This is a rush transcript from “MediaBuzz" October 4, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: This is a Fox News alert. We're awaiting an update on the president's health from Walter Reed Medical Center which you see there. We'll bring that to you, of course, live here on MEDIA BUZZ. I'm Howard Kurtz. And we'll talk to Trump's spokesman, Hogan Gidley, shortly.
It was the early morning tweet that stunned the world, froze the campaign, and consumed the media.
President Trump saying he and his wife have contracted the Coronavirus, remains hospitalized at Walter Reed. Kellyanne Conway, Hope Hicks, campaign manager Bill Stepien, three Republican senators, and Chris Christie also testing positive, along with three reporters, including Michael Shear of the New York Times. Many journalists raising questions about who knew what when, the impact on the election, and yes, chastising the president for not being more careful.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is more than understandable to be enraged at the president and at this White House for endangering all of the other people whose lives they have risked and squandered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They continue to put others at risk, not only by setting bad examples, not only by failing in the pandemic response, but now, quite literally, as carriers of the virus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fact that this even occurred is a damning indictment, and unfortunately kind of a we told you so reality.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is almost a nail in the coffin of his incompetence in handling the virus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Over at CNN, however, we're told again and again. The president deserved the sickness that he got, and they trotted out the usual hacks to explain why he deserved it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His mentality has been I'm an essential worker for the American people. I can't hide in the bunker. He can keep working. He will recover. He will test negative. He will move on. And the campaign will continue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: And a host of new questions about yesterday's hospital briefing, joining us to analyze the coverage, Mollie Hemmingway, senior editor at The Federalist and a Fox News contributor, in New York, Jedediah Bila, the co- host of Fox and Friends Weekend, and Clarence Page, columnist for The Chicago Tribune. I want to take a moment to wish the president and first lady a speedy recovery.
And Mollie, in light of this sad news, is it fair for journalists and commentators to pound away at the president's past downplaying of the virus or his mixed messaging on masks, or does that come across as insensitive?
MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: The media have responded to this news in a way that seems very inappropriate. The Virginia governor, the governor of my state, got Coronavirus recently, he and his wife did. He's an advocate of masks. He wears one all the time. He shut down the state.
And nobody said -- nobody drew any similarities between the way he ran his state and him getting that diagnosis or said, like, obviously these things don't matter.
Unfortunately, the media seem to be unable to leave aside their just unchecked hostility. This is a very important time for them to be reporting facts. Instead, they seem to be trying to drum up scandal, foment instability. And just in general, behave hysterically. It is very disappointing to see that they can't set aside that hatred even for a few days. And it comes through particularly loud and clear while the president is hospitalized.
KURTZ: Jedediah, you had the virus last spring. So with that in mind, I will ask. I think the key element here is the tone, and that there is an I told you so attitude, I think, that is creeping through a lot of the analysis and commentary, even if the people involved are reciting relevant facts.
JEDEDIAH BILA, FOX AND FRIENDS WEEKEND HOST: Yeah, I mean, you have to remember. Right now, the president has the virus. He's in the hospital. So this should be handled delicately, because it's a deadly virus. We've seen how many Americans die from this thing and many others get sick. So regardless, the media should be approaching it from that angle.
I would like to think that we still have some degree of compassion left in us. With that being said, I do think some of these conversations about rallies, about, for example, the Rose Garden ceremony where you now see eight people that have tested positive. Some of these conversations are important about the debate room, where you saw several people come out.
The debate prep for President Trump, several people have now tested positive. And you know that people were not wearing masks in there. These questions have to be answered because the goal here is prevention. The goal here is to prevent as much as we can, to prevent the spread of the virus.
So have you to be able to look at circumstances and learn from them.
And say maybe in hindsight this wasn't the best thing. There was a recent report that came out of about this rapid testing that was being used with respect to the Rose Garden, saying, well, that doesn't do so well at detecting people who aren't symptomatic. This is all valuable information.
So I think you have to tow the line. You don't want to say the president deserved it.
I mean, that's a ridiculous -- a heartless comment. But you also want to be able to look at these things objectively and say maybe some of these decisions haven't been so wise. Let's change them.
KURTZ: And that's why I say the tone is key. Clarence, Joe Biden has repeatedly expressed sympathy for the first family. But Nancy Pelosi, hours after we've learned of the diagnosis, said it's very sad, but going into crowds unmasked and all the rest was sort of a brazen invitation for something like this to happen. I didn't see the press accusing her of being partisan or piling on.
CLARENCE PAGE, CHICAGO TRIBUNE SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, I want to say, first of all, that in my weekend column, you can see that I prefaced my column by wishing the president and the first lady well, and pointing out that we only get one president at a time. And we should stand together as a nation. And maybe this awful problem will help to pull us together, ironically.
I find most journalists that -- I've seen responsible journalists outside of this sensationalist press had tried keep that same balance, wishing the president, while pointing out that the president did not only didnŸ_Tt wear a mask but ridiculed reporters and others who did. ThatŸ_Ts the kind of double message we've been getting from White House.
And looking forward, we all have a responsibility to say, hey, how did the virus spread in the White House? What kind of policies are they doing? How can we change them? That's our job.
