Culture debate is raging. What is really going on in newsrooms . We have a tribute to the late, great john lewis. We want to share with you some words from his extraordinary memoir all coming up, plus tim obrien, applebaum and many more. First, President Trump just wrapped up what was probably his toughest interview in months. He usually just speaks with san sat down with chris wallace. It just aired and well show you the highlights and the low lights. Here is the worst news on top of all the bad news about the summer spike in covid19 illness. President trump is still in denial about the pandemics devastation. In the fox interview, he defaulted to his favorite coronavirus lie, that is the rise in cases is all due to the rise in testing. With chris wallace, he immediately complained about americas high levels of tests. The surges are 6,000 and the whole European Union they dont test. They dont test like we do. Is it possible they dont have the virus as badly as we do . Its possible they dont test. Thats whats possible. We find cases. Many of those cases heal automatically. Were finding in a way were creating trouble. Certainly were creating trouble for the fake news to come along and say, oh, we have more cases. Lying about the fake news in the midst of a pandemic as the death toll rises and rises. Whats so scary about his words is he talks about the virus like its no big deal when you catch it. Like its just the sniffles. He refers to the sniffles. He says most people get better right away. We keep hearing about people suffering for months after contracting the virus. You know, its bad enough that the hospitalization rates are rising. Its bad enough that the morgues are filling up. Its bad enough that elderly americans are suffering in awful numbers. But even the folks who get the virus and then start to recover, they still feel terrible weeks and months afterwards. And theres no acknowledgment of that the president. Instead its, were testing too much. And hes been saying this for months. We went back and did an anatomy of this lie. If we didnt test so much, we would have very few cases. Its something hes tweeted essentially more than a dozen times. Thats happened for months now. Countless reporters have pointed out this is nonsensical. Its like saying if you dont get tested for cancer, you dont have cancer. Where did the president get it from . Lets go back to march 6th during a tour of the cdc, the president was asked about docking the grand princess cruise ship where american passengers contracted the virus they need to get off the boats. I dont need to have the in bes double because of one ship. Its always been about the numbers. From the very beginning the president s been worried about the numbers. But i want you to remember back in march the president was not claiming there was too much testing. The lack of testing was a devastating problem in this country. The United States suffered dramatically because we were not testing to find out how much virus was spreading. Back in march trump pushed governors and states to do more testing. These are some of his tweets from march, urging the increase in testing. It was starting in april he changed his tune. He started to claim america was showing more cases, only because the testing was so much better than in other countries. Now, that has been factchecked, has been debunked many times, but the president keeps saying it. We found on may 14th he really started bringing this up again. Coincidentally or not, Rush Limbaugh made the same argument that day. The more you test, guess what, the more cases you have. Okay, so there we go, Rush Limbaugh says it in the afternoon, trump repeats it at night. Watch. When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didnt do any testing, we would have very few cases. Here we go. This is how its going to go. Again in june the president hears this on fox friends, Ainsley Earhart said it on the morning show. Watch. Keep in mind, more people are getting tested now, getting that Antibody Test and testing to see if they have covid19. If they do, obviously, the numbers will go up. That was june 15th. Then on june 15th, same day the president tweets about this idea again, and then he says it over and over again. The president had a new mantra. Once he finds something he likes, a talking point he likes, he sticks with it. No matter how nonsensical it is. So, the rightwing media feedback loop is clearly in play here. The president s disregard for Public Health is also in play here. He goes on and on in these interviews on fox and elsewhere talking about too much testing. He says, i know its a good thing but its bad. It creates trouble. He says this over and over again, wasting time that could be spent talking about masks, vaccines and other solutions. Lets talk more about this with White House Correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks and cnn political analyst april ryan, and two Staff Writers for the atlantic, peter nicholas, also a White House Correspondent, and ed yong. Ed, you are a science expert. Start us off, all this stuff about testing. I keep reading cnn reporters and anchors who have to wait a week or two to get results back. We still have a testing crisis in this country but the president seems to be implying its too much. We obviously have a testing crisis. This is ridiculous. Testing is not causing infections. The infections are caused by a virus because there is a pandemic going on. We need to do more testing. This is one of the richest countries in the world, and seven months into a pandemic, it cannot test enough citizens to work out how many are actually sick. So, we have 3something million infected people. That is the bare minimum. We do not know the actual number. Right. To argue if we did less testing, the numbers would look rosier is like saying theres danger afoot and you put blinders over your face so you cant see it coming. Therefore, its better. Its not. You know, we need to do much more of this. Like you say, the testing still has an incredible lag that, you know, even the testing that we are managing to do is like delivering results within a time frame that would actually make a difference for controlling the pandemic. Cnn white house producer betsy cline tweeted out she had to weight 11 days to get your negative result. April ryan, what do you think was the big headline from this fox interview . Did the president say anything new about covid or was it the same line . He didnt say anything new about covid, but what he did do, shed a bright light in a very dark space. What were finding out is potentially this was his thinking at the very beginning as to why we werent seeing a lot of tests, as to why marylands governor had to go overseas to get a bunch of testing kits. This may have shed a bright light in very dark spaces. But it also plays into his campaigning. The Trump Campaign is saying that theyre hoping they can get a handle on the numbers of covid coronavirus so that he can look better in the polls and could possibly win reelection. This shed a bright light on yesterday and moving to the future. Lets take a look at where the white house medical experts are. Where are the governments top experts on this . Dr. Anthony fauci was basically forbidden from going on television for more than a month. We can put the calendar on screen that shows how long he was forbidden by the white house. Fauci was clever. He went everywhere. He went on webcasts, radio shows, podcasts, did print interviews. He went to a summit the atlantic held earlier this week. Finally now fauci was allowed back on tv. Apparently the block is over. What do you think is going on here about the countrys top Infectious Disease expert not being allowed on tv for a month . Whats interesting, when i asked about that during our interview, he was cleared he was not denying being blocked. He said, i think you know the answer to that, peter. As you point out, brian, he was allowed to do all kinds of other interviews. I wonder if the reason he was barred from tv is because white house staff did not want trump to see him. Trump is a consumer of tv news, as we know. And i wonder if the motive was to keep him away from trumps view because trump might see him and get aggravated. Thats part of a larger attempt to downplay this pandemic. Factbased produced for us, that tracks every word the trump said. He tweets about radical left. I know this isnt new but we have to keep pointing out what hes not doing. Hes not talking much about the pandemic in public. Well, right. And i think you have to look at the campaign for that reason. Unemployment is 11 , produced by the pandemic. Thats higher than 1980 when president jimmy carter lost to ronald reagan. Thats higher than in 1992 when george bush lost to bill clinton. The pandemic is not good news. The president wants to put out the message that its under control. The virus is in retreat. The economy is recovering. So, he doesnt really want to talk about these numbers and bad news. He wants to change the subject and hes talking about culture wars. I really wonder if thats going to work. He needs suburban voters, he needs women voters. Are they going to be motivated by whether were tearing down confederate era statues or more concerned about health care and the virus. The death political play would be to contain the virus. One more note about that. In the fox news, the president did have positive things to say about dr. Anthony fauci. He wasnt criticizing fauci. He kind of distanced himself from Peter Navarro who wrote the oped attacking fauci. After usa today published that oped, they said it did not meet the publication standards, but that was after it was published. Ed yong, last word to you. Is this an episode of . Thats a good way of putting it. We are seven months into this and losing badly. Worst of all, we dont seem to be able to learn from our mistakes. Like peter said, one of the best if you want if trump wants to do well with his electora electorate, if he wants to beat if he wants to make it look as if hes beating the pandemic, one really good way of doing that would be to actually try and beat the pandemic and hes not doing that. Like, if we actually had a coordinated national plan, if we have solid leadership, we have testing and tracing, like many other countries, fewer resources than america has have managed to do, we would be in a much better position. You cannot distract your way out of the pandemic. You actually have to deal with it. There is good news, the president is golfing right now, but he tends to watch sunday shows on the dvr later in the day. Ed, he may hear your comments in a couple of hours. Ed and peter, thank you. April, please stay with me. April, youre up first after the break. Ahead in this hour, Anne Applebaum in what she calls the seductive lure of enablism. Why are these two fox news anchors reportedly seething at Network Management . Accusations of racism at fox coming from inside the company. Thats next. Migraine medicine. Its called ubrelvy. The migraine medicine for anytime, anywhere migraine strikes without worrying if its too late or where you happen to be. One dose of ubrelvy can quickly stop a migraine in its tracks within two hours. Many had pain relief in one hour. Do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. Few people had side effects, most common were nausea and tiredness. Ask about ubrelvy. The anytime, anywhere migraine medicine. Theyre going to be paying for this for a long time. They will, but with accident forgiveness allstate wont raise your rates just because of an accident, even if its your fault. Cut sonny. Was that good . Line the desert never lies. Isnt that what i said . No you were talking about allstate and insurance. I just. When i. Lets try again. Everybody back to one. Accident forgiveness from allstate. Click or call for a quote today. Internal revolt against racism, according to reporting from the daily beast which details a heated phone call in early june where some black staffers slammed foxs network. The staffers, especially criticized Tucker Carlson. Of course, youll remember last week cnns exclusive reporting of carlsons top writer use a pseudonym on online forum. Carlson sidestepped it and then announced he was going on vacation. Thats curious. According to the daily beast, Rupert Murdochs son, lachlan murdoch, personally approved what carlson would say on the air that night, which speaks to the support carlson has from upper, upper management. Even though some staffers are really disturbed by tuckers rhetoric. As i mentioned, that vacation did come as a surprise, to go on vacation after a monday show. Vanity fair says it could have been a way to smooth things over at fox. Carlson is expected to be back on the air on monday, but i havent heard that officially from the network yet. We will will see. I do have a book coming out about this very topic, the title is hoax and you can preorder at buyhoax. Com. It has a couple chapters of material about this issue inside fox news. Back with me is april ryan and joining the conversation is david zurawik, media critic for the Baltimore Sun. This reporting from the daily beast about internal concerns about what rhetoric airs on fox news. I think its noteworthy theres concern internally but if it doesnt change, and airs on the network, does it matter that much . Oh, yes, it matters. It matters to those inside and to the greater public. At the end of the day, i am not a fan of cancel culture because a lot of time intent and context are lost in its abruptness, but there are certain issues i feel like cancel culture is important and race is one of them. You have Tucker Carlson, who had his head writer is a white nationalist. Thats a problem. And then you have an outcry, a continual outcry, from black staffers, reporters, anchors, et cetera, at fox. In this case, one plus one equals two. There is a race problem there. Fox news says, its not racist. But the racists thinks theyre racist, so theres a problem here. Your headline about this for the Baltimore Sun was titled, carlson and hannity almost make me pine for the era of glenn beck and bill oreilly. Explain. As bad as oreilly and beck were, beck talking about nazis all the time and oreilly dividing the nation, driving that division between pinheads and patriots, they were bad. Ten years ago was really bad. But this is worse. This is worse in this sense. Ten years ago they were fox news was the kind of Opposition Party to Barack Obamas historic presidency. Fox news is now the not just the enabler for donald trump, its hand in glove with him. And the thing about Tucker Carlson thats so troubling right now about these the racist racist rhetoric that he traffics in, is that i believe its not i believe. Its obvious. As President Trump bases his reelection strategy now on saying americas dangerous, joe biden is president , youre going to be in danger, those urban people are going to be coming for you in the suburbs, Tucker Carlson is preaching that to his base on his show. A lot of it is through subtle kinds of comments. Or not so subtle with these guys. Its not. Thats whats dangerous. You now have him running point. Tucker says biden will ruin the suburbs and trump says the same thing. Yes. Lets look at this from the interview with chris wallace. The president twice this week when asked about the murders of black people then brought up the killings of white people. This is how he did it with chris wallace. Watch. Blacks are twice as likely, fewer and absolute numbers but in terms of per capita, blacks are twice as likely to be shot and killed by police than whites are. In minneapolis over the last five years, police used force against blacks at a rate seven times that against whites. Can you understand why blacks would be angry at that . Of course i do. Of course i do. Many whites are killed also. I understand that. I mean, many, many whites are killed. I hate to say, but this is going on for decades. And then he talked about portland and got totally off topic and did not answer the question. So, i think theres multiple problems here, april. One is this instinct to talk about whites right away. Secondly, he doesnt answer the concern about blacks being killed by police. Exactly. He dismissed the problem of the disproportionate number of blacks being killed by police, whether shot, chokehold, what have you. Black america is part of america. And there is a moment that is a movement that he fails to Pay Attention to because hes trying to rally his base as his poll numbers are going down. And if you really think about it, this president has never really dealt with the issue when Colin Kaepernick was taking the knee. He kept he came out with this lie, this narrative of, oh, theyre disrespecting our soldiers and the flag. Now, thats want be true because the blood of black people has been built into that flag. The blood of black people have been in the military. The blood of black people are in the policing units as well. So, he has walked away from a segment of america that is hurting. A segment of america with the highest numbers of negatives in almost every category, and yet hes still focusing in on white america. Also we have to remember this, black america wants a solution, not just this the bills that are going through the house and the senate, but they also want Community Policing again. Something hes not for. One more clip from the interview. This is about the New York Times 1916 project. Mike pompeo attacked it earlier this week and now trump is attacking it, too. Watch. Now they want to change 1492 columbus discovered america. You know, we grew up, you grew up, thats all what we learned. Now they want to make it the 1619 project. What did that represent . I dont know. Slavery. They dont even know. They just want to make a change. I think hes saying the writers are dumb or stupid. They dont know what theyre writing about. I think thats what hes kind of implying. Brian, one thing i really want to point out quickly is, you know, the brass at fox news said, oh, this is horri