‘MediaBuzz’ on press coverage of Afghanistan, Cuomo

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Media rip Biden over Afghanistan

As Taliban quickly march into Kabul

This is a rush transcript from "Media Buzz," August 15, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS HOST (on camera): I am really out of patience and I'll tell you why. President Biden for months has been describing the battle against COVID in military terms.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That's why I'm using every power I have as president of the United States to put us on a war footing to get the job done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): A war footing, then why isn't he acting like a four- star general? Why hasn't he ordered the Pentagon to begin vaccinations for its vast workforce, especially American soldiers around the globe? Why isn't the press challenging him on this?

After weeks of study, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin now says the mandate will begin oh, in mid-September. Yet "The New York Times" reports Austin pressed Biden for an immediate start and the president bought (ph). Whether you like mandates or not, why isn't that a bigger story? Publicly, General Austin says the hang up is that the FDA still hasn't permanently approved the vaccines.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I think most people are worried. That's why I'm hoping that the FDA will say that we permanently approve of these vaccines.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): But the FDA has been foot-dragging for months, even though it's just fine with over 160 million Americans having gotten full doses. Anthony Fauci says the emergency approval is just a technicality, but it's deterring many people from getting these vaccines.

Now, nobody is saying Biden should overrule the FDA on science, but can he press the slow-moving bureaucrats? He hasn't even nominated an FDA commissioner to speed up what they plan to do anyway. The media should be asking these questions every day, especially in a wartime situation.

I'm Howard Kurtz and this is "Media Buzz."

The lightning quick collapse of the Afghan military as the Taliban marched into Kabul today as U.S. official tells Fox that President Ashraf Ghani fled the country has stunned everyone from the media and war experts to the Biden administration and Congress.

As Taliban forces seize one provincial capital after another while President Biden was completing the withdrawal of U.S. troops, reporters kept pressing for answers, including Fox's Lucas Tomlinson, who challenged Pentagon's spokesman John Kirby on Friday for insisting the Afghan military still had the upper hand.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN (voice-over): You're saying that they have all the advantages as they're getting crushed on the battlefield. It makes no sense to say they have the advantage. The Taliban appeared to have all the advantages right now.

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Lucas, I appreciate the effort again. They have greater numbers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Well, Lucas was right, the debate on the airwaves after 20 years and an American withdrawal negotiated by Donald Trump, did Joe Biden do the right thing?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: It's chaos. Well, you see how unprepared the Biden administration was for the utter collapse of the Afghan army and the government and the infrastructure.

GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT-AT-LARGE: On the issue of whether or not Biden should have continued to deploy thousands of American combat forces in Afghanistan, I think the answer is absolutely not. This was trillion-dollar social science experiment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now to analyze the coverage in New York, Will Cain, the host of "Fox & Friends Weekend" and also hosting "Fox News Primetime," 7:00 Eastern this week. And Leslie Marshall in Los Angeles, radio talk show host and Fox News contributor.

Will, President Biden had to order 5,000 troops back to the country to evacuate the embassy in Kabul. He thought he had a month or two months. It turns out it's today. The media foreign policy establishment isn't ripping President Biden. Do you think that much of the press is basically more hawkish than the country when it comes to these endless wars?

WILL CAIN, FOX NEWS HOST: Yes, I do think the press is more hawkish than the American public when it comes to these endless wars but I think the issue of the endless wars and how to exit the endless wars are two separate issues to analyze.

First of all, should we be in Afghanistan? That is a question we've been asking for two decades. It has spanned four presidential administrations. The plan to leave Afghanistan has been in place both under President Trump and President Biden. But then gets to the issue of the day. How do you leave? When do you leave? Under what circumstances do you leave?

I think it wouldn't be a partisan. It would simply be objective truth telling to say that the Biden administration absolutely fumbled this. I mean, there is being reactionary, there is bad predictions. A month ago, the Biden administration was saying no, the Afghan national army is not the North Vietnamese or rather the South Vietnamese --

KURTZ: Yeah.

CAIN: -- army. They're much more prepared to face the Taliban than the South Vietnamese were prepared to face the North Vietnamese. They were not predicting this would happen. They moved the timetable, Howie. They moved it continuously. So they've been reactionary, they've been ill-prepared.

