You were asked to denounce white supremacy. In the moment, you didnt. You were so in doubt about our democracy. How can you say that . You do read newspapers, you do watch the news. Howie at the same hour, Abcs George Stephanopoulos took a different approach, treating it like a policy seminar. Theres no record of you calling for social distancing, limited social gatherings, mandatory not back then. In january, february. How you can you contain the pandemic without closing the economy. If you lose, where will that say about where america is today. It could say im a lousy candidate and didnt do a good job. Howie joining us now, Emily Compagno, gillian turner, a fox news correspondent and jon williams, cohost of the five. Emily, as i said, Savannah Guthrie coming out with fists up, first 20 minutes, challenging the president on his own covid19 infection, on questions about white supremacy, at one point likeening him to a crazy uncle. I happen to like aggressive president ial interviews. The question is about her tone. Were her tone and questions fair, in your view . I didnt think they were fair. They were under the guise of it being a town hall. The losers were the American People who were tuning into a town hall to look for questions and answers that they dont know yet. Insped, they were in instead, they were invited to a 20 minute sparring session. The losers were up, that lost out on the opportunity for valuable information. Howie it did look at times like Savannah Guthrie was debating President Trump. Do you think she was under a lot of pressure because some at nbc, msnbc liberals like ry rachel md maddow, as well as actors and show runners at nbc felt that the network shouldnt air the he debate at the same hour as abc, or airing ital all. We know some folks at the network didnt feel like it should be airing on their network, period. A quick note on savannahs performance, this was under the guise of a town hall. At the same time, everybody tuning in knew that these town halls were substituting for a president ial debate. I think Savannah Guthrie took that attitude on when she went with it. She said basically the moderator has a bigger role to play here. They have more responsibility to push back, to really probe these candidates because this is replacing a moment when the candidates themselves should be going head to head and Savannah Guthrie did that. Howie on that network, saturday night live depicted it as a wrestling match with gotly bashing Savannah Guthrie bashing alec baldwin over the head with a chair. How would you contrast this with George Stephanopoulos more passive approach on abc. I think she did elicit answers, with the president saying i dont know what qanon is, saying they dont like pedophilia. Is he negligent, not knowing what qanon is. When asked about the test before the first debate, his answer was maybe i did, maybe i didnt. What kind of answer is that . I think no one forced the president to do this town hall. He agreed to do the town hall and a he yo agreed to know it knowing that Savannah Guthrie was the host. So why play victim . Howie let me turn to abc. Stephanopoulos asked good, solid questions, mostly about policy as opposed to bidens credibility or character. He deferred to the audience, there were many more town hall questions, mostly friendly to biden. The only time stephanopoulos really followed up was when biden stuck with his relatively evasive stance about Court Packing, where he said earlier he wasnt a fan but he didnt go further. A lot of the questions were repetitive, questions to which we already heard the answer. I felt that we lost out in terms of the access of information. It was sort of like watching a really slow car moving down the road. And i thought the issue, you know, 180 degrees is not a correction. Thats positive. Meaning that the passive approach, it didn elicit thougl answers that we need for the voters that are listening, trying to decide. Howie abc, one of the town hall questioners selected by the network was a former Obama Administration speech writer, not identified as such. How can abc justify that and your take on the stephanopoulos style of questioning. I dont think that can be justified. I think you have to be clear. Ideally, you would of have poem there that were undecided voters. As for the style, Mercedes Schlapp said it was like mr. Rogers neighborhood. I think a lot of voters want a return to normal. If that was bidens intent to convey we can get back to normal, you can have a president that you can look up to and say to your children, this is the way to behave, i think that was pretty effective for biden. Howie doesnt this contrast everybody who wrote about this said wow, it was just a stark black and white, night and day difference. Doesnt it fuel the argument that the media are biased, that theyre determined not to give joe biden a particularly hard time . Yes. Civility is not mutually exclusive from thoughtful content so i dont believe that you dont need that you have to have a disrespectful or attacking or talking over one another forum to elicit difficult questions and thoughtful answers. I think you can have a respectful, thoughtful platform that elisits that content. A return to normal can include difficult questions that gets at the answers the American People deserve. Howie this was telling this is my own assessment. 90 of the clips that were played on all networks and websites and so forth after the dueling town halls were about trump, trumps controversial comments about this, that and the other thing, trump going up against savannah, once again suggests that even when you had the biden town hall thats 30 minutes longer, he continues to dominate the news. Thats what he does the best. Most of the last four years have been dominated by news about President Trump himself, what he writes, what he says, what he tweets, what he tells other people behind closed doors. A quick note on stephanopoulos, he went into this trying to contrast himself with the other town hall by appearing thoughtful. And sort of calm and contained and not sparring. But at the same time as emily says, still very big responsibility here for him to push back on Vice President biden and to probe him, because again, these were town halls substituting for president ial debates. Howie jon, on that point, i juan, on that point, not a single question from George Stephanopoulos on the hunter biden story. Even if you have problems with the story as reported by the New York Post, you would think you would want the former Vice President to have a chance to respond to it. Thats why i said, it was like a policy forum, nothing wrong with a policy forum but boy, very different from the absolute grilling that the president got on nbc. Well, two points. One, yes, it was different. But remember, and this was a surprise to me as someone involved with television, the biden town hall got better ratings than the trump town hall and i thought for sure trump is the more entertaining combative, interesting character so i thought for sure i dont know what it said that bidens show outdrew him. As to your second point, howie, i think when you look at the way that it was conducted, i think that lots of it those do with the two candidates themselves and so youre looking at two people who are different. I dont think that biden and trump are a similar personality. Howie thats the understatement of the decade, i think. And the slight edge for biden in the ratings was particularly striking because the nbc town hall was simulcast on msnbc and cnbc. As you mentioned, this was to be the night of the second debate, it was to be moderated by steve scully. He has been suspended by cspan. He posted on twitter a message to an aide turned fierce critic anthony scaramucci, how he should handle the criticism with President Trump. Lets look at him sitting down with the president last year. Do you think youre a uniter as president . If i got fair coverage, i wouldnt even half to tweet, respect for you and also the fact that you do a good job of covering. Then you look at this guy scully, he turned out to be a fraud. You look at scully, he was a nevertrumper. Howie cspan called it a serious mistake when scully claimed to have been hacked over the scaramucci mess average he told the ap message. He told the ap i falsely claimed i was hacked. They were errors in judgment. I apologize. Your take. I dont know that lying is the same thing as having an error in judgment, just to push back on that point. This is a classic case of the coverup being worse than the crime. Scully tweeted something rather than apologizing for it or correcting himself, he decided to double down with a boldfaced lie. Got caught. Shocked a lot of people. Disappointed a lot of people. I dont know where cspan goes from here with this. Howie my understanding is that scully felt leak he was unfairly beaten up for having had a six week internship in joe bidens mail room 42 years ago. It doesnt excuse lying. Still cant lie. Howie i was about to say that he felt this way, one of his kids was you attacked on social media and all of that reached a Tipping Point for him which he reacted emotionally and did commit the cardinal sin of lying. There is no question about that. Nobody is defending that, not even him. But it just shows you the kind of fres pressure you ask be undr when youre attacked over this longago internship. Time to get a break. When we come back, how are the media treating Amy Coney Barrett after her testimony blanketed the airwaves. And layer, Trump Campaign spokesman, hogan gidley. Memory, focus, accuracy, learning, and concentration. Try our new gummies for 30 days and see the difference. Transitions light under control. Upbeat music transitions signature gen 8, available now in 4 new style colors. Transitions. Howie in days of hearings, cared by the cable news networks, Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett was a highly poised witness as republicans praised her legal credentials and democrats tried in vain to get her to expose her views on abortion, gay rights and obamacare. Im not here on a mission to destroy the Affordable Care act. Im here to apply the law and adhere to the rule of law. You have the Trump AdministrationRepublican Attorney general are trying to kill the aca before the court. All the republicans act like your a psychopath if they bring up the fact they want to kill the aca, which they obviously want to do. Since democrats cant contest her qualifications or of match her intellect, they decided to launch a series of desperate attacks and smear attempts. Here a judicial nominee saying in writing i oppose abortion and roe versus wade is barbaric. These exposed the absolute hatred that defines this new radical and insain insane and ee socialist democratic party. She did it with a calm demeanor and solid command of facts without a single note in front of her. Howie some liberal media youths. Howieoutlets acting shocked and amazed that judge barrett would hint on her views, as if no Supreme Court nominee had ever done that before. Thats right. The Washington Post called it a pattern ofy vase iveness that she was evasiveness that she was committing. I saw it as respect for Ongoing Court cases and acknowledgement that if she were to comment on a hypothetical in these hearings, half the country would claim her for a certain ruling and she would have to recuse her c i think its dishonest for the senators that it doesnt behoove anyone for her to comment on this at all. Howie liberals have to admit that barrett was a knowledgeable and disciplined witness who didnt allow herself to be drawn into fire ease exchanges fiery exchanges with senators that could be replayed again and again on television. I think thats right. I think she her whole presentation with the family behind her was very effective and as youve said, i think she was pretty calm in responding. Now, let me say i differ on this point of evasiveness. I think she was very evasive. I think most nominees, democrats and republicans especially since bork in the late 80s have decided the way to go is not to say much. She went beyond that. On the privacy issue, griswold, going back to a 1965 decision, chief just at this time roberts, clarence thomas, alito, have said yes, we agree with that decision. Judge barrett wouldnt even talk about it. And she says no mans above the law. But she wont say oh, yeah, can President Trump pardon himself . Boy, that seemed very political. Howie all right. My point was that both democratic and republican nominees have engaged in certain versions of this. Gillian, i want to play a clip of Amy Coney Barrett talking about the impact of the no, nomination fight on her and her family. We knew that our lives would be combed over for any negative detail. We knew our faith would be carea character. We knew our family would be attacked. Howie the New York Times says she a super mom of, having seven kids which was talked about quite a bit, is now kind of an asset for women in public life who might otherwise be viewed as too ambitious. Yeah. I think she comported herself during that answer beautifully. When we look at specifically the coverage of the hearings, what really struck me was one of the ways i think a lot of journalists did her a disservice was by making the hearing about President Trump because of medias obsession, covering him 24 hours a day, to the exclusion of all else. This didnt give her a lot of room to try to stake out territory for herself. Constant references to the Affordable Care act, to other legislation that President Trump has in his crosshairs were legitimate but they didnt give her any room whatsoever and that i think was a disservice to her as a woman. Howie emily, on that point about obamacare, made me think about whether the media oversimplify these issues. Everything was like is she for or against the Affordable Care act. It turns the case for the Supreme Court on the severability, meaning is one part having been ruled unconstitutional, does that knock out the entire law. On that, her views are more nuanced. I think thats right. I think the senators oversimplified. They failed to make clear the difference between some of her prior rulings on procedural issues, whether the plaintiff had met its burden of proof. They were shrinkin sling ing so her. She calmly explained that in every specific case there was a specific reason why which i think those who are clamoring outside of the courthouse and the hearing room right now are failing to acknowledge, aca included. Howie some of the center wouldnt shut up, they gave speeches. What particularly upset liberals was judge barrett saying she wouldnt recuse herself from any post election challenge by the president who appointed her. Thats the big one. What upset the left is the rushed process and the fact that the president has made clear what he wants done on the Affordable Care act, what he wants done on abortion and he picked her. So you have to be kind of blind not to think oh, maybe this is a shes in there to do her job. Howie all right. Juan williams, Emily Compagno and gillian turner, thank you for joining us. Up next, twitter and facebook censors a New York Post story on hunter biden and that turns into a fiasco. Its still warm. Thanks, alice says hi. For some of us, our daily journey is a short one. Save 50 when you pay per mile with allstate. Pay less, when you drive less. Youve never been in better hands. Allstate. Click or call for a quote today. Howie two social media giants have gone to war with the Trump Campaign over a New York Post story alleging that hunter biden sent up a meeting with his dad while he was Vice President and Ukrainian Energy executives, based on emails obtained by rather odd of circumstances by Rudy Giuliani. Facebook limited distribution of the piece. Twitter barred users from sharing the story and locked the post account, accusing the paper of distributing hacked material. Twitter escalated by temporarily locking the Trump Campaigns account and Kayleigh Mcenanys personal account. Joining us now is griff jenkins. Griff, twitters ceo, jack dorsey, said the lack of explanation was unacceptable. Twitter backed off and said well allow hacked material as long as its not posted by the hackers, put a warning on it. It took two days to apply that to the story. Hotchow much of a black eye is s for at whic twitter. If jack dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg wanted to limit people wanting t to look at the story, it ended up amplify it. Twitter revised the story, saying theyll label questionable tweets and will no longeer remove hacked content. Thats what twitter said about it, that unless its directly shared by hackers or accomplices, they wont block it, theyll simply label it questionable. Now you have the judiciary committee, chairman lindsey graham, planning to subpoena them. So its going to theoretically get them, we dont have a date yet, but get here by the end of the week. Howie basically