KURTZ: All right. Let me -- with that in mind, let me play for you, Mollie, a snippet of Tuesday's debate in Cleveland. Didn't get that much attention at the time, but we can see why now it seems more relevant.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: I don't wear a mask like him. Every time you see him, he's got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from he, and he shows up with the biggest mask I've ever seen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: So the media are repeatedly making the mask-wearing and the mask- messaging a major issue. You mentioned Virginia Governor, Ralph Northam, getting the virus despite the fact that he always wore a mask. So do you think there's too much press attention to this question of masks?
HEMINGWAY: Just in general, I think the press take too much of a side on this issue of whether the response to the global pandemic is to shut down the country, ban children from schools, keep people from going to church, have people be masked constantly, versus this idea that you do want to, you know, respond with appropriate concern to the pandemic without destroying your life.
The media are clearly on the same side of this issue as Joe Biden, just as they are on the same side of every issue with Joe Biden. And that comes through loud and clear. There is a fundamental debate about how to respond to something like this, whether you put your entire country on hold, whether you, you know, stay in your house and you don't campaign, whether you, you know, who you think is essential and who you think is not or how you respond to these things.
And we have just not seen, in any way, a good debate on that topic within the media. They have all agreed that they think sort of drastic lockdowns and very serious measures, keeping children out of school, are the right thing to do, even though there is not a lot of scientific evidence in support of this, although they assert that there is.
KURTZ: Yeah. It's the primary debate in the country right now, I would say. Now, as we await the Walter Reed news conference, yesterday's session at Walter Reed drew a lot of controversy. The president's personal physician, Dr. Sean Conley, was asked repeatedly about whether the president had ever been on supplemental oxygen. Let's look at part of his answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Has he ever been on supplemental oxygen?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He -- right now, he is not. He is not on oxygen right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Jedediah, the AP later reported that President Trump actually had been on supplemental oxygen at the White House on Friday before going to the hospital. Now, Dr. Conley gave a generally upbeat assessment of the president's health, which came as a relief. But literally moments later, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, on background at the time.
But it's now been widely confirmed that it was in actually in video of him saying to reporters. I want to go off the record with some of you all, was not as optimistic, saying the president's vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning, and the next 48 hours would be critical, journalists now saying totally conflicting messages from these two different senior officials. And isn't that affair assessment in light of the way this played out yesterday?
BILA: Yeah. I mean, that is a fair assessment. And I myself was trying to follow this in real-time. And was having a -- it was challenging to figure out what was actually going on. That should not be the case. When it comes to something as important as the president's health, he's not like everybody else. He's not like every other private citizen in this country.
People are all plugged in. He's the leader of the free world. And I think people have a right to consistent information. And there's been an argument made. Well, some information is shielded initially. That's up to the administration. I actually really believe in full transparency on this issue. And there's a big difference between shielding certain information and providing contradictory information.
ThatŸ_Ts a problem. The media's job here is to figure what that information is to get a consistent message from the administration and the medical community thatŸ_Ts treating the president, and then disseminate that information. And I just -- I found, as a member of the media, it was even hard for me to do that yesterday, just look objectively. I didn't know what was true.
I had to sift through it. That's very, very problematic. And we saw even right from the start, Howie, when that timeline came out from the doctor.
He had to go back and correct it, because the initial timeline suggested that President Trump had been infected before he actually was. So this is all a problem. They need to really get on this. And in the future, they need to really do this right, right from the start.
KURTZ: Yeah. I was on the air yesterday after the Walter Reed news conference. And I noted that Dr. Conley had said 72 hours, the president had gotten the diagnosis 72 hours earlier, which was totally conflicted with the official announcement by the president on Twitter. And about 10 or
15 minutes after I noted that, Dr. Conley put out a clarification, saying he hadn't meant to say 72 hours. I think somebody might have been watching Fox.
Clarence, the White House is drawing flock -- flak, excuse me, for not disclosing that White House aide Hope Hicks had tested positive. That story was broken by Bloomberg's Jennifer Jacobs. We also have White House reporters saying that West Wing staffers, many of them routinely donŸ_Tt wear masks. Kelly Anne Conway, as I mentioned and a half dozen others, were at the event at the White House, many not wearing masks for Amy Coney Barrett, now testing positive.
Does the administration need to do a better job of putting out information and answering reporters' questions.
PAGE: Yes. And Howard, you and I have been through a number of crises like these. And you know what breaks out is what I call the fog of breaking news. We're still in that fog now for the last 48 hours. I think back to when President Ronald Reagan was taken to George Washington Hospital after having been shot. And he and his staff did a great job of covering up the fact that he had actually been shot and collapsed when once he got inside the hospital doors.
That came out later. This kind of thing happens. Our job is to try to find out what is really happening. And Trump tried to clarify it, because the secrecy is necessary when dealing with the president's security and the nation. It leads to conspiracy theories, et cetera, et cetera. We need to be as straightforward as we can. And one more word on masks, wear a mask, ladies and gentlemen.
Because look around the world. Why is this country behind everybody else in making masks a partisan issue?
KURTZ: I will endorse it. I was outside the hospital that Reagan was taken to, George Washington Hospital, when he was shot, and later was able to report that he had lost a lot of blood. It had not been disclosed on the way to the hospital. So, you know, these questions always come up. We have a brief time left, Mollie.
Leaks to news organizations about the impact on the campaign, an advisor telling the New York Times, a Trump advisor, political disaster, an advisor to Axios likely hurts Trump, points to the failure of his deep denial approach. These are his own people being quoted, but of course anonymous, Mollie.
