous gases out of the mine it's still too dangerous. >> that's right. they're pulling it out as fast as they can, they're going to put a second hole down to double the ventilation, but in the meantime, when they went in, they had a safe level when they went in, then it increased. we don't know if it's from the barometric pressure with the storm front moving in here or if there's some voluminous release of gas inside the mine that just continues to put out methane, and other toxic gases. they're not sure why, but the levels went back up to a dangerous and explosive level, so they had to pull back. jon: steve centanni, montcoal, west virginia, thank you steve. jane: this morning the president is saying he's confident that the united states senate will ratify the new arms reduction treaty with russia. president obama and the president of russia signed that agreement in prague today. mr. obama says this new treaty sets a foundation for even more cuts to come. let's get to our senior white house correspondent major garrett, traveling with the president in prak. ny -- in prague. why is the president so confident? >> the white house has conveniently put together the votes showing 93 votes or more, but pass may not always be -- it's been an a while since they took on the arms race agreement since 1991. there was an agreement in 2002 with putin but that not require ratification and the senate is much different than it was in the early '90s and the white house has conceded this treatment will not be approved or ratified by august of this year, meaning it will have to be debated and voted on in the heat of the election, in november or sometime thereafter, the most optimistic phrase from the white house is sometime this year. republicans have already notified the white house they're going to scrutinize very closely how the treaty is implemented, what its verification measures are and if the president is committed to full funding of modernizing and keeping modern, the existing nucleolar stockpile in the united states which will remain and have seven years to take place after ratification. jane: the arms control experts when they look at these deals, a lot of them say the numbers aren't really that impressive. would we expect another treaty coming soon, another agreement? >> the president said today he hopes -- he will start negotiations on additional cutbacks going forward, and both sides really do concede these numbers are helpful, somewhat impressive, but not nearly as great as arms control experts thought the two sides could agree on. what complicated it? missile defense. all the experts i talked to said until the united states and russia get a better understanding between the two countries about what the united states intends to do in europe with missile defense and russia gets over its fears, unrealistic, the white house says that that ballistic defense issue to deal with them and not iran, this issue is going to be very hard to resolve. the most optimistic estimates i've heard is maybe there's a 51 percent chance of an arms control treaty in the obama presidency, i would consider that the most optimistic appraisal. one quick note, while here, the two sides said they are very close on the iran's sanctions issue, russia says the sanctions need to be smart, not hurt the iranian people, president obama agreed. the next big question, what will china do. we'll find out when hu jintao and president obama meet. back to you. jane: a lot of major developments, thanks, major. jon: a major air scare on a jet bound for denver, all caused by a guy trying to sneak a smoke in the bathroom. the smell drew the attention of air marshals and get this, a guy who's a diplomat from qatar, tells the marshals he was trying to set his shoes on fire. f-16s scrambled as the marshals took him into customer ce, the -- custody, the jet landed safely, the diplomat who said he was joking was questioned by the fbi ands arid without charges. qatar -- qatar is defending the diplomat saying it was all a mistake. new developments on the dead lie violence in kyrzygstan, that houses a key military base and a supply center for troops fighting the war in afghanistan. the situation there is growing more dire by the hour. and opposition leaders just announced that parliament had been dissolved and she will head on interim government but the president is refusing to give in, saying he does not admit defeat, also acknowledging he doesn't have any real power right now. the u.n. secretary general is expressing deep concern about the situation, just announcing he is sending a special envoy to the region. the recent unrest has left dozens of people dead, what could be so bad is if people have resorted to this level of violence. we'll search for answers in a live court from the kyrzygstan capitol in our next hour. the economy may be on the right track but jobs are still scarce. the latest unemployment numbers, worse than expected, the number of first-time jobless claims, up to 460,000 last week. economists were expecting that number to drop. jenna lee is with the fox business network and joins us now. why the unexpected rise, jenna? >> reporter: there could be a couple of reasons for that, that may have to do with holiday factors. why don't we start off with good news, which is the fact is that as far as unemployment claims, the people filing for new benefits, that number has been below 500,000 for the last five months and that's a very important mark that we're going to continue to look for, however -- however, what might have factored into this report is you had a good friday holiday, also a holiday in california, so what happens when there's a holiday and labor departments are closed, economists estimate how many filings they might have seen so they might be off of estimates here and we'll vet a -- we'll get a revision to the number as we always do next week. part of the concern, though, as jon mentioned, it is a tough labor environment out there, that means it's tough to go ahead and get a job. if you look at the amount of people on unextended -- extended benefits or emergency benefits, that number continues to drop but that's not necessarily a good sign. congress went to easter break before voting in extensions for the emergency benefits and because of that you might have people that weren't able to get another extension for some of the benefits that they're getting, so that could be a cause for concern and we'll have to wait for next week's number to see if what we're seeing is a trend or something that's going to continue. jon: you can't believe it, just when you think the economy is getting on track you see it jump up there and it's scary. >> it is a little scary. we saw on tuesday another report that said we're seeing more people apply for every open position, and it's -- you want to see the numbers come down more significantly and we're not seeing that at this time. jon: jenna lee, thanks. jane: are you ready for this? if you do have a job, uncle sam is taking a big bite of it april 15th. we're learning nearly half of the people in this country don't have to cough up a dime. do not pay income taxes in this country, federal taxes, at all. stuart varney is going to explain to us how that can be possible. also, imagine getting this in a mail, it's a flyer advertising an at-home abortion kit. some people did. they're not happy about it. what in the world? jane: "happening now", civil defense official called it instant death, a devastating mudslide in rio dejanerio, 200 people buried and feared dead at this hour, the slides have been triggered by record rains that have already killed 100 people. in the middle awaiting a man accused of making threatening phone calls to nancy pelosi, waiting to see him in court, he's in california, you'll be hearing the charges against him an hour from now. on the bottom, shuttle astronauts are hard at work hoisting a cargo carrier on to the international space station ahead of tomorrow's first space walk. this story developing out ofels, some may call it a sick joke but an investigation is said to be underway after a flyer was mailed out offering at-when -- at-home abortion kits for $400. the flyer encourages people to call or write for more information but the contact information actually belongs to a prolife group, the flyers were mailed to similar groups. its so-called kit claims to use chemicals and enzymes to abort a fetus. authorities contacted the fbi about the flyer, the postmark is from a chicago suburb, mailings went out to groups in a dozen states. jon: most americans work more than three-months just to pay their tax bill. but according to the tax policy center, a d.c. research group, about 47 percent of u.s. households won't pay any federal taxes at all for 2009. how can that be? stuart varney, anchor with the fox business network is here. i was amazed at that percentage, nearly half the country. >> this is not widely known. roughly half of all the households in america pay not a single dime in federal income tax. either their income is too low to cross that taxing threshold or they've got so many deductions it puts them below the taxes threshold. about half pay nothing. jon: i said federal taxes, you're saying federal income taxes, they may payroll taxes. >> if you work you obviously pay social security tax, that's a payroll tax, you pay it, regardless of income, you pay it, but when it comes to federal income taxes, 47 percent of households pay nothing at all. jon: so i was reading that it's possible that a family making $50,000, four people, nothing in federal income