And that has a cost, by the way. Really quickly, that has a cost, that's all of the interpreters, the translators, the Afghans that helped the Americans to the last two decades. They'll be the ones that pay the price in the coming weeks.

KURTZ: It is a mess. And Leslie, President Biden owns this because he's the commander in chief. But at the same time, you don't have the usual left, right split because of President Trump's involvement in negotiating with the Taliban, a withdrawal that was supposed to take place in May. Does that make it harder for media conservatives and retired generals to push all the blame on to Biden?

LESLIE MARSHALL, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Yes, it does. And I would say going on vacation tomorrow, Will, I agree with you first point that the media is more hawkish on this. I mean, Howie, when you look at the polls, Americans largely favor pulling out of Afghanistan. We have been there, as Will cited correctly, for two decades.

And in addition to that, when you just look at what is top of mind for voters, Afghanistan is not even on the radar. What is on the radar and what was quite frankly during the Trump administration was America first? Since the pandemic, it's America first even more.

You can't -- many American voters feel focus on -- the Biden administration, they feel -- or our elected officials focused on the economy and COVID, if they're worrying about Afghanistan.

Look, whether you agree or of disagree with President Biden, I think many of us didn't expect how fast the Taliban would come up to power. The president has said they need to fight for themselves. And if you look at -- again, if you look at what's happening in Afghanistan, you know, at some point, this was going to be inevitable.

KURTZ: Yeah.

MARSHALL: Do we continue to teach them to fish or do we give them the fish or teach them to fish? I think the latter is what the Biden administration wants to do, obviously, not expecting how fast the Taliban would rise up.

KURTZ: Yes, because the Afghan military basically didn't fight. That's why much of the country quickly fell. Let me get to statements by two presidents. President Biden saying he inherited this withdrawal from Donald Trump who invited the Taliban to Camp David back in 2019. There was a lot of criticism that never happened.

Statement -- put it up, please. One more year, or five more years, says Biden, of U.S. military presence wouldn't have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country. And an endless American presence in the middle of another country's civil conflict was not acceptable to me.

Will, CNN's Jake Tapper this morning says it seems shocking President Biden could have been so wrong, saying six weeks ago the collapse was highly unlikely. But Biden makes the case that what's the point of staying and investing more and more American treasure.

CAIN: Yeah, but that's to that greater question, the one that apparently there's some agreement between Leslie and I, between President Biden and President Trump, between I think Americans of all stripes and all political persuasions. And that is do we want to have an endless presence in Afghanistan.

And by the way, whatever my opinion might be on that, I have it with some humility because of how complicated this entire issue is. We don't want to be in the exercise of nation building. We can't have more will for freedom than the Afghan people do. We can't indulge a military industrial complex that has profited on two decades of war.

But at the same time, we do need to make sure that the war on terror is something that remains overseas and not here at home. So I have my opinion with some humility. What my position is, though, it's what's happened in the past one to two months, specifically now in the last couple of weeks. The Biden administration, it did not have to be this way.

And I'm sorry to be repetitive, Howie, but, you know, we could have been prepared to take care of the people that took care of us. There is going to be horrendous -- of course, horrendous law and loss of life --

KURTZ: Yeah.

CAIN: -- all over the country, but it will be focused -- no matter what the Taliban says, it will be focuses on those who helped the United States.

KURTZ: Right.

CAIN: And that's what time would have bought us, is to help them.

KURTZ: And would it have been worth just leaving the 3,500 or so American troops there to keep that fragile peace? Leslie, let me put something up part of a statement from Donald Trump. The former president is saying Joe Biden gets it wrong every time on foreign policy. This is complete failure through weakness, incompetence, and total strategic incoherence.

Now, the media can debate, as Will is saying, whether or not Trump might have handled the actual details of the withdrawal differently, but didn't Joe Biden end up carrying out Donald Trump's policy on getting out of Afghanistan?

MARSHALL: Yes, and quite frankly, I think that's because if you talk to veterans and veterans groups, if you look at the polling of Americans, and if you just look at the cost over the past 20 plus years to American lives, not just to military lives, but the cost and how much and how long could we keep these costs going on, look, I don't have a crystal ball, neither does Donald Trump or anybody who worked in his administration nor the president currently, Joe Biden, or his administration.