HEMINGWAY: Yes. I don't think you need to be an anonymous source to know that this seriously disrupts all campaigning for both campaigns. In general, I find that prognostication by our pundits and reporters has been you abysmal for about the last five years. And they should have a little bit humility. They said four years ago that they knew how this campaign was going to go, that it was lights out for Trump, that there was no way he could defeat Hillary Clinton.
Now, they seem to be doing this again. Nobody has gone through something like this in the closing days of a campaign. They should just be calmer about it.
KURTZ: All right. Panel, we hope to have you back later. When we come back, Hogan Gidley, top spokesman for the Trump campaign, on the president, the press, the virus, and the election, and again, we are awaiting another news conference at Walter Reed Medical Center.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: How does President Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis affect the White House, the campaign, and the media coverage? Joining us now is Hogan Gidley, National Press Secretary of the Trump campaign, and the former Principal Deputy White House Press Secretary. Hogan, we all wish the president and the first lady a speedy recovery.
Much of the media are saying this hurts the campaign, not just because the candidate has to be quarantined and is off the trail for some period of time, but because it puts the pandemic, including his early downplaying of the virus, and the fact that he's battling it right now back at the top of the media agenda, your thoughts?
HOGAN GIDLEY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN NATIONAL PRESS SECRETARY: Well, a couple of things. First of all, I appreciate the kind words about the president. I know he's doing well. The video he released shows exactly the kind of leader he is. Even at Walter Reed, he is focused on making every single American life better. He's done so with his policies in the first four years of his term.
He's going of to do that in the next four years. I would quibble with, obviously, the characterization you just put forward about the president downplaying the virus. He was the only one taking this seriously. In fact, he mentioned it in the State of the Union you address. We all know what Nancy Pelosi did with that. She promptly tore it to shreds.
It was this president who shut down travel from China and from Europe. Joe Biden would not have done that. He said it was a bad move, said it was xenophobic, said it was fear mongering, said it was racist. And now, we know from Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, Dr. Hahn, Dr. Redfield, and others that that one move saved countless lives in this country.
So the president has taken leadership on this and just about every other issue he's faced, and you see the results. This country, while impacted greatly and negatively by this China virus, is better off than so many other places around the world because of this president's leadership.
KURTZ: All right. There's also a lot of videotape of the president saying early on he thought it would go away soon. But let me get to this.
Yesterday's news conference at Walter Reed, as we await today's addition, caused a lot of confusion and criticism. You had the president's personal physician, Dr. Sean Conley, not really giving a straight answer on whether he had received supplemental oxygen.
You had an upbeat assessment from the doctor. And as we've discussed moments ago, White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on background, saying that he was concerned about the president's vital signs over the previous 24 hours, next 48 hours will be crucial. You're a press secretary.
Doesn't this kind of conflicting and confusing information undermine credibility and make it hard for people to figure out how is their president doing?
GIDLEY: No. The president was very clear. He released his own video and talked about how he was doing. He was open and honest. You saw there was no teleprompter, no staffer handing him notes during the course of that video, which is more than I can say, of course, for Joe Biden. And look, the American people know that this president is in control of this country.
And the doctors came out. They clarified their statements as well. People know this president is facing a serious illness, just like so many Americans across this country. He's fighting it. But as he also said in that video, he can't stay locked up in a basement forever. This country can't stay shut down. We have to get back out. We have to get our economy back up and going again, people back to work.
Livelihoods matter. And when you have all of the death and destruction caused by this Coronavirus, and what China did to this country is unspeakable, what they have done and unleashed on the world. You need a leader in this time that not only fights this virus but fights back for the American people on all fronts. That's what this president has done. You saw that in the video.
KURTZ: Hogan, what's your reaction to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, saying the White House and president endangered people through risky behavior, and Nancy Pelosi saying the president's conduct was a brazen invitation for something like this to happen?
GIDLEY: Yeah. I'll tell you what I kind off of thought and found about some of the conversations in the mainstream media and quite frankly some mainstream Democrats. It's disgusting what they're saying about this president. When you have a speech writer -- a former speech writer for Hillary Clinton saying I hope he dies, when you have MSNBC -- I was looking, saying man, if Trump and Pence go down, that would be great, because then we can get Nancy Pelosi.
That doesn't bring anybody together in the country. You would think if the president of the United States, regardless of party, had any illness whatsoever, that the country could come together. The Democrats and the media, working in tandem as they always do, cannot help themselves. They don't like Joe Biden. They just hate Donald Trump.
And they're going to do everything they can in their power to get him out of office, even if that means saying disgusting, reprehensible things about someone who is fighting an illness and is sitting in Walter Reed right now, still running the country and still doing a better job behind the walls of that facility than Joe Biden ever did in 47 years of failure in elected office.
KURTZ: Well, let me add my disgust to the former official and anybody else on social media who is rooting against the president at a time when the country should be rooting for him. I got about a half a minute, though. You spoke to him last night. Tell me about that. And also, why didn't the White House reveal that Hope Hicks had tested positive?
And instead, this was broken by Bloomberg News, which made some people feel like the information was being held back?
GIDLEY: A couple of things. I obviously can't speak to what the White House is doing. I don't work there anymore. I know that they have the best doctors on the planet in that facility, looking out for everyone's health.
And I know that all the necessary precautions are taken every time someone is around the president. The people who are around him every day also have testing every single morning.
So I know they've taken all the proper measures to make sure the president is healthy.
KURTZ: -- in your conversation?