tax. >> that is correct. the median household income in america in 2007 was just over $50,000. it's about the same now. that family of four, given some deduction, given some circumstances, would not pay any federal income tax. jon: and the percentage of people who aren't paying taxes jumped something like 11 percent over the last year or so. >> yes. now think of it as a tipping point, jon. if you've got half your population paying no federal income tax at all, why shouldn't they vote in favor of tax increases on the other half of the population, which is paying all of the tax revenue to the treasury? there's a built-in bias towards higher taxes for that half of the population. jon: secure -- secure, because a tax increase doesn't mean anything for them because they're not paying it. >> they're getting all the benefits because the money comes to them. not a good situation. >> jon: unbelievable. april 15th is coming up, folks, have a nice day! stuart varney, thank you. in a moment, talking about one of the most powerful men in washington who says it's time to raise taxes, he says the country cannot continue on the path it's on without more revenue. we'll get into that next hour. jane. jane: for a family in idaho, life has been a nightmare since last june. their son was captured then by insurgents in afghanistan. he is the only known american service member held by the enemy in afghanistan. now a new video has been released with private first class b eaubergdall.. class b eaubergdall.. what does t his mean? jon: "happening now" in the top box, security breach at los angeles international airport delays flights and shuts down security check points for nearly two hours this morning. a passenger left the check point before his carry-on bag was screened, he was found a short time later and his bag checked out okay. middle box, new developments in the financial meltdown investigation as a senior adviser for citigroup says he didn't learn until late 2007 about $43 billion his bank had invested in high risk securities. >> bottom box, good news on the shopping front, the station's retailers post strong sales for the fourth consecutive month. jane: now to a new video that's been released of the only known member, american service member in captivity as of today, private first class b owe bergdahl vanished in june in eastern afghanistan, the taliban later claimed his capture. in this video that's now surfaced he says he wants to return to his family in idaho and says the war in afghanistan is not worth the number of lives that have been lost. we don't know when the video was shot or under what conditions. it's the first we've seen of him since christmas of last year. on the phone is coal knoll tim marsono of the idaho national guard, he's the spokesman for the family. you spoke to the family last night, what's the reaction? >> they're dealing with a difficult situation. it's been nine months this has been going on. they're coping as best they can. jane: how did they find out about this? >> they actually heard about it from a reporter, a family member heard about it, then told me and i got with that associated press reporter and things kind of snowballed from there. jane: do they believe that it's recent? >> there is indications that it's recent, but like up, there really isn't any way to nail down exactly when it was shot but i think the family is taking heart in seeing their son healthy. jane: i bet. do they believe that he's still alive? >> i think we all want to believe that he is. there's no way to tell exactly what's going on with his condition right now. like you say, that video, it's impossible to say just exactly when it was shot, so we're all hoping and praying. jane: important, too, to note as i mentioned there, we don't know under what circumstances he uttered these words. what about the timing of it, colonel, in your mind? >> it's really impossible to say why his captors choose to release the video when they do but every time they release the video i can tell you that it does brighten the mood around the bergdahl household to see their son at least healthy. jane: just want a release from nato, quote, the continuing use of first private class b ergdahl as a means of propaganda is a deplorable act and only fuels our efforts to find him and bring him home, the insurgents are using him as a means to cause ultimate pain to his family and friends and continues to reflect the cruel tactics designed to deceive the afghan people and the international community of their true intentions. the family is from idaho. talk to me about what the community has done, it sounds like there's been immense support for the family. >> you're right about the immense pain it has caused the family but they take comfort in the words and deeds of their friends, certainly family members and community at large. the community has been phenomenal in their support. you cannot walk down the street in haley, idaho without seeing remindminders left and right of bowe bergdahl. placards in businesses, you might have seen the banners put up at one of the coffee shops there. those reminders are not only seen by members coming to the valley but by the family members themselves and they take heart. jane: tim marsono is a spokesperson for the bergdahl family. thank you. jon: at least 250 people killed, their deaths linked to toyota's acceleration problems. if that doesn't outrage you enough, wait until you hear who knew what and when. some new incredible information coming out of the washington hearing. plus do you stay home from work when you're sick or bring your germs to the office? like it or not, playing hurt is the thing to do these days. jenna has more on why. jon: bottom of the hours, time for a check of the top stories, "-- happening now, dangerous gases force crew necessary west virginia to abandon the search for the four missing coal miners, the crews got within 1000 feet of the rescue chamber where they might be before they had to turn around. middle box, president obama getting ready to host a dinner with 11 central and eastern european leaders, just hours after the president and his russian counterpart signed a new arms control treaty. bottom box, antigovernment protestors in thailand plan a massive street rally tomorrow in defiance of a state of emergency there, the red shirts, as the po testers are known, have been trying to force the prime minister from office, and call new elections there. jane: new questions today about what toyota knew about its mechanical problems and when. our sister publication the "wall street journal" is breaking the story of internal e-mails of one that shows in no uncertain terms the company knew about some issues with its vehicles days before the massive recall was announced. brian wilson is in d.c. for us on this today. brian, these documents seem on their face anyway to be rather damming. you have them in hand? >> reporter: that's right, i have them in hand and when i have them, of course, we share them with you. we can show thaw memo written by irv, -- irv miller, take a look at this document that seems destined to show up in court cases across the country, miller wrote and i quote, i hate to break to with you but we have a tendency in mechanical failure. we are not protecting our customers by keeping this quiet. the time to hide on this one is over. now, this is one of some 7000 toyota documents that's been turned over, jane, to government investigating and it seems likely that other embarrassing memos will emerge as these things are examined page by page. by law, jane, toyota was required to bring the pedal problem to the government's attention within five days of learning it. they did so in september for european dealers but they didn't make it known to the u.s. government officials about this until it was january. jane: wow brian. what does toyota have to say about it? >> well, they don't specifically respond to the document but they do say this, we have publicly acknowledged on several occasions that the company did a poor job of communicating during the period preceding our recent recall. so they are, again, admitting they have been less than forthcoming about some of this information. toyota has also been bragging in recent commercials about how well its cars are selling, but they failed to mention, jane, that to get those sales, the company has been selling cars at a huge discount, and offering major sales incentives such as zero prosecutors financing. i want to mention one other thing, irv miller, the man who wrote this document is no longer with toyota, he recently retired. jane: brian wilson in d.c. will bring us more as he gets it. thanks brian. >> you bet. jon: the u.s. and russia, reaching an agreement today on cutting nuclear weapons, and apparently they see eye to eye on the nuclear threat posed by iran. this agreement just today puts added pressure on rogue states like iran. president obama plans to use the agreement as a platform to build international support against nuclear proliferation, the u.s. needs russia's cooperation at the u.n. security council to try to get iran in line. any chance of that? let's ask jim walsh, international security expert with the mit security studies program. what about it, are you surprised the russians seem to be helping us lean on the iranians here 1234. >> -- here? >> the russians are fair weather friends, they've been with us on some occasions voting for sanctions, three rounds of sanctions at the u.n., and on other occasions slowing down, but i think the new russia-u.s. relationship is on a better track than it was