Everybody knew this was not going to be easy. Everybody knew the Taliban would rise to some power. But look, we have been training with and we've working with the Afghan government, more specifically the Afghany military. And the military, I was told by people who have been in Afghanistan and the military, which I have not, they said that they were stronger, they were more prepared.

So, you know, at some point, somebody -- I don't want to use the phrase, but I'm going to pull the trigger on getting out of Afghanistan and quite frankly I think that Donald Trump, if he were president right now, would be dealing with the same issues again, Howie, because we just didn't realize - -

CAIN: We don't know.

MARSHALL: -- how strong, how much larger and how fast the Taliban will recoup.

KURTZ: We are a little short on time, so let me get in here. Well, anybody of a certain age remembers the horrible spectacle of Saigon 1975, Americans being airlifted out of the embassy there, and there was cheering after the withdrawal from Vietnam.

But I see less media attention being paid to the alternative which is, you know, how many more years and how much more money and we spent $100 billion to prop up Afghanistan and this government, and it does seem like there's a -- you alluded to this earlier, a parallel to Americans propping up the South Vietnamese government. I mean, if the Afghan military won't fight after all the training, then maybe it was time for the U.S. to go.

CAIN: Look, this is a failure. There is no other way to describe what our adventure in Afghanistan over the last two decades has been. It has been a failure, like it was for the Soviets, like just it was for the British in the 1800s, just like it's been for every empire that tried to enter into Afghanistan and either impose rule or civilization.

But Joe Biden is the president of the United States right now. And that means the buck stops with him. So to the extent that this immediate moment --

KURTZ: Right.

CAIN: -- is a failure, it's his failure. And on the national stage, on the international stage, we are now just like with Vietnam, Howie. Just like those images from Saigon. We are suffering an international embarrassment.

KURTZ: Well, I can't quarrel with that. And you know, Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, was supposed to be the good war because we went in there after 9/11.

Leslie, finally, I liked reporters pressing the administration's spokesman on these rosy assessments. Recently, as far as they know, the Afghan military still has the upper hand. It reminds me though of the --- they have a job to do, but the 5:00 (INAUDIBLE) in Vietnam when it was always light at the end of tunnel for a war the U.S. could never quite win.

MARSHALL: That's their job, like you said, Howie, right? I mean, that is their position and it's the journalist's job to press them on that, the media to press them on that.

You know, quite -- if you look at it, you know, we're getting hard questions and they're pressing them for the hard answers. Nobody wants a Saigon two. Whether you were alive or not, you can Google it, you've seen pictures or movies. It's just horrific.

KURTZ: Absolutely terrible.

MARSHALL: But to your point earlier, Howie --

KURTZ: I got to go.

MARSHALL: -- I mean, how much longer could we stay?

KURTZ: Yeah, exactly. All right, this debate will continue. When we come back, the press said Andrew Cuomo would never resign, until he did. Why the governor is now being savaged by the same media outlets that once lionized him.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): The time Andrew Cuomo announced he is resigning as governor, the media across the political spectrum were denouncing him over the sexual harassment findings. This, the day after his assistant, Brittany Commisso, went on CBS to describe being groped.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRITTANY COMMISSO, CUOMO ABUSER: What he did to me was a crime. He broke the law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Coumo's I have no excuses, but I didn't really harass anyone speech did not play well with the pundits.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): In my mind, I've never crossed the line with anyone. But I didn't realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn. I didn't do it consciously with the female trooper. I did not mean any sexual connotation. It was embarrassing to her and it was disrespectful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): The Democratic governor who drew so much media praise last year is being roundly condemned.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It was very clear just from the way that he was fighting it, also the way he spoke today, that he still by and large doesn't think that what he did was wrong.

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Governor Cuomo is not being cancelled. He's being held accountable for behavior and actions that he has admitted to.

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: He is so tough he's running away! He is so tough he is quitting!

UNKNOWN: His remarks today were pretty offensive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Will, the press is kicking Andrew Cuomo even harder after that speech. I didn't do anything wrong except I offended women, that was not my intent, I'm sorry, I like to hug people, it's generational, back and forth.