(CROSSTALK)
GIDLEY: And my conversation was really good. He was upbeat. He was making jokes. He was asking about the campaign, asking about policy. He's ready to get back on out on the trail and keep fighting for the American people, not just reminding them what he did the last four years and what he's going to do for the next four as well.
KURTZ: All right. Hogan, stick around. We'll talk to you on the other side of this, while we are awaiting a news conference at Walter Reed Medical Center with an update on the president's health.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: This is a Fox News alert. We are awaiting a news conference at Walter Reed Medical Center with an update on President Trump's health. That now scheduled to begin shortly. We'll bring it to you. And we're back in the meantime with Trump campaign's Hogan Gidley. Let me take you back to the debate, because the president, as you know, has been portrayed as having blown up that debate.
As having shattered the rules, undermined democracy, and all that, fusing to stop interrupting Joe Biden who interrupted at times as well, your reaction to that coverage, and in light of the president's illness, do you believe at this point the other two debates will take place?
GIDLEY: I think they will. I hope they will. But, you know, Joe Biden back in 2012 interrupted Paul Ryan 82 times. We expected that to happen. It was actually Joe Biden who interrupted this president first. It was in his second answer. No one talks about that. So it was game on from then. The president is a counter-puncher. And you think he's aggressive?
You better believe this president is aggressive. He's bold. He's decisive.
ThatŸ_Ts why this president was able to get hostages back that Joe Biden could never get back. That's why this president was able to get trade deals that benefited American workers. Joe Biden could never do that. That's why this president's attitude and his style, able to do so many things towards the way of peace deals around the world, making this world a safer place.
Joe Biden could never do that. So are there people out there who may or may not like every single tweet? Perhaps, but the fact is the results that this president has been able to deliver to the American people, regardless of race, religion, color, or creed, speak for themselves. Joe Biden could never do any of this, and he has a 47-year career of failure to prove my point.
KURTZ: All right. Just for the record, our Fox News analysis said the president interrupted either his opponent or Chris Wallace, moderator, 145 times to Biden's 67 interruptions. But the media have really continued to hammer the president, as you know, about his response to Chris Wallace's question about condemning white supremacists.
Now, I know, as you're going to remind me, that three times the president said sure, but he didn't issue at that time a simple declarative sentence.
In fairness, Thursday night, he went on -- he called into Sean Hannity's show. He said I condemn white supremacists. I condemn the KKK. I condemn the Proud Boys. Why didn't he do that at the debate?
GIDLEY: He did it at the debate. You just said so, three times in one question. The media just keep trying to drive this narrative, because they know that Joe Biden and the Democrats are hemorrhaging African-American voters. President Trump came in and said what do you have to lose? And he delivered for the black community.
Something Joe Biden hasn't been able to accomplish in his 47 years, nearly half of the century, and nothing to show for it in the African-American community. African-Americans are coming onto this campaign, because the president not only passed criminal justice reform, something Joe Biden didn't do. This president also made sure that the KKK was going to be prosecuted as a terrorist organization, something Joe Biden didn't do.
This president got record high employment for African-Americans, as well.
Joe Biden talks a good game, but he's been an abject failure at every level of government. And nowhere is that more obvious than what the African- American community. So I understand why they're trying to push this narrative. But the president has absolutely condemned white supremacists at every single turn.
He's done it multiple times. But you notice Joe Biden won't condemn Antifa.
In fact, he calls it a set of ideas, because he knows those people rioting, looting, smashing in store fronts, burning down churches, are all with his supporters. So he doesn't want to risk offending those who are destroying this nation and causing death and destruction in our cities because it would hurt him at the ballot box.
KURTZ: All right. Hogan, I have to interrupt because I want to give you the floor. I've got about half a minute for this last question. At a rally in Minnesota, the president said the media outlets are cheering violent demonstrations in the streets. He said CNN, New York Times. They think rioting is just OK. You can do whatever you want. Do you believe -- does he really believe that news organizations think rioting is OK?
GIDLEY: Yeah. It's not a question -- you should be posing the mayor to the president. You should be posing this to the rest of the media. This is MEDIA BUZZ --
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: I am posing it to you.
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: I'm quoting the president's words
GIDLEY: Yeah. It's not the question you should be posting to me or to the president. You should be posting it to the rest of the media. This is MEDIA BUZZ. That is why --
HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS HOST: I am posing it to you. I'm quoting --
GIDLEY: But I'm saying --
KURTZ: I'm quoting the president's words, talking about the media.
GIDLEY: Correct. But it's -- right. But it's the media out there making excuses for those who are ravaging our cities, who are putting our American families at risk or putting jobs at risk, and who are literally causing billions of dollars-worth of destruction in cities and towns, hurting our cops, targeting them for death. That's what the left is doing and the mainstream media isn't saying a word about it. Go look around --
KURTZ: All right.
GIDLEY: -- what's happening in all of these places. They're not Donald Trump supporters. These are folks who support Joe Biden, who support the mainstream media, so the media in turn is giving cover to both.
KURTZ: Hogan Gidley, we appreciate you being on. Thanks very much for joining us this Sunday.
GIDLEY: Thanks so much.
KURTZ: It's not clear whether the president being in quarantine over
COVID-19 will wipe out the next two debates. This is after the Cleveland face-off that Politico called an epic moment of national shame and an embarrassment for the ages.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That was a hot mess inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck. That was the worst debate I have ever seen. It wasn't even a debate. It was a disgrace.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That was (bleep) show. And, you know, we're on cable. We can say that, apologies for being maybe a little crude.