before, i also think the russians were caught off guard about the revelations about that secret facility near gom he felt and there's been a meeting of the minds, so that now the country that the u.s. is focusing on when it comes to getting support for sanctions that is shifted from russia to china, trying to pull china along because they're the ones that are dragging. jon: china gets gasoline, fuel from iran. >> they do, and they have a traditional policy, when they set a policy, they stick to it and their policy is they don't want to get involved in internal affairs and don't want to go to the security council to do things because they have their own problems, but they've been increasingly persuaded and the latest word is they will support the sanctions and we'll see sanctions in the next several months. jon: what about the agreement that president obama signed with the russians, does it make us safer? it's been all kinds of controversial. >> i think it does make us safer and i think it's important to put it in context. one is the historical context. president nixon, the republican president, signed the first treaty of that kind, president bush the elder did, president bush the younger did, and this is a follow-on to the previous treaties. the reason why i think it makes sense is two reasons: one, as you alluded to, jon, it gives us political leverage to go to the other members of the international community and say hey, we're doing our job, you need to step up to the plate and do your job. then secondly, as henry kissinger has pointed out, in a post-cold war era, the real nuclear danger is an undeterrable terrorist with a nuclear bomb. we can blld a thousand nuclear weapons, that's not going to prevent a terrorist from committing suicide and attacking us. those balls present a danger so the idea is to shrink the amount of material and countries and bombs there are. that reduces the chances that terrorists can get their hands on one. jon: just as you were competing, amongal mcfall, a spokesman for the white house, special assistant to the president, is saying that russian president medvedev is, in fact, on board with sanctions, he says that medvedev made it clear he would support sanctions to be used as a tool to change iranian behavior, he says we have moved beyond saying they are necessary, we're talking about a concrete process. so just as you predicted, apparently sanctions could be on the way. >> i think they're on the way, i would definitely bet in favor of that outcome, if you're a betting man. i'm not a betting man. but i would bet on that. that leaves the question will the sanctions matter. i don't think of them as a magic wand that suddenly they're going to give in. if anything, they'll be defiant right after we pass sanctions, but it's part of a broader process of which negotiations, other things, are a part to try to put them on a different track. jon: jim walsh with mit, thank you. jane: did you feel sick but you dragged yourself into work anyway? guess what, you're not alone, a whole lot of people feel like they have to do that these days, whether you like it or not as a coworker. jenna is here to explain the results of a new study, why so many of us are going to work sick, and spreading our germs, jenna. >> reporter: you've got to keep that hand sanitizer, you never know who your coancore might be, got to make sure you have it on the desk. this is a survey from monster.com, 30,000 people they looked at, 15 different countries, what they found out is yes, most of us go to work even though we're not feeling well, six out of ten of us do that and the main reason is we say we have too much on our plate, we have to go, we have too much work to do, the other parties fear we're worried about our job in this economy. the rest of us say no, we don't go to work, four out of ten of us, 13 percent of us say even though we stay home, we work, anyway, so if you ask this question differently and say who of us actually worked while significance, 74 percent of us, seven out of ten, say that despite not feeling well, we're going to still keep working. jane: does it actually pay for do that? >> not necessarily. a good reminder at this time, to know that federal law actually does not require your employer to offer paid sick leave, so you should check that out and just know what your company's policy is. but even though they've not -- they're not paying you, it doesn't necessarily help your company when you're out because they lose money in lost productivity and offense -- often times they have to call in a temporary employee which costs more, so it definitely hurts your bottom line and definitely hurts the company's bottom line as well. jane: interesting stuff, jenna, thank you. jon. jon: the story of the death of phoebie prince has appalled so many people. a teenager, bullied and wound up dead. harris is working on some new information in connection with that. we'll get to harris in just a moment. jane: tying ser teeing off the a the masters. have you seen this ad from nike that is out today, can we show it? it's tiger's face with the voice of his father, who's passed away. effective, or just plain eery? we're going to play it for you. e -- e-mail us, happening now at fox news.com or go to foxnews.com, happening now and check this out, a rat, a cat and a dog! how did these 3amigos get together? jon: three girls in that terrible massachusetts bullying case plead not guilty. hair irs faulkner has more information from our breaking news desk. >> reporter: this has to do with the death of phoebie prince. you'll remember she hanged herself after what police and other authorities have said were three-months of intense bullying, and now three of the young women who were charged, 16-year-olds who were charged, their attorneys in court just a short time ago pleading not guilty. they are, as named here, ashley long, sharon valesquez and flannery mullens, they were the ones in juvenile court today, arraigned on charges of civil rights and stalking. of course the case deals with stalking, harassment, all the way to statutory rape, with a total of six kids who have been charged, but these three now stepping up in court today with their attorneys to say they had nothing to do with this, by pleading not guilty. of course, phoebie prince committed suicide, her sister found her hanging inside their nome massachusetts a couple of weeks ago. the prosecutor in this case, saying this is a first step in a very long process. the attorney is also saying that again we're taking an initial step here, the attorneys for the defense, we're taking an initial step here as we move towards some kind of closure in this case. but three young 16-year-olds, pleading not guilty. their attorneys on their behalf. the young girls, by the way, were not in court this morning. back to you. jon: harris, thank you. jane: exactly two hours from now, 1:42 eastern, tiger woods will be teeing off at the masters at augusta national, the first time he's hit the links since that car accident on thanksgiving night that led to these revelations of all these extramarital affairs, the focus, a lot, of course, is away from the course. in addition this morning, nike has put out an ad. you may have seen it. let's play it for you, shows tiger's solemn face in black and white, you hear the voice of his late father, earl, talking to him. take a look. >> i want to find out what your thinking was, i want to find out what your feelings are, and did you learn anything. jane: what do you think? go to our website, foxnews.com/happening now, leave your thoughts on our blog. robert mucinich is with fox news.cole, he's the one that broke the story that tiger would make his comeback at the masters. robert, good to see you, what do you know about this ad? i assume he took part in it. was it shot recently? >> it was shot a couple of weeks ago in orlando at tiger's house on the golf course there. it's an ad that's going to be an acquired taste for a lot of people. i don't know that it hits the notes with everyone that nike wants it to hit. jane: our viewers for viewers today, did you find it eery, effective or potentially both? what would your answer be? >> i think maybe both. i think some people are going to feel it's maybe a manipulation of the narrative of the past few months with tiger and ca really encapsulate all of that in a 30-second nike ad. but i think also what tiger, his involvement in this, i think what he's trying to say is, you know, i have made a mistake, and if my father had been around, i think, or -- i may not have made that, he may have gently slapped me across the head and said what are you doing. jane: woops, robert -- >> or the message they're trying to get there. jane: we lost audio for a second. i guess some people might find it a bit strange because there has been a fair amount written about how his father was known as a womanizer, according to some sources. >> well, yeah, again, i mean, these are all skeletons in closets, aren't they? yes, i think that we can't deny that, i think that's a matter of record, and you know, exactly what the ad is really going to achieve, i'm not quite sure. i thought it was strange myself. i don't think really, you know, tiger woods needs any ads anymore. just play golf. jane: speaking of playing golf, it was interesting, phil mickelson was asked can he win and his response was can tying -- can tiger win, and his response was that's a crazy question. what are the thoughts on how he's been playing in practice? >> well, he hasn't been playing especially well. i mean, he's not playing as well