CAIN: You know, Governor Cuomo, welcome to the world the rest of us have experienced in 2021, a world in which everything is upside down. You know what is hard to make sense for a lot of us out there right now? We are being told that men can get pregnant and we got to rename breastfeeding to chestfeeding. It's all very confusing in 2021.

I'm sure it's that way for Governor Cuomo, Howie. He has been told, first, my last name is Cuomo, bad things don't happen to me, I'm entitled to this power, this is privilege, nothing ever is needed to hold me to account because I'm a best-selling Emmy award-winning author lionized by the press.

And then he wakes up one day and the world is upside down. Everybody wants to hold him accountable for some things that he did. I'm sure he is suffering from whiplash right now. He is wondering how the world got turned upside down.

And so on his way out, what is he going to give you? He is going to give you that same privilege and defiance that has got him where he is today. By the way, I forgot to include bullying as well, his style of leadership and governance.

KURTZ: Right.

CAIN: And so today --

KURTZ: And the press knew about that part. Let me get Leslie in because it did sound like Andrew Cuomo woke up that morning, discovered hey, there's a "me too" movement out here and the rules have changed. But you could flip around the channels, liberals, conservatives, independents, vegetarians and nobody was defending the soon to be former governor.

MARSHALL: How could you? An investigation found that these women's allegations were correct, that they were victims of harassment. And as the victim of harassment, I can loudly and proudly say the line never moved, Howie.

Sexual assault and any kind of sexual inappropriate have been in legislation and have been in workplaces since the '80s. What was so disgusting to all of us, whether victims are not whether women or not, was that this man was saying mea culpa but not really, not accepting responsibility, stepping down but only to get out of the way politically, again not owning what he did.

You have to accept responsibility, you know, apologizing, even. And you know, he didn't go far enough because it's one of those, like, you know, I'm sorry, but I'm not really sorry. And I think the media did the right thing to get on him for that because I had my jaw dropped, not that he stepped down, but the way he did it, almost saying I'm stepping down but I still haven't really done anything wrong.

KURTZ: I understand. Will, the Democrats who control New York's assembly have now dropped the impeachment proceedings, saying he's going to be gone anyway. Cuomo told New York magazine in his only interview since the resignation that he would have won the impeachment battle if he fought it out, but he did the right thing, rather than dragging the state through the mud for three or of four months. So, he's still defiant.

CAIN: Defiance, arrogance, privilege, bullying all the way on the way out. Hey, Leslie, also on this idea that somehow the lines have moved, let us not forget that Governor Cuomo helped draw the lines in New York when he wrote some of the laws, helped draft the laws when it came to sexual harassment and sexual assault. So nothing changed except that finally he was held accountable for something.

And by the way, Howie, when it comes to the impeachment, look, I am under the understanding that impeachment is largely used to remove someone from office --

KURTZ: Right.

CAIN: -- so I don't know whether or not impeachment should be the way we hold Governor Cuomo accountable going forward. There are still investigations, appropriate and necessary investigations into the nursing home scandal and there are criminal investigations ongoing. There are going to be plenty of opportunities to hold Governor Cuomo accountable.

KURTZ: Right. This came up when President Trump was out of office --

CAIN: Right.

KURTZ: -- proceed with impeachment. Leslie, "The New York Times" says Andrew Cuomo went back and forth in the final week about should he resign, should he not resign. Then, of course, his own top aide, Melissa DeRosa, stepped down. His executive assistant, Brittany Commisso, we just saw the clip of her on CBS, she went on. And it was the very next day after her "CBS This Morning" appearance. So did the media push Cuomo over the edge into resignation?

MARSHALL: The media would tell you that it was his brother, Chris Cuomo, who pushed him over the edge. There are people that say his brother asked him to resign. There were people in his inner circle that asked him to resign.

Look, I don't care what he says about the impeachment. You just have to look. If he got to the second tier of the impeachment, he was going to lose on that front.

And Will is correct. There were other investigations that are ongoing not only with the nursing home scandal but potentially criminal charges. He knew he was not going to survive this. Everybody was jumping off the ship. There was nowhere for him to go. He was not going to survive this. He may be saying that to the camera but that is not true.