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: It was a painful, highly depressing 90 minutes. Biden did not seem senile. If you tuned in, expected him to forget his own name, and honestly we did expect that, you may have been surprised by how precise some of his answers were.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: A tsunami of criticism followed a debate dominated by constant interruption from President Trump, prompting Joe Biden to keep breaking as well, despite repeated rebukes from moderator Chris Wallace and endless instances of people talking over each other.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: I'm the moderator of this debate. I would like you to let me ask my question, and then you can answer. Mr. President, can you let him finish, sir? I have to give you roughly equal time. Please let the vice president talk. I think that the country would be better served if we allowed both people to speak with fewer interruptions. I'm appealing to you, sir, to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: And we're back with the panel. Mollie Hemingway, the media as you know -- by the way, that may be the only debate we get to see. I hope not.
The media have been eviscerating President Trump over his conduct at that debate. Fair or unfair, in your view?
MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, SENIOR EDITOR AT THE FEDERALIST SENIOR JOURNALISM FELLOW AT HILLSDALE COLLEGE: I certainly hope that we get to see more debates. The media keep pushing not to have debates. I don't think they understand how important they are to the American people.
This narrative though that this was Trump interrupting, certainly he was interrupting, but it is important to note that he was not the first person to interrupt or the first person to interrupt repeatedly. In his second question, he was interrupted three times by Joe Biden. And then we had a moderator -- you know, we had moderation that was trying to keep control of the debate.
I think it would have been good just if we could have more -- we clearly need to do something to just enable the candidates to speak to each other.
I think partly the media were frustrated that Joe Biden hadn't been able to dominate in that same way that he did in 2012 when he debated Paul Ryan and he just interrupted him constantly. The media liked that when that happened. They didn't seem to like it when there were interruptions here.
KURTZ: All right. Jedediah, certainly Joe Biden did some share of interrupting. He called the president a fool and a clown and said will you shut up, man, which is now a campaign t-shirt.
But when the press said that the president was trampling the rules even during the two minutes when you you're supposed to have an uninterrupted time on the stage to give your first answer, was that backed up by what we all saw? It was sort of unwatchable at times.
JEDEDIAH BILA, AUTHOR, FOX AND FRIENDS WEEKEND CO-HOST: Yeah. I mean, people have done the math on this and shown that President Trump interrupted far more. Did they both interrupt each other? Yes. Was there poor behavior on both parts at times? Absolutely.
If I were Chris Wallace, I would have really wanted to be able to cut the mics. It left me feeling like the debate moderator should be able to cut the mics. Chris Wallace wasn't sent out there to be a hall monitor for a bunch of third graders. He was sent there to moderate a presidential debate.
If you agree to the debate rules ahead of time and this goes for both parties, then you should be held to that standard. They are two adults.
They should have followed the rules. What it prevented was people hearing about policy.
You know, I have to say, you know, President Trump has to watch his tone sometimes. I think Joe Biden does, as well. People are there for the meat of the matter there. They want to hear you talk about health care, how you're going to lower their costs, what you're going to do about their taxes.
They're trying to figure out who to vote for here and to look like you're dealing with two people who were toddlers. I mean, that is just not a good situation. It left a lot of people with a really bad taste in their mouth.
I would say though --
KURTZ: Yeah, that was --
BILA: I think Joe Biden just wound up with the advantage because, just one point, Howie, he made that effort to look directly into the camera and to appeal to people's emotions.
Right now, this is a very emotional time with COVID-19, with violence in the streets, with the racial divide being what it is. I think people's emotions are high, and I think that that was a winning strategy that he employed.
KURTZ: Well, there was some substance in the debate. But, of course, it got completely sort of drowned out by the insults and interruptions. In fact, it was a frustrating night obviously for my Fox News colleague, Chris Wallace. Here's what he had to say afterwards with Bill Hemmer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: And it was on my, you kno, 45 minutes in that I realized what a -
- just a total mess and disservice this was to the country and to try to stop it. Do I wish I had stepped in earlier? Yes. But as i say, hindsight is 20/20.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Clarence, the president's argument is that he had to debate both Chris Wallace and Joe Biden. What Chris Wallace was trying to do, what he says he was trying to do is just enforce the rules. Obviously, at one point, he called to halt the debate to try to get better decorum and it basically didn't work.
CLARENCE PAGE, COLUMNIST AND EDITORIAL WRITER, CHICAGO TRIBUNE: Howard, as a veteran of the Middletown High School debate team in Ohio, I was appalled. This was not a debate. It was a debacle. You got a big shouting match that broke down in two and it didn't serve anybody's purposes very well.
I was most surprised with President Trump who normally is very conscious of how an audience thinks and feels, somehow thought that by yelling at Joe Biden and interrupting, he was going to expand his base. No.
Right now is a time when President Trump needs to be able to reach out to those people who are the undecided voters, that 15 percent out there or whatever that's still undecided and most of those I talked to just thought a pox on both their houses, it was a big hot mess.
KURTZ: Well, Mollie, Jedediah referenced the idea of should the moderator be able to cut off somebody's mic if they're flagrantly trampling the rules. The Commission on Presidential Debates is considering that if there are two more debates, which we hope there are.
But at the same time, the president and his team, his campaign team have ripped the commission, saying they're siding with Joe Biden and he won the debate and he doesn't want to change the rules in the middle of the game, so it's not clear how that will play out.
HEMINGWAY: Yeah, changing rules in the middle of a campaign seems unwise.
There are a couple of issue here though. One is that there are a lot of things that the media just refused to talk to Joe Biden about and the only person in the entire country who might be able to press Joe Biden on those things is Donald Trump. So if he is constrained from being able to ask his opponent questions that the media refuse to ask, that is a pretty big liability against him.
More than that, I think it's very much time for us to update how we do debates. There had been a flurry of pushing for Joe Rogan to moderate the debate, not because he's particularly like a policy wonk or has experience doing anything like that, but he does an interview style where he actually tries to get at what people really believe without judgment.
And I think that there needs to be something to really update this. It's not doing what it's supposed to do and it's not serving the American people or just let the two candidates kind of talk to each other and go at each other and ask the questions --
KURTZ: Right.
HEMINGWAY: -- they want to ask.
KURTZ: All right. As we await the news conference at Walter Reed, we want to move on to what would have been our next segment, if I can ask the control room to play the sound, showing the question that Chris Wallace asked about white supremacists. We discussed this with Hogan Gidley and the reaction from some in the media.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Who would you like me to condemn?
WALLACE: White supremacists and right (ph) --
TRUMP: The Proud Boys. Stand back and stand by. But I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about Antifa.
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
OFFICIAL:
Number one, Donald Trump refused to condemn white supremacy. Number two, the president of the United States refused to condemn white supremacy.
PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: It was not a mistake. It was intentional. Mr. Trump intentionally is stoking a neo- fascist organization to commit violence.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: I guess being against white supremacy and saying, of course, I'm for peace, that question has been asked and answered a thousand times, yet the press obsesses over it when they can't challenge him on his results.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Clarence, the president certainly says he's answered the question many times. The media consensus is that his answer or limited answer was created the media firestorm. But now that he has done it in the interview with Sean Hannity, is it time for the media to move on from this question?
HEMINGWAY: He has done it over and over.
PAGE: No, not as long as you have a lot of Americans, like me, who lose sleep at night over the fact that they've got a president in the White House who is soft on Proud Boys and these other right-wing extremist groups.
It seems by impulse and by his instinct to gravitate away from really criticizing people who support him, even if they come from that fringe. I think this is a question that's on people's minds and they're not going to give it up.
KURTZ: All right. There's a lot more to say about this. I'm going to ask you to stand by, panel. We're looking at the live picture of Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. The president is going to -- the president's doctors and the medical team at Walter Reed will be coming out to give the latest update on the president's health.
Yesterday's news conference created a lot of confusion. I am sure they would like to have a very simple, clear update on the medical condition of the president. Is he improving? Mark Meadows went on Judge Jeanine last night and said -- he says remarkable improvements. We will see that in just a moment as we wait for this news conference to begin.
Let us pause one moment now for Fox stations across the country to join us.
This is Fox News coverage on Howard Kurtz in Washington. We are looking at Walter Reed National Medical Center where President Trump's medical team is giving an update on his condition. We see the doctors in their white coats coming out now to the microphones. They will typically make an opening statement and then take some questions from reporters. We are all very anxious to hear about the president's condition. Let's listen in.
SEAN CONLEY, PHYSICIAN TO THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everyone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Good morning.
CONLEY: Since we spoke last, the president has continued to improve. As with any illness, there are frequent ups and downs over the course, particularly when a patient is being so closely watched 24 hours a day.
We review and debate every finding, compare to existing science and literature, weighing the risks and benefits of every intervention, the timing, as well as any potential impacts a delay may have.
Over the course of his illness, the president has experienced two episodes of transient drops in his oxygen saturation. We debated the reasons for this and whether we would even intervene. It is a determination of the team based predominantly on the timeline from the initial diagnosis that we initiate dexamethasone.
I would like to take this opportunity now, given some speculation over the course of the illness, the last couple days, update you on the course of his illness. Thursday night into Friday morning when I left the bedside, the president was doing well with only mild symptoms and his oxygen was in the high 90s.
Late Friday morning, when I returned to the bedside, the president had a high fever and his oxygen saturation was transiently dipping below 94 percent. Given these two developments, I was concerned for possible rapid progression of the illness.
I recommended the president we try supplemental oxygen, see how he would respond. He was fairly adamant that he didn't need it. He was not short of breath. He was tired, had the fever and that was about it. After about a minute, on only two liters, his saturation levels were back over 95 percent. He stayed on that for about an hour, maybe, and was off and gone.
Later that day, by the time the team here was at the bedside, the president had been up out of bed, moving about the residence, with only mild symptoms. Despite this, everyone agreed the best course of action was to move to Walter Reed for more thorough evaluation and monitoring. I would like to invite up Dr. Dooley to discuss the current plan.
SEAN DOOLEY, WALTER REED MEDICAL CENTER: Thank you, Dr. Conley. Before I begin a brief clinical update on the president's condition, I do want to reiterate my comments from yesterday regarding how proud I am to be a part of this multidisciplinary -- multi-institutional team of clinical professionals behind me and what an honor it is to care for the president here at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Regarding his clinical status, the patient continues to improve. He has remained without fever since Friday morning. His vital signs are stable.
From a pulmonary standpoint, he remains on room air this morning and is not complaining of shortness of breath or other significant respiratory symptoms.
He is ambulating himself, walking around the White House medical unit without limitation or disability. Our continued monitoring of his cardiac, liver, and kidney function demonstrates continued normal findings or improving findings.
I'll now turn it over to Dr. Garibaldi from Johns Hopkins to talk about our therapeutics and again our plan for today.
BRIAN GARIBALDI, WALTER REED MEDICAL CENTER: Thank you, Dr. Dooley. I wanted to again reiterate what an honor and privilege it is to take care of the president and be part of such a talented and multidisciplinary team here at Walter Reed.
The president yesterday evening completed his second dose of remdesivir.
He's tolerated that infusion well. We have been monitoring for any potential side effects. He has had none that we can tell. His liver and kidney functions have remained normal. We continue to plan to use a five- day course of remdesivir.
In response to transient low oxygen levels, as Dr. Conley has discussed, we did initiate dexamethasone therapy and he received his first dose of that yesterday. Our plan is to continue that for the time being.
Today, he feels well. He's been up and around. Our plan is to have him to eat and drink, be up out of bed as much as possible to be mobile. If he continues to look and feel as well as he does today, our hope is that we can plan for a discharge as early as tomorrow to the White House where he can continue his treatment course. Thank you very much. I'll turn it over to Dr. Conley for any questions.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Dr. Conley --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Just a moment, please.
CONLEY: The president wanted me to share how proud he is of the group, what an honor it is for him to be receiving his care here at Walter Reed, surrounded by such incredible talent, academic leaders, department chairs, internationally-renowned researchers and clinicians, including the support of Dr. Garibaldi from Johns Hopkins.
I like to reiterate how pleased we all are to the president's recovery.
With that, I will take your questions.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Dr. Conley, you said there were two instances where he had drops in oxygen. Can you walk us through the second one? And also, I've got a question for the lung specialist afterwards.
CONLEY: Yeah. Yesterday, there was another episode where he dropped down
93 percent. He didn't ever feel short of breath. We watched it and it returned back up. As I said, we evaluate all of these and given the timeline where he is in the course of illness.
We were trying to maximize everything that we could do for him. We debated whether we would even start it, the dexamethasone. And we decided that in this case, the potential benefits early on the course probably outweighed any risks at this time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Did you give him a second round of supplemental oxygen yesterday?
CONLEY: I would have to check with the nursing staff. I don't think that -
- if he did, it was very limited. But he's not on oxygen and the only oxygen that I ordered, that we provided was that Friday morning initially.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): And what time was that yesterday?
CONLEY: Yesterday -- what was yesterday?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): The second incidence.
CONLEY: The second incidence? It was over the course of the day, yeah, yesterday morning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Dr. Conley, the president's current blood oxygen levels, that's my first question to you, Dr. Conley.
CONLEY: Ninety-eight percent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): What did the x-rays and CT scans show? Are there signs of pneumonia? Are there signs of lung involvement or any damage to the lungs?
CONLEY: Yes, they were tracking all of that. There are some expected findings but nothing of any major clinical concern.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Why start him, Dr. Conley on the --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Dr. Conley, I would to ask if his oxygen level ever dip below 90.
CONLEY: We don't have any recordings here of that. That's right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): The dexamethasone --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Yeah, what about here? At the White House or here, anything below 90, just to follow up on her question.
CONLEY: No, it was below 94 percent. It wasn't the down in the low 80s or anything, no.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): OK. So the dexamethasone -- the steroids, sir, on the lung function --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Yesterday, you told us that the president was in great shape, had been in good shape and fever-free for the previous 24 hours. Minutes after your press conference, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told reporters that the president's vitals were very concerning over the past 24 hours. Simple question for the American people, whose statements about the president's health should be believed?
CONLEY: So, the chief and I work side-by-side. I think his statement was misconstrued. What he meant was that 24 hours ago, when he and I were checking on the president, that there was that momentary episode of a high fever and that temporary drop in the saturation, which prompted us to act expediently to move him up here.
Fortunately, that was really a very transient limited episode. Couple of hours later, he was back up, mild again. I'm not going to speculate what that limited episode was about so early in the course, but he's doing well.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): What are the expected findings on his lungs and why is the president not wearing a mask in the videos and photos that have been released?
CONLEY: Well, the president is wearing a mask any time he's around us and we're all wearing our N-95s, full PPE. He's the patient and when we can -- when he'll move out into public, we move him about out and around other people that aren't in full PPE, sure -- as long as he's under my care, we will talk about him wearing a mask.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): And he is in negative pressure room? Is the room in negative pressure?
CONLEY: I'm not going to get into specifics of his care.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Can you answer the question on the lung function, the lung function question, Dr. Conley?
CONLEY: I'm sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): The lung function question. Can you talk about that and what is expected --
CONLEY: I would share that like every patient, we perform lung spirometry on him. He's maxing it out. We told him, see what you can do, and it's over
2500 milliters each time. He's doing great.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Are there scans showing any irregularities in his lungs? Are there any --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Dr. Conley, why were you so reluctant until today to disclose that the president had been administered oxygen?
CONLEY: I will take your question.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Thank you.
CONLEY: I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, his course of illness has had. I didn't want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction.
And in doing so, it came off that we were trying to hide something which wasn't necessarily true. There you have it.
He is -- the fact of the matter is that he's doing really well. He is responding. And as the team said, if everything continues to go well, we're going to start discharge planning back to the White House. That's it. Thank you, folks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Dr. Conley, on his lung scans --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): You did this yesterday. Can you please explain what you found on the lung scans?
KURTZ: Some good news. As we just heard from doctors at Walter Reed National Medical Center, President Trump's condition as he battles the coronavirus said to be continuing to improve. He is in very good shape, according to the doctors.
Dr. Sean Conley, the president's personal physician, much more explicit at this news conference, saying that late Friday morning the president developed a high fever. His oxygen level dipped below 94 percent. That is considered a key benchmark for whether you need supplemental oxygen.
Dr. Conley said he recommended that oxygen. The president said he didn't feel that he needed it. Nevertheless, it was administered. He also said that -- in a tone of regret, I think that Dr. Conley said that he had been trying to convey an upbeat attitude yesterday. It came off. It was not his intent that the president -- that they were trying to hide something, that certainly was not his intent.
I think today's session was more effective at clearly communicating the state of the president's health, and as I say, very good news, much more upbeat reception and much more definitive reception.
Please stay tuned to this Fox News channel and this Fox station for continuing coverage of this story. I'm Howard Kurtz in Washington.
And we're back with our Fox News audience and back with the panel. I want to go around briefly to everybody on what we just heard. It was interesting to me that suddenly we're hearing specifics about the levels of oxygen, all questions that Dr. Conley had declined to answer yesterday.
I think perhaps there was a reassessment of how forthcoming to be or how detailed to be with the American public. Mollie Hemingway, quick thought.
HEMINGWAY: I think it's very good to be as transparent as possible, something the American people need to know. Also, the media need to stop acting like a pack of hyenas about this asking -- the way that they demand the level of detail for President Trump in a way that they completely didn't with Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she was dying of cancer or in the way that they ask no questions about Joe Biden's cognitive decline or other issues he's dealing with.
We can see the disparity and that hostility really come through and it's not good for this time.
KURTZ: Let me now bring in Philippe Reines, former State Department official under Hillary Clinton. You had been standing by. You heard the news conference. You heard yesterday's news conference, I am sure, or read about it. What do you think of Mollie Hemingway saying reporters are acting like a pack of hyenas? What they're to do is get some answers, in my view, about what is the state of president's health.
PHILIPPE REINES, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAAL UNDER HILLARY CLINTON:
I agree, Howie. I mean, it is never good when half of a medical press conference is spent on correcting your tone of voice and how you presented information yesterday.
If I heard him right, the president was on oxygen two days ago and that's something that they omitted yesterday. Now, if reporters are pressing him, god forbid reporters should ask follow-ups, because the first answers are always we are so proud to be part of the team, the president wanted to tell us.
Mollie, if it was Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton, you would not be upset about how hard the press is asking. The press took the Trump campaign's lead and wants to know if Joe Biden would take some sort of add your analysis or inspection of his ears.
You can't possibly say that they are out of line, especially since the Trump campaign, the Trump White House, and Donald Trump's credibility on medical information is about as low as you get. I will say that one thing that he suffers from on top of all this is micromania (ph) as does Hogan Gidley.
Hogan Gidley, I am (ph) with him for a moment, Hogan Gidley said -- there he is and we can't. He's the kind of leader that won't wear a mask. We know it. He's someone who dictated his own --
KURTZ: All right. Philippe, I got to break in. I got to break in. I want to give Mollie a brief chance to respond. I want to see if I can get to our other guests. Mollie?
HEMINGWAY: I absolutely think that the medical team should be as transparent as possible. It is also true that the media should have the same standards for how they cover health issues for all people, regardless of their personal hatred and loathing for the president which comes true loud and clear.
REINES: Mollie, one of them is in the hospital and one of them isn't.
(LAUGHTER)
REINES: It is a false equivalency. If Donald Trump is in the hospital, if the commander-in-chief is taken to Walter Reed, then it is legitimate to ask then a separate set of questions, especially when you're making the doctors available and especially when the doctors are been contradicted by the own White House chief of staff. I mean, this is not the media. This is Mark Meadows saying one thing on background.
KURTZ: All right. I got to break in. My apologies, I have to break in one more time. Let me get a wrap now from Jedediah Bila. Dr. Conley is saying I was trying to reflect an upbeat attitude of the team yesterday. A little bit of a walk-back there perhaps?
BILA: Yeah, a bit of a walk-back for sure. I think that the doctors handled it much better today, no question, probably listening to people's feedback and deciding that they needed to be more transparent.
When it comes to the questions, if you've had this virus, these questions are fair, and the reason is, when you get this virus, all you're told to do is monitor your oxygen, by the hour sometimes, and you do get odd symptoms of chest tightness. That is what you're told, your oxygen saturation is key in terms of what will happen in your body for the next few days.
So I didn't find that questioning to be too invasive from media. I think it is pivotal to know that if the oxygen dropped, how much it dropped. I also say, this is going to be something we are going to follow for several weeks. This isn't going to be, you know, a few days and it is done because
--
KURTZ: Yup.
BILA: -- we now know there are long haul of people who are suffering from COVID for many weeks.
KURTZ: All right.
BILA: Some symptoms --
(CROSSTALK)
BILA: So, let's just be aware of that.
KURTZ: I am sorry. We are out of time. As usual, we have -- Philippe, as usual, we have -- as usual, we have conflicting opinions on this show. I'm Howard Kurtz. Thanks for watching. There will be continuing coverage of this. I'm glad we got the good news from today's briefing and obviously the story will continue. We will stay on it. We'll see you next Sunday with more MEDIA BUZZ.
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