as we know he can. but i mean, is that really a surprise? the guy hasn't played since nid--- mid-november, he's coming back to the grandest stage in the game and i don't know, you probably might not be able to see it behind me but the wind is starting to swirl here, they're going to get some weather in here this afternoon and that's not going to make it easier for him. jane: i want to put up, too, on the screen for the viewer, something that the club chairman billy payne had to say -- sorry, it's the interview he did with reporters. let's take a listen. >> it is not simply the degree of his conduct that is so egregious here, it is the fact that he disappointed all of us and more importantly, our kids and our grandkids. our hero did not live up to the expectations of the role model we sought for our children. jane john robert, pretty strong words. what's been the reaction? >> well, you know what, i think a lot of people were surprised by that. it was really unprecedented in terms of an assault on the character of tiger woods i wondered when i heard that, i was thinking how long have you been thinking this, billy, you know, how long has this been something that the members of augusta national have been quietly upset about with tiger. i mean, he isn't the most fan-friendly guy, but part of that is that he's very, very focused. last year, we were in miami and a little boy asked him for his autograph as he was walking down the fair way and he looked at him and said i'm working, not now. and that's always been his view. it's just he's at work, and this is what he's here to do. now, clearly, billy payne is trying to say to him your responsibilities are bigger than just playing golf, you're not just playing golf, you're the number one player in the world and people look up to you and you need to rehabilitate your image. jane: some reporters have said he's been smiling more and has indeed signed autographs. robert, thanks, we'll look for him on the tee, less than two hours from now, and our question is, what do you think of that new ad, is it eery, effective, is it both, as robert said it was? you can find us two ways, go to foxnews.com, happening now, we've already gotten blog posts or send us an e-mail, happening now at fox news.coal and we'll be reading some of your answers coming up. jon: who says dog, cats and rats can't get along? get a load of this, a fort worth, texas man has a trio of buddies who put on a show, performing a balancing act of sorts as they walk through the streets. gregory pike says they tour the county, he loves to take pictures and he says they all get along just fine, the dog, the cat, the rat, one happy family. jane: the tea party express is rolling into minnesota, they have now the formation of a national federation, some say too much organization could actually spell the end of the party. some say it could be the beginning of something much, much bigger. the president of kyrzygstan is this morning insisting he will not resign, despite this bloody uprising and the formation of an opposition government. the white house is weighing in, saying they're not sure who's in charge there. we're live on the ground in a country that is strategically important to us and our troops in afghanistan. jon: the tea party first gained ground as a grassroots effort without a whole lot of organization. now, various tea parties are starting to band together, creating a federation with some central leadership and a unified message and some folks are wondering could it actually backfire. let's talk about it with kevin madden from mitt romney's campaign, joe trippe was howard dean's campaign manager,'s a fox news contributor. welcome to both of you. kevin, what do you think, can the various tea party organizations that have sprung up around the country, can they band together and still embrace the goals that prompted them in the first place? >> right, i think there are many in the tea party movement that may get nostalgic for the disorganized nature of it all, but any republican, democrat or independent will tell you that in order to be effective in electable politics, you have to have two important things and that's organization and money. you have to have the resources to bring people together, and you have to have the resources and organization to get people out to vote and to learn about what your issues are. so i think it is, by any measure, the tea party movement is still in its genesis stage but now they are starting to demonstrate they can play and have an impact in important races around the country because they have shown that they can organize and shown they can bring together the resores they need to impact races. jon: joe, the resources they brought together so far have been mostly people and votes, they don't generally seem to have a lot of money. don't you need money to be effective in politics and don't you need organization, a central organization to handle money? >> well, you sure do. and each of these individuals has the capacity to spend 25, $30 in -- send 25, $30 into the candidate they support. you look at mark rubio in florida, the money raising ability he's had, he's a darling of the tea party movement. one of the things i learned from running the dean campaign, that campaign was ridiculed by the democratic party establishment, yet we had grassroots organizations all over the country, dean for america turned into an organization called democracy for america, howard dean actually ends up being chairman of the party, and a lot of that grassroots activity and money contributed to the big wins that we had, democrats had, in 2006, and the obama can dancy, with foundation, the same techniques we pioneered in the dean compare helped him win the presidency. so when you look at what's going on with the tea party right now, the question is does it get sort of sucked into the republican party, really into the mainstream of the republican party, the way that the dean activists were from 2004, or does it remain a separate entity, can it maintain that, and does that lead to some kind of fissure or new party at some point. that's where this is going over time, i think. jon: is there a danger, kevin -- i mean, part of the appeal of the tea party movement is, you know, i guess it's grassroots in nature, the fact that citizens are just sort of banding together and voicing their collective outrage over various issues. if they get too organized and too official, does it just lose some of that responsenate and some of the effectiveness? >> it may lose its charm but it will have a greater impact. look -- >> jon: so you think this is a good idea. you think it's a good idea. >> absolutely. look, enthusiasm and outrage are fantastic, especially when you're just trying to get 1000 people at a rally. but in order to effect change, in order to have an impact on elections you need organization. so grassroots is no good unless the grassroots activists are being organized and they're being strategically placed around districts and congressional districts or in states or in races where they can matter. so it has to be a grassroots, bottoms-up movement, that still has some sort of organizational capacity, so it is a good thing, but yo is right, the one thing is that we can't have it break off where it's a lineman right now -- its alignment on issues, helping republicans and bringing -- actually playing to an independent auden, if it starts to work against the republican party, it could be a problem. but so far, it looks like they're aligned with republican sentiments. jon: quickly, joe, does it terrify you as a democrat that this thing could get more and more organized? >> i certainly wouldn't belittle the movement. i think that's a mistake for democrats. i think, look, this is all about -- midterms is all abouting in, who's coming out, where is the energy, and right now, clearly there's a lot of energy in the tea party movement, that's going to be turn out people -- turn out to be people coming to the polls in november and it's already a bad year for democrats, just having the mid terms and the senate and the house. i would be worried about it. jon: joe trippe, kevin madden, thank you both. jane: we're getting new information from florida on a crime that is baffling, a burglary at the home of a well-known and well-liked professor. he was bound, eventually murdered. his wife and child survived after his house was set on fire. who would want this man dead? also a new warning from the fed chairman, ben bernanke, there are a couple of ways to deal with our mushrooming decifit, and you can be sure most people won't like either of them. what's to come in this country? and harris is working on a story developing at the breaking news desk, harris. >> reporter: awaiting a news conference, dozens of pipe bombs in mailboxes in east texas. a break in the news conference i'm watching for. got a great way to hit back. i get claritin clear... ...with non-drowsy claritin liqui-gels. it relieves my worst allergy symptoms with pure liquid power. claritin liqui-gels. the only non-drowsy liquid capsule. live claritin clear. some people like to pretend... a flood could never happen to them... and that their homeowners insurance... protects them. it doesn't. stop pretending. it can happen to you. protect your home with flood insurance. call the number on your screen... for your free brochure. jon: we begin this hour with breaking news. the white house says it doesn't know who's in charge in kyrgyzstan, a nation in central asia vitally important to our troops. anti-government protesters trying to seize power. the president has announced he will not resign. jane: thousands of protesters angered by government corruption. they've been clashing with police in some violent street battles setting fire to cars and buildings. dozens of people are dead, and now they may be in power. it's a country that is crucial to our efforts to fight the taliban in afghanistan. we'll be live on the ground from there in just moments. jon: "happening now" in the top box, at the bottom of the hour the man accused of threatening house speaker nancy pelosi is due in court. he apparently was angry about health care reform, at one point he even spoke directly to pelosi. in the middle box, police may have a break in this murder case. bottom box, a warning from the fed chief about the staggering deficit in this country and record government spending. why it could wind up costing you big time. jane: news the family of four missing miners didn't want to hear. we learn that rescuers who were evacuating the upper big branch coal mine had to be evacuated after they ran into dangerous levels of gas, methane and carbon monoxide prevented them from entering the mine until this morning. they got within 1,000 feet of a chamber where they hoped to find these missing men alive. steve centanni, what are you hearing? >> reporter: well, the rescue crews did have to pull out. it still is a rescue operation because they still don't know the fate of those four missing men. they're going to push forward but only after the air levels, the toxic levels have reduced enough so that it's safe. what they found when they went in this morning was it was of too high. it was an explosive mixture of methane, carbon monoxide and hydrogen. they pulled back out again. they hope to resume in a matter of a few hours. as the governor said at a news conference just a while ago, for these families nothing really has changed. hope remains alive, and here's what he said about that. >> they understand that if we have any hope of survival and they're in a rescue chamber, they're still okay. that's, i mean, that's the sliver of hope we have. it's a long shot. everyone's been up front about that because this was a horrible blast. but if they're there, they're okay. >> reporter: and we'll get another update in another couple of hours. in the meantime, we're learning president obama did call one of the families who lost three members of the same family this that mine, the davis family. it was timmy davis sr. and two of his nephews, the president chatting with the sr. viefing -- surviving members of that family and offering his condolences. back to you. jane: steve, thank you. want to get to our breaking news desk where a man in texas has been indicted in connection with pipe bombs found. harris, what do we know? >> 52-year-old larry eugene north. what's being reported was that north was with identified placing an explosive device in tyler, texas, into a mailbox just yesterday. so the federal bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms and explosives is saying this morning that there have now been 36 devices planted between february 5th and april 7th, and what they're trying to do is see whether or not this is the man, larry eugene north, responsible for all 36. we're awaiting a news conference coming up where we expect they will announce what kind of evidence they have against north. by the way, 23 different locations. so not just evidence, but do they have anything else to share about this case? back to you guys. jane: harris, thank you. harris: sure. jane: president obama at this hour is in prague at a dinner with leaders of the russian, with leaders of russia and the czech republic. he signed this morning a new arms treaty with the russian president to the lowest levels in 50 years. lamb ma's -- president obama's decision is drawing sharp criticism and raising new fears that the united states will now be more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. jaims rosen, would the white house agree with the idea that our country is, under the president's leadership, adopted a more dubbish stance in a time of war? >> reporter: no, jane. the president and his advisers would argue that their policies are making america safer. they do, however, undoubtedly believe that the bush/cheney foreign policy was too confrontational, and in their view, not sufficiently geared toward a new era of national security threats. in his remarks after this morning's treaty sign anything prague, president obama emphasized the u.s. has not begin up on missile defense, that he and russian president dmitry medvedev are going to agree to it, and mr. obama vowed to keep the u.s. nuclear deterrent effective even as he argued it is becomingless relevant. >> more and more countries will come to recognize that the most important be factors in providing security and peace to their citizens will depend on their economic growth, will depend on the international community's capacity to resolve conflicts, it will depend on having a strong conventional military that can protect a nation's borders and that nuclear weapons increasingly in an interdependent world will make less and less sense as the cornerstone of security policy. >> reporter: of course, the other big announcement this week was a shift in america's nuclear posture wherein we pledge not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states except in the case of rogue states like iran and north korea, jane. jane: the argument that with the recent moves the u.s. will now actually be buying some leverage or bargaining power with countries like russia and china in our bid to rein in iran. >> reporter: well, critics contend that the russians and the chinese will simply never be swayed to extend real pressure on their ally, iran, and they also argue that north korea has not been susceptible to any combination of negotiation, conciliation or any change in policy on our side from its pursuit of nuclear weapons. they argue there was no real gain from removing the use of nuclear weapons effectively except in the event of nuclear attack from the united states. jane: james rosen in d.c. for us, thanks. >> reporter: thank you. jon: are you ready for a little bit of good news for once? there is some to tell you about today, and it revolves around consumer spending. fox business network's jerry willis is here with that. what's going on? >> reporter: chain store sales up 9%, the best performance since march of 1999. consumers back in the stores. wall street analysts were shocked by this, they didn't expect it. bj's up 10%, costco up 10%, i'm sure you know target up 10%, so good news there. jon: i guess i was under the impression that a lot of consumers scaled back, they had really changed their household budgets altogether. is this sort of a boost for the overall economy? >> reporter: well, we're going to be trying to decide whether it's a blip or not. easter came later than usual, it could be a blip. here's what one analyst told us. >> stronger numbers coming out of march will be very welcomed by investors and consumers alike because it will show that people are feeling better about the economy, it will mean that the housing market is maybe, in fact, stabilizing, it will mean that labor really is getting a little bit better. >> reporter: so, jon, really hard to keep the american consumer down. they're back in the stores at least this month. jon: it was a long, cold winter in a lot of places, wasn't it? >> reporter: that's right. jon: spend some money. jane? jane: a manhunt is on for two prisoners who have escaped. one have been convicted of kidnapping, the other of murder, and authorities tell us these guys are dangerous, they're desperate. where they believe they could be heading now. plus, pictures just into our newsroom of a devastating mud slide that is said to have buried more than 200 people alive. a lot of people still missing. we'll get you the latest on this search and rescue effort underway. are you receiving a payout from a legal settlement or annuity over 10 or even 20 years? call imperial structured settlements. the experts at imperial can convert your long-term payout into a lump sum of cash today. why are my numbers all over the place? are you looking for answers? the accu-cheiva syst now has new tools to helpou discover what your numbers mea and how the things you do are connected to your blood sugar patterns. 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[ male announcer ] disver the accu-cheaviva system and save with a prescription discount card. start your discovery today. jon: some of our viewers in texas, big trouble to be aware of. a manhunt entering its third day for two mexican nationals who escaped from prison there. these fugitives considered very dangerous, one serving 35 years for murder, the other 20 years on an aggravated kidnapping and drug rap. harris faulkner has been looking into it for us. harris: yeah, they were at a facility about 75 miles southwest of san antonio. and for all the people who are trying to break into this country, these are two guys that authorities think are trying to break out. jose diaz, you mentioned wanted 35 years for murder, octave slow lopez wanted for kidnapping and possession of cocaine. they are thought now to be headed for the border, so that's where they are cox traiting the search for them. again, one of these guys wanted for murder or was in for murder in harris county. they are considered to be very dangerous, may stop at nothing to get back home away from authorities in this country who also stop at nothing to catch them. jon: how'd they get out? harris: this is interesting, jon, a perimeter fence, they cut through it. we're not talking about high-tech here. one guy looks out while the other guy cuts. that's what i was told on the phone, this is a pretty low-tech escape. nonetheless, it worked. when they did the head count on tuesday, these guys weren't in it. jon: so they have got a head start. harris: yeah. jon: thanks. jane: happening now in the top box, five would-be suicide pommers have been nabbed in afghanistan. the suspects were aiming for crowded downtown areas anded and they made it through, it would have made for disaster. in the middle box, somali pirates now warning a carrier not to get any closer or risk endangering the tanker's 24 crew members. on the bottom, oprah winfrey will host a nighttime show on her own syndicated channel after her daytime show ends its run in 2011. new reaction from the white house on the crisis we've been watching unfold in kyrgyzstan. anti-government protesters are saying they are now in control of the country which is home to a key american air base. [speaking in native tongue] jane: thousands of protesters are driving out the goth during violent -- government during violent clashes with security forces. they forced the president of that country to flee the capitol, but the president is refusing to step down. the white house said just a short time ago they actually don't know who's in charge. on the phone with us from the capital is a correspondent from the british magazine, "standpoint." update us from your vantage point. >> seized by chaos, rioting, mobs have been staking out the street, upper class districts are being pillaged, the government buildings are being fretted as looters try and take whatever they can carry with them. and in the house of the president's son people ripped away anything they could carry. over the past couple of hours night has now fallen. there has been the sounds of gunshot and crowds are said to be massing around in the center and police stations being stormed with shots being fired. this is a situation of anarchy. jane: ben, in terms of who's in charge, what are your best indications? >> reporter: the streets have been filled by men claiming to be volunteers trying to restore order. the provisional government, so temporary government, the people's trust it's been declared, people felt they were leaderless. and there's a lot of confusion, and people are waiting to see if be the army, which has been absent from today's events, will step in and try and restore order. in the south the president has fled to his, is said to have fled to his stronghold, and there are unconfirmed reports of thousands massing trying to move towards the north. so no one is really sure who's in control. in fact, it's a situation of anarchy where no one is really in control. jane: ben judah will update us as news warrants. jon: there's a massive search and rescue underway after a new mud slide in brazil. authorities say they don't have much hope of finding survivors. this newest slide hit wednesday night sending a mountain of mud crashing into a slum just outside rio de janeiro. officials believe it buried at least 900 people alive. -- 200 people alive. they say in their experience it is instant death as that crush of mud hits. heavy rains this month have triggered mudslides and evacuations all around brazil. the death toll was already at 153 before this latest disaster. jane: we're about to bring you more information on the man who set off a bomb scare onboard a flight bound for denver. who he is, what he was doing in that lavatory and why he may never face any charges. plus this -- >> if you make less than $250,000 a year, your taxes will not increase one single dime. jane: remember that? well, now a stern warning from the fed cheaf that if we -- chief that if we don't stop spending, it's going to hit us all very hard in our wallets. is he right? treasure so kate you were stressed, a lot of junk food on the go and you were... a little irregular, sluggish. my daughter needed activia! so i gave it a try and wow. it works. now she has a spring on her step. i'm loving it, every morning. mmmm. avo: help get your system back on track. activia with bifidus regularis helps regulate your digestive system would you recommend activia? i already have. she recommends it. what are you waiting for? singer: activia. jane: so just who set off the bomb scare on the united flight headed for denver? we're getting our very first look. we've just gotten a picture of a 27-year-old diplomat from the qatar embassy. we've confirmed that the man involved has been questioned and released. fighter jets were called to escort the plane into denver last night after air marshals confronted him. they smelled smoke coming from the lavatory. turns out he says he was just trying to use a cigarette. iowaalicia acuna's covering the story. where is he now? >> reporter: fox news just confirmed that he is now in the air. he has left denver international airport and is on his way back to washington d.c. he has, as you mentioned, is not being charged, and he was released by federal authorities. jane: what's the embassy saying? >> reporter: well, the embassy is saying, is asking people not to rush to judgment on this, and the qatar or ri -- qatari ambassador released a statement earlier this morning saying in part the facts will reveal that this was a mistake, and we urge all concerned parties to avoid reckless judgments or speculation. also as part of the statement, jane, he went on to say that there was no mall intent in this incident but that they do respect the laws and the procedures with regard to safety in air travel. jane: okay, alicia, what would have happened to you if you were smoking on an airplane? this guy won't face charges? >> reporter: he's not, and if i would have been caught smoking on an airplane and it involved federal marshals and two f-16 fighter jets, i wouldn't be on a plane back home, that's for darn sure. it's a federal offense to smoke on an airplane and anything else that involves disruption of a flight. there's a former u.s. attorney actually from denver who worked to end force that law here -- enforce that law because he was fed up with people getting drunk on planes saying that was a danger. it did disrupt the flight, and it kept the passengers on the ground here for five to six hours before they were processed by the fbi. jane: alicia, thanks. jon: well, either tax hikes or big cuts to programs like medicare and social security. the federal, the fed chairman warning yesterday there are really only two ways to deal with the staggering national deficit, and americans will either have to pay one way or the other. >> unless we as a nation demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal responsibility, in the longer run we will have neither financial stability, nor economic growth. jon: let's talk about it with taylor griffin, former economic adviser to john mccain's campaign and michael linden, associate directer few tax and -- for tax and budget policy at the center for american progress. michael, do you dispute anything the fed chairman had to say? >> nope. [laughter] we do have a long-term budget problem that we are going to have to get ahold of over the coming years, and the president, president obama, i think, has taken some good first steps to doing that. i think it's important to distinguish as the chairman did between the short-term deficit, the one we're having this year, and the long-term deficit. in fact, the first one's not a problem at all, the second one is a big one. jon: mike, let me stick with you for just a second there. >> sure. jon: you say president obama's taken some good first steps, does that include the health care bill? >> yes, it does. it reduces the deficit of $130 billion this the first ten years, but more importantly, up to a trillion in the second ten years and hopefully, it will bring some of those health care costs more into sort of a more sustainable level. jon: taylor, i remember my economics class in college, one of the first things we learned is that human wants are unlimited, and it seems like with programs like social security and medicare we all want to feed off the public trough, but nobody wants to pay for it. >> that's exactly right. you know, this is a huge problem. and the fed chairman talked about arithmetic and the fact that it doesn't work here. let me give you a reason why. we're taxing about 18.5% of the economy right now -- >> no, we're not. >> and we are, and then we're spending 25% of the economy. now, your family budget, tell me, does that work or doesn't it work? michael's exactly right that the budgets are unusually large this year. the budget deficit is. but it's not much different going into the future. we have social security and medicare catching up with us, and the savings from health care once you figure in this dock fix they'll be doing, there isn't much there. i don't see how you get it through raising taxes or anything else. we have got to address cutting government spending. jon: michael, we were talking with stuart varney last hour about the fact at least one tax policy research center in d.c. says 47% of americans pay no federal income tax. i mean, how can you have a balanced economy when you've got a situation like that? >> well, the reason that 47% of americans pay no income tax is because 47% of americans are not doing so well right now, and i think that's the point not being made in that statistic. we're talking about people who really lost a lot in this recession, and they've been