KURTZ (on camera): He had no way. He was out of options. I want to close with the moment of Xen from last year. Roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TREVOR NOAH, HOST OF "THE DAILY SHOW": People online are falling in love with him. I'm not going to lie, those people include me. My Tinder profile now lists me as a Cuomo-sexual.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Trevor Noah wasn't the only one lionizing and idolizing Andrew Cuomo when he was riding high at the beginning of the pandemic last year. Of course, he had problems on that front, too.

Great discussion. Leslie Marshall, Will Cain, thanks very much for dropping by this Sunday.

CAIN: Thank you.

KURTZ: Up next, Joe Biden sparred with reporters about whether they misrepresented his answers and a racially-charged baseball controversy that wasn't.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): President Biden, who had called on Andrew Cuomo to step down, tried to give the press corps terse answers about the resignation. But after a more nuanced question from CBS's Ed O'Keefe, CNN's Kaitlan Collins aggressively pushed back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED O'KEEFE, CBS NEWS REPORTER: How would you assess his 10 and a half years as governor of the state?

BIDEN: In terms of his personal behavior or what he's done as a governor?

O'KEEFE: What he's done as a governor.

BIDEN: What he's done was a hell of a job.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Can you really say he's done a hell of a job if he's accused of sexually harassing --

BIDEN: You asked two different questions. Should he remain as governor is one question, and women should be believed when they make accusations that they are able to, on the face of them make sense and investigated -- they're investigated and the judgment was made what they said was correct.

That's one thing. The question is did he do a good job on infrastructure. That was the question. He did, Kaitlan.

COLLINS: Can you separate the two?

BIDEN: No, I'm not. I was asked a specific question.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now from Dallas, Steve Krakauer, who published the "Fourth Watch" newsletter. Maybe Joe Biden was a bit clumsy there but when Kaitlan Collins pounced on him, didn't he have a point? Did he even ask answering a very specific question, not about personal conduct?

STEVE KRAKAUER, EDITOR AND HOST, FOURTH WATCH: Well, yeah, he was answering a question about how he did during his time as governor, not about infrastructure specifically, which I know he focused on. I have to say, he did a hell of a job. I mean, let us talk about nursing homes. Let us talk about COVID response. There are other areas where you can certainly knock him on his time there.

But I think it is interesting. You know, Joe Biden gets pressed -- first of all, he very rarely holds a press conference. This was on Tuesday. He hasn't talked -- I know you did the whole first segment which is great on Afghanistan. He hasn't talked. He will not be talking to the press until at least Wednesday when he's back in the White House from Camp David. He does these so rarely.

But it is interesting. You know, Peter Doocy asked a tough question. He sort of laughs it off. Kaitlan Collins asked a tough question. Again, I mean, this happened overseas, he gets all angry about it.

I'm not saying that Joe Biden is necessarily a misogynist, by the way that he reacts to Kaitlan Collins, but I do think that a press looking at it objectively, the way the Trump answered questions, would be asking those sorts of questions about what seems to rile him up and what he sort of laughs off and moves on.

KURTZ: Right. Now, I'm more for more news conferences and more for aggressively questioning this president who often doesn't get it. On the other hand, I think that if you try to conflate one thing with another, the president is entitled to push back.

Now, let us turn to baseball. There's major media uproar, as you know, Steve, even an investigation by the Colorado Rockies team after a report that a fan yelled an "N" word while a Black player for the Miami Marlins was at bat (ph). The team declared zero tolerance for any form of racism and conducted an investigation. What happened next?

KRAKAUER: Yeah, this is another story that feels a little like Covington high-ish (ph) because you've got this out of context video clip. In this case, it was like literally a five-second video clip that made the rounds on Twitter on Sunday night and it appeared -- you heard a fan in the background saying something that was immediately declared the "N" word and was covered, as you mentioned, which was a key point.

The Colorado Rockies really drove the story as well. The Major League Baseball Players Association said they're investigating, zero tolerance policy on racism. All of that is fine if the media said, hey, the Colorado Rockies are investigating whether a racial slur was said during the game.

KURTZ: Right.

KRAKAUER: But that is not how the story was reported. The story reported a racial slur was said during the game. And then, of course, when it was found out only mere hours later that the fan was actually calling the Colorado Rockies mascot, this triceratops named "Dinger" which is another word for a home run, calling him to come over, it was a very clearly scene and you can actually see the mascot in the video that went viral, everyone had to change their story and go back --

KURTZ: Right.

KRAKAUER: But this honestly bothers me so much because it gets to this cost/benefit analysis for the media. You would much rather correct a story but not be pillaried on Twitter for maybe --

KURTZ: Yeah.

KRAKAUER: -- not going strong enough on racism than getting it right the first time.

KURTZ: Don't report it as fact when we don't have all the facts. There's a racial rush to judgment. By the way, I still can't figure out why the Rockies have a purple dinosaur mascot. But that's a different debate.

Steve Krakauer, great to see you. Thanks so much.

KRAKAUER: Thanks, Howie.

KURTZ: Next on Media Buzz," an increasingly fierce media debate over COVID vaccines and masks. How far is too far? And later, a top fact checking site devastated by a plagiarism scandal on the buzz beater.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): As COVID-19 is once again dominating the news agenda, cases continue to surge as swamped hospitals run out of ICU beds, as schools reopen amid an intense battle over masks, the media debate is becoming increasingly heated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE SCARBOROUGH, HOST, MSNBC: I think it's starting to break through, not just the Democrats or people in the media but also the Republicans, how crazy it is that these governors in huge southern states in Texas and in Florida are passing bans on mask mandates for the states.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: The left isn't doing any of this because they're worried about Governor DeSantis. Their agenda is based on fear. Sure. Fear of COVID but fear of climate change, fear of capitalism, fear of standards, fear of hard work, fear of religion, fear of your fellow Americans.

FMR. GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R-CA): No, screw your freedom, because with freedom comes obligations and responsibilities. You cannot just say I have the right to do x, y, and z, when you affect other people, that is when it gets serious.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Arnold weighing in. Joining us in New York, Liz Claman, host of the Claman Countdown on Fox Business Network, weekdays at 3 Eastern, and Robby Soave, senior editor at Reason magazine.

Robby, I've really been struck by this media debate as we hit 130,000 new daily cases, and more than a tenfold increase from early June. It's how it seems to be getting angrier on all sides.

ROBBY SOAVE, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, REASON.COM: Yes, a lot angrier. And also, what I find very curious is it's very, the debate is very focused on masks and mask mandates even though you still have -- in areas of the country where vaccination is very high, you still are not seeing an uptick in deaths.

The vaccines are working, they don't, you know, prevent all breakthrough infections but any sort of the imagination but they're a tremendously good mitigation effort.

Yet in places like Florida, so the coverage, the criticism from the mainstream media is about how you can't have a mask mandate in schools because of Governor DeSantis' orders but, you know, the deaths of teachers that we heard about recently in the media, those were unvaccinated teachers. Why are we not discussing the urgent need to vaccinate people?

The media for some reason is obsessed with the mask issue which, to me, seems like kind of a side issue at this point, given the vaccines work better and that's what we need to focus on.

KURTZ: Right. Well, Liz, I'd like to get you in on that. But the larger picture it seems to me is this. One side says the left is trampling individual rights, the other side says the right is callously indifferent to people's health. How much, in your view, are the media fueling this polarization in an already divided country?

LIZ CLAMAN, FOX BUSINESS ANCHOR: You know, remember when, Howie, big government was something that conservatives said was bad government. Well, right now, you know, you really look at some of these states, whether it is Florida or Texas, where certain localities and municipalities are getting hammered and they do as an extra, sort of, echelon impose mask mandates and they are not allowed to at the moment.

So, you're looking at Houston, for example. Houston has no more ICU beds in the pediatric units. And you know, it's interesting because I looked at local news pages just this morning and FOX Orlando reporting that about Houston. Obviously, the FOX stations throughout and local media stations whether they are ABC, NBC, CBS, are talking a lot about this.

In fact, there is in Texas, I believe, local municipalities are defying Governor Abbott and saying, you know what, we're going to impose our own mask mandates. It's a way to sort of put in that extra echelon or mitigate what is happening.

KURTZ: Right.

CLAMAN: I'm just saying that's how the media is looking at it but the fact is for governors in the south and southern states and some of these conservative states, it's not going to age well. You look at Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, Republican, pro-Trump, he now regrets that his legislator --

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: Yes, he has said that.

CLAMAN: -- banