"reliable sources." where we examine the story behind the story and find out what is reliable in the news. this houring mounting new reports about governor andrew cuomo and a toxic workplaces. more sources coming forward. how long could he stand against the daily coverage. and the democrat's covid relief law is big news. but what about the bigger story of inequality in america. how could the media better capture this divide. and later fall out from the interview of the year. what will be the long-term impacts of oprah's sitdown with harry and meghan. but first i have come to one conclusion about the gop and the media. i want to see you if agree oar disagree with me. even though republicans are out of power, the use of the media, their use of the media has a major impact on the democrats. and on political dysfunction. so what i'm about to say directly impacts president biden and his administration. all right. are you ready for it? here is my conclusion. tucker carlson is the new donald trump. tucker has taken trump's place as a right wing leader, as an outraged generator, as a fire starter and it is all happening on fox just like trump's campaign did. which means rupert and lock lynn murdock are ultimately responsible. think about all of the ways these two men are similar. every day carlson is throwing bombs, making online memes, offending millions of people and delighting millions of other and tapping into white mail rage and resentment, stoking distrust of big tech in the media. generally coursening the discourse, never apologizing for anything and setting the gop's agenda. sounds like a recently retired president, right? even before the 2020 election, there was informed speculation about carlton as a 2024 candidate. of course some of his attractors say he's just a troll. he's just really good at ticking people off. but isn't that what they said about trump for years? yes, tucker is known to critique trump and the republican party from time to time. this time last year he was at mar-a-lago trying to convince trump to take covid more seriously. but he tells the same conspiracytory that trump told. the statement they're out to get you story that trump told for years. it is the paranoid style in american politics all over again and tucker sucks up some of the fury that trump did and stokes the same debates and it raises the same predicament that trump did five years ago. whether and how to cover his claims. here is some of what tucker did this past week. he said pregnant service members are a mockery to the u.s. and has a mal kul increase is and he flipped out and doubled down and berating a "new york times" reporter and then blasted the times for defending her. he tries to rewrite history about george floyd's death and he mocked meghan markle and defended piers morgan and it is all because of these individuals on screen. what tucker wants is attention. what rupert murdoch wants for him is attention as this headline put it, he's the post trump maga champion as the number one star on fox news with ratings far ahead of anyone else on fox. and by the way other shows re-airs comments all days long. it is increasingly the tucker carlson channel and they cut a deal to expand his profile on fox's streaming service, too. it is ultimately all about the murdocks and what they want. how they're going to keep the profits flowing by givening the viewers more and more radicalized content. led by tucker carlson. so what does it tell us about the state of the right wing media and what does it mean for biden's white house. let's bring in s.e. cupp and eric wemple and april ryan from the agreo and the one and only david zurawik, the media critic for the baltimore sun. s.e., am i right or wrong, that tucker is the new donald trump in. >> yeah, i see what you're saying. i can't decide if he's the rich man's trump or the poor man's trump. in some ways he's smarter than trump. >> i think so. >> which is disappointing to people like me who know him. because he could be making very good substantive arguments about conservative and politics that would be more policy-based. i think in some ways the murdock are relieved that the gop no longer wants to tackle substance and policy and wants to live in the culture wars. they make for much better television which is why you're seeing fox become the tucker channel, the 24-hour tucker channel and tucker is leaning into that kind of coverage and instead of doing the stuff that he used to do, that he's more than capable of doing, that trump never could. >> april ryan, do you think tucker is a thorn in the side of the administration, do you think the white house cares about his daily attacks? >> every cares about tucker carlson, the entertainers attacks. he's a thorn in the biden side, a thorn in everyone's side. he is stirring a deadly witch's brew in his cauldron all or the purposes of gaining more attention and more people which translates to money for fox. tucker carlson has put a lot of people's lives on line for his entertainment purposes. >> on the line -- >> millions of america around the world. lines on the line. taylor lorenz, when tucker carlson puts you on his target board, people throw out crazy threats and death threats and she has to, in exchange, speak loudly and publicly so people could see what is happening to save her life. trust me because i understand, because i've been a target of tucker carlson. >> tucker would say he gets lots of threats as well. that everybody gets threats and i would say all of that is despicable and the temperature should be lowered but tucker raises the temperature. look at what he did during the fox prime time speech of joe biden. tucker is about to respond. they put up this live tucker carlson reaction cam in the corner of the screen. so let's get our own tucker carlson reaction cam and see how this is going to look. sorry, zurawik, we're squeezing you out of the corner there. i can't, david, if this was television genius or if this was pathetic desperate attempt to hold on to the viewers on the part of fox. what did you think? >> brian, i definitely don't think it was television genius. and i'm looking for it. television is a different medium. if you do something and it works, i'll all with you. but this was not genius. what i saw was something that you would see in a high schooler, a kmidle school class and when the teacher speaks behind the teachers back. and here is the thing about this. just think about when we talk about dumbing down the civil conversation of american life, this -- biden is talking about a package, a safety net, that rivals lbj and fdr and this is the response tucker carlson and fox has, faking faces at him. >> that's an interesting point. tucker carlson would wrap himself in the flag and say that and we're in the midst of a crisis and they're playing these games. eric, what is your analysis of the tucker phenomenon. you've studied him for years. >> i want to say i disagree with zurawik. if we could get to a situation where all tucker carlson does is make facial expressions, i think the country is a hell of a lot better off. >> this is the dynamic. this is the question about trump years ago. should we, all five of us, be paying attention to tucker carlson? >> well i think that is not longer really an arguable premise since tucker helped conduct the white house for the past four years. so i think i hear a lot about that, why are we giving them any further air time, it is important to put a stake down and to speak against it. i know that oftentimes it feels like we're pissing into the wind but it is an important marker to put down. and i believe in what i'm doing and it is clear that the murdocks don't listen to us. but i think it is important to tell the truth. >> some of your recent headlines about this saying that he's announced he's doing more hateful analysis and they're adding more and more tucker programming on fox. >> yes. they're expanding his foot print. they know they have a star, so to speak. tucker, i think, your analogy between tucker and trump is for two reasons, hatred and lie. they both traffic in hatred and lies and for the longest time people have warned that the next trump will be savvier in terms of how he lies and that is exactly what tucker carlson is. he doesn't lie with every utterance, but he lies strategically and carefully and he lies in such a way that he gets them past his audience. and the rest of the world sits there and fact checks him and nobody else seems to care. he pulls in 4 million people and to april's point, those 4 million people listen carefully and they take cues from tucker carlson. >> and you talk about others on fox, especially, what is the right reaction, how do you and others handle that? >> you can't ignore it because the numbers are so great when they come at you. but what you do, again, in order to save your life, you have to speak on it and call it out to show people what is happening. this is inhuman what he's doing and a judge had to rule over tucker carlson when his attorney talked about him, he's not a news reporter, he's an entertainer. this entertainment is deadly and fox should be ashame of it. and we saw the threats that came into reality on january 6 because of a brew, a poisonous witches brew was stirred up over there. >> and you say shut him down and kick him off cable and i don't anyone is -- >> i don't have that power. >> i don't think anybody is going to remove fox news from the cable lineup. but as fox radicalizes and as it becomes more of a political tool, zurawik, you wrote a column saying fox should be viewed as a political pool and should is be a part of the white house press pool that comes with news gathering even though they do have some news reporters at the white house, you're saying they're primarily a political tool so shouldn't that be reassessed, zurawik? >> i think it is a discussion we need to have. i doesn't say, murdock said they're the loyal opposition and that is a political term. it is party that opposed the party in power. in that system, that parliamentary system, it says they share the same values for culture and society. when you put people on your show telling the big lie as they did with -- with former president, when they put him on, putting that lie on, for people who tried shut down the government, when -- on january 6th, you're not supporting democracy, you're not supporting the larger values of this culture. they don't even stand up as an opposition party but there is nothing journalistics in what murdock said and let's take them on the word, let's not let them on the plane. you want to let proud boys on air force one, no. i don't think so. these guys are doing the same thing. >> you're going to get attention for that. >> thanks, brian, i needed that. >> i see you're up first after the break. breaking news about biden's meet the press moment. and the fight for voting rights in america. we'll take up the media coverage next. still a father. but now a friend. still an electric car. just more electrifying. still a night out. but everything fits in. still hard work. just a little easier. still a legend. just more legendary. chevrolet. making life's journey, just better. antibacterial or moisturizing body wash? 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>> well, one, the thing that really strikes me about cuomo, and the drum beat mounts and these are such credible charges, i don't know how he could with stand it. but what he's do it, and this is really sad for democratic politician of the stature he formerly enjoyed. he's behaving like president trump. he's looking at the allegations against him, which are far more, and we had evidence of $130,000 paid to one woman for silence during the election, but he's taking -- that is one of the ways people like trump corrupt or political system. who are is a democrat from a storied family, and now he's behaving like that. he's thinking, well it works for these guys, why can't it work for me. i'm not going to jump out until they push me out. i don't think he could with stand it, brian. and god bless the press for pressing him as hard as it is pressing him now. i hope -- i hope it doesn't let up. i hope it doesn't let up and whatever is going to happen, is going to happen. but he's going to stay in as long as he can. >> and to wemple's point about cnn, the job always is to cover the story as if it was anybody else or any other story, just cover it the same way no matter what. let's turn to the current occupant of the white house and president biden and questions about his availability to the press. george stephanopoulos will interview bide then week as he goes out there promoting the covid relief law. the president has sat down with an interview and held town halls but has not held a solo press conference and there is more grumbling that he has not held a formal fancy press conferences at the white house. during trump, we have would have count down clocks how many times they avoid having press briefings maybe it is time for the same thing for biden. 53 days, without a solo press conference. april, is the press making too much of this. because i know a lot of biden supporters say this is just b.s. noise from the media and it doesn't matter. >> no, it is not too much about nothing. the american public is in the midst of colliding crises and you want to hear from the leader of the free world, the man who is signing off on the documents and th and the -- the documents and the laws about what is happening. and i talked to jen psaki this morning and she has affirmed this president will have a press conference by the end of the month. the question is what day and when. will it be night time or during the day. he's traveling back and forth the next couple of weeks for the arp. but at the end of the day, america needs to hear from this president in challenging times, when people are trying to make ends meet, they are hurting on every side. people need to hear what he plans, what is in his head for the move forward for the here and for the later. >> s.e., what is your take on all of the both right wing and left wing and chatter about when biden is