hit the hardest, and these are people who have really been left behind by president bush's economic and tax policies. so that doesn't worry me. what worries me more is that the top 400 richest people in this country have paid a lower amount of taxes, a lower tax rate than ever before, and that is a real problem. this is one of the things we're going to have to address going forward to help this big budget deficit. jon: taylor, final thought. is there the wherewithal, the will within congress to address some of these problems the fed chairman is talking about? >> doubtful. you know, this is hard to do. and what michael talked about, about the wealthy and how much taxes they're paying or not paying, the fact is the wealthy are paying a bigger share of taxes than they ever have before, and you're pretty much at the level where economists say if you tax people more, they're just going to find ways to shelter those. you're not going to get anymore money out of them. what paul volcker said yesterday was we've got to go after the middle class. obama's economic adviser. and he's right. if you're going to do this through taxes, the only place left where there's money left to tax, it's the middle class. jon: taylor and michael, thank you both. jane: do you know what you're eating? turns out the food and drug administration may not. there is a troubling new report just out today about what is not being checked in our food supply. and tiger woods is about to tee off at the masters, just a little over an hour from now as nike launches a very different type of tv ad with the voice of his deceased father. take a listen. >> i want to find out what your thinking was, i want to find out what your feelings are -- jane: what do you think of it? eerie? effective? or both? here's what some of you are saying from our blog, debny says the ad is a cheap shot using the deceased father to gain sympathy from the public. weigh in, go to foxnews.com/happening now, or e-mail us, happening now at e-mail us, happening now at foxnews.com, we'll continue to read your comments. suddenly i noticed my smile wasn't white enough. now what? 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[ female announcer ] new crest 3d white professional effects whitestrips. also try crest 3d white toothpaste and rinse for a 3d white smile. jon: he's a story about a -- here's a story about a real royal pain. we're talking about camilla parker boals. she took a tumble yesterday while hiking in scotland, slipped and hurt her leg. doctors did an x-ray and found a twisted fracture of the fibula. she's in a plaster cast now because of the broken leg, but authorities or spokesmen say she will not be missing any of her planned royal duties. camilla parker bowles will carry on in the best british condition with her leg in a cast. jane: "happening now" howe in your top box, new unemployment numbers now out showing the number of newly-laidoff workers in this country seeking benefit fits rose unexpectedly last week. in the middle, flight delays were way up in february because of the massive snowstorms that hampered operations at some of the busiest airports along the east coast. on the bottom, energy prices sliding across the board today. benchmark crude for may delivery falling more than 20 cents to $85 a barrel. jon: we have heard that hospitals can be a breeding ground for infections and germs. now a hospital in florida is cracking down on hand washing with a high-tech new device. it's like a breathalyzer for hand washing and actually uses some of the same technology. orlando salinas is on this story for us, how does it work? >> reporter: jon, this is really interesting. this device we're talking about was created by doctors at the university of florida at their medical center, and what it does is it does detect whether or not a doctor or a nurse has used enough of this hand sanitizing gel before they actually go to work and spend time with a patient at the hospital. the cdc says that every single year hospitals, when they treat patients with these hospital-borne infections, it costs up to $60 billion a year. remember, jon, medicare and medicaid announced last year they would no longer be reimbursing hospitals for those infections, so they had to come up with something. take a listen. nurses and doctors at the university of florida medical center are getting warned. if they get too close to patients without washing their hands. inside the neurointensive care unit, all staff must wear electronic badges, id that sends signals warning if they don't sanitize they could pass on an infection. >> it really makes you a lot more conscious of how often we don't wash our hands even though, you know, you're taught to wash all the time, the little buzz to remind you even when you're walking in. >> reporter: the high green hand hygiene system detects much like a breathalyzer detects alcohol. >> take a deep breath. i think it probably brings a level of comfort to them knowing that, you know, their health care provider has clean hands. >> reporter: okay, now. in the time that the university of florida has been using this high green sanitizer system, the doctors there tell me they have knocked down their infection rate at that one hospital, at that one unit, jon, they've knocked it down to a big fat zero. we're also going to talk about whether applications are coming on the way, the doctors tell me there's already interest coming from hospitals around the country as well as the restaurant industry, both sit-down restaurants and fast food restaurants who may be looking at this for their employees before they go to make you a burger or a steak, better go wash your hands. jon: coming from my co-anchor who isn't going to let me come on set. [laughter] thanks. jane: do you know if your food on the table is safe to seat? the -- eat? the fda may not necessarily know either. there's a disturbing new report out today saying the food and drug administration has significantly dropped the number of inspections allowing a majority of the food facilities in this country to go unchecked for years. jean hall ran is directer of the food safety campaign. good to see you. the officials say the situation really is because of inadequate staffing and resources, it comes down to money. is that a valid excuse? >> well, there is a lot to that. the number of inspectors has been declining year after year while at the same time the number of facilities has been going up. so the decline went on until, oh, maybe just the last year or two, and now it's kind of leveled out. but they're still way below the number they should be looking at. a lot of facilities never get inspected by fda for years on end. jane: this is just one statistic. between '04 and '08, the fda inspected fewer than half of the 51,000 facilities it is supposed to regulate according to the inspector general, so how do we fix this? simply ask congress to pump more money in the system? >> well, it isn't just that. actually, there's a bill before the senate that would require the fda to actually inspect every high-risk facility at least once a year which we think is a bare minimum. that bill has been backed up in the senate, behind health care, but we hope it's going to come to the floor soon. this is a bill that has republican support as well as democratic. it's, it's a bipartisan issue to keep our food supply safe. jane: it sounds, though, like a gargantuan job. is it possible to actually keep it, essentially, safe 100%? >> well, they can do a heck of a lot more than they are. and when we have a problem like just did last year with peanut butter, when they went to the facility and it was contaminated with sam nil la and they found the place was filthy, it turned out the fda had not been there in eight years. so if they had been there on an an yule basis, there's a good chance we would not have had the nine deaths we had from contaminated peanut butter. jane: 76 million people get sick every year with these illnesses. jean, we'll watch it. thanks. >> thank you. jon: did you send in your census form? the political party that is very concerned you might be ignoring it, and it could cost them on capitol hill. plus, cash-strapped states desperately looking for ways to make money from you. wait until you hear how some states are trying to get your hard-earned dough. that's next. in, nature knows just how much water vegetables need. so, to turn those vegetables into campbell's condensed soup, we don't boil it down, our chefs just add less water from the start. ♪ so many, many reasons ♪ it's so m'm! m'm! good! ♪ megyn: hi, everybody, i'm megyn kelly. former vice president dan quayle is here with a warning all tea partiers need to hear. plus, she shut down her son's facebook account posting a message there before she did. now she is facing criminal charges. don't parents have this right? that mother joins me live. and arrested by cops bursting into his house bearing guns because he was walking around naked. inside of his own home! kelly's court takes that one on top of the hour. jon: and "happening now" in the top box, the associated press reporting, now, intense gunfire breaking out in the capital of kyrgyzstan. many the middle box, new developments in the iran nuclear showdown as our ambassador to the united nations says the u.s. is working to get an iran sanctions resolution. bottom box, parole officers could have been done a better job watching john albert gardner who stands accused of murdering california teen chelsea king. jane: that's the census music. have you filled out the form? is it sitting on your kitchen counter? jon scott, have you filled it out? jon: i filled it out. jane: good for you. some americans are actually tossing theirs in the trash. republicans in particular are worried that anti-government feelings among conservatives could lower participation in the census, and that could lower the number of republican seats in congress. shannon bream is in d.c. shannon, explain the connection, if you will. >> reporter: well, absolutely, jane. you know, when you fill that form out, it does go to the government number crunchers who look at it and decide who's going to rep you in -- represent you in congress. there's somebody who understands this very well who is speaking out, it's a congressman from utah. he's a republican, he's a conservative. he understands the concerns, but, listen, he reminds folks back in the last census his state missed getting an additional seat in congress by 800 people. so even if you have concerns, he says you need to fill out the form. here's what he says. >> i recognize the anti-government sentiment out there. i, i'm part of that. but if we don't participant in the -- participate in the census as conservatives, then we won't be represented over the next ten years, so it's critical that republicans and conservatives and really the whole spectrum of people participate in the census or we just don't get counted and, consequently, don't get representation for the next ten years. >> reporter: and that is certainly the last thing any republican member of congress wants to see happen, jane. jane: shannon, what does the census bureau do with the personal information? >> reporter: they want to reassure people, listen, we're not keeping track of who you are, what your religion is, your party, that kind of thing. we went directly to directer robert groves for an explanation, here's what he told fox news. >> census bureau, as you know, is a nonpartisan statistical agency. we are independent both of the political uses of census data and the partisan politics that comes along with it and the enforcement side of the federal government. >> reporter: they don't care how you vote, who you like, they just want you to fill out the form, jane. jane: and what happens if you don't? >> reporter: this is interesting because it's something that impacts the employment numbers that we've seen coming out because there will be a boost of 600-700,000 census workers over the summer who will go door the door. it starts in may, it'll wrap up in july, but if you didn't do the form, it looked like junk mail and you tossed it, you're going to get the face to face interview. so you can count on that starting in may. if you're one of the people who didn't fill out the forms, you'll be putting a lot of your fellow americans to work in the meantime. jane: shannon, thanks. >> reporter: sure. jon: we're tracking your taxes, and we're not just talking federal taxes. states have a lot of growing red ink, and they are looking for some new ways to squeeze more money out of taxpayers. taxing everything from soda to your family pet. iowa knee that vogel is live in los angeles, she's been taking a look at some of these surprising taxes. what'd you find? >> reporter: yeah, jon, they are surprising. call them taxes, call them fees, cities, counties and states are imposing them all across the country. practically all these things you see in front of me, and some of them are pretty weird. they're taxing plastic bags in washington, d.c., we all have to use these. in maine they're taxing blueberries, in west virginia they're actually taxing noise makers. and in washington state the governor there is getting ready or is willing to sign a bill that would triple the tax on your favorite six pack of beer. that's not going to go over well with too many people. critics say they understand the need to raise money, but this is kind of ridiculous. listen. >> when we start moving away from a system that taxes everything the same, when we start saying, well, candy should be taxed but regular food shouldn't, or prepared food should be taxed but groceries should not. you introduce the requirement to start defining the differences between these things, and they can get pretty absurd. >> reporter: and, jon, talk about absurd. okay, we've got two candies here, right? 2006 and snickers. the state of illinois is taxing one of these. any thoughts on which one? jon: i'm going to guess it's the twix because it doesn't have the peanuts? >> very close. it's the twix, but it's because it has flour and it's considered a food -- jon: oh, brother. [laughter] well, i'll eat a twix bar and be healthier then. crazy. i guess the federal government is taking its cue. it doesn't want the states to gobble up all the money, right? they've got some new taxes coming? >> reporter: yeah, definitely. the federal government is in on the action. in the new health care bill there is a provision to tax tanning saw salons. this goes into effect july 1st. we're talking about a 10% tax that would generate $2.7 billion to help defray some of the costs of the new health care bill. if you think that sounds like a lot, it is nothing compared to a new tax being proposed here in california. there is a tax being proposed on soda. every spoonful of sugar would add an extra penny, and that would generate $1.5 billion a year, and that's a lot of cash at the end of the day. probably the golden state needs it. back to you. [laughter] jon: they sure do. all right, anita vogel, thanks. jane: we're waiting on a news conference at this hour on the case of a professor beloved in his community. he was found stabbed to death. the killer torched the house, left the professor's wife inside tied up. she was able to escape with their little boy. who in the world would have done this? what are police thinking? the latest coming up. jane: just a few minutes from now we expect to see investigators in plantation, florida, at a news conference to talk about the murder of a popular university professor, dr. joseph morrissey, was his name, killed during a home invasion. police say the intruder tied him up, his wife up. the couple's 5-year-old child also was at home. dr. morrissey was stabbed to death and that this intruder set their house on fire. his wife and child, they were able to escape, but the professor was killed. vanessa medina has been covering this story for fox miami, she's standing by waiting for that news conference. vanessa, you know, so often people have been saying plantation is such a nice community, it's so odd something like this would happen. what are the thoughts on a motive here? >> reporter: well, police are not -- they're very tight-lipped in this case, i will say. now, what we are hearing right now from police is that, indeed, dr. joseph morrissey was stabbed. at first they told us he was shot, but what we do know is let me give you the facts. at 12:30 monday morning, we have dr. joseph morrissey inside his home with his wife. all of a sudden they're awakened to someone forcing their way inside their home. then, of course, we're told that dr. morrissey and his wife were then tied up, taken to an atm at gun point, forced to withdraw money in this case. but what's interesting in this case is dr. morrissey is from south florida, plantation is a very well known community and very well known for nothing bad happening here. we're told, also, again by police that there's now a suspect, a person of interesting someone that her looking for in this case. their 5-year-old child inside that home sleeping the entire time. now, he, he's a professor, but he's more a well-known researcher and scientist. he's world renowned, known in the international researching community. his latest research project he was working on finding a cancer cure, so he was doing cancer research. took this semester off to focus on his research, now he's found dead, stabbed to death outside on his patio. police have been at that scene, that home, plantation, for the last two days. remember, this happened on monday. they've been taking things out of that home, evidence such as chairs and all kinds of bags filled with stuff, and now we're learning that he was, indeed, stabbed, and there is a person of interest in this case. so, again, we are waiting for a press conference to begin in about ten minutes at the beginning of the hour at about 1:00, and we're hoping that we may find out a motive in this case. like you said, who on earth would want a very well-known, very well-renowned scientist dead? we're hoping we can answer that question here in plantation. back to you guys in new york. jane: we're told he was working on breast cancer research, not something controversial. vanessa medina, thank you, from fox miami. jon: some serious new questions being raised about the self-described web site wiki leaks, that site released classified u.s. military video it says shows u.s. soldiers or airmen attacking innocent civilians in iraq. we took a look at that tape, though, and found a few things the web site editors tried to leave out. plus, tiger woods about to tee off at augusta, at the same time nike puts on the air a new ad. we ask you what you think of it. is this new tiger woods ad eerie or effective? some answers next. >> i want to find out what yourt feelings are. on the days that you have arthritis pain, you could end up taking 4 times the number of pills... compared to aleve. choose aleve and you could start taking fewer pills. just 2 aleve have the strength to relieve arthritis pain all day. why do women like you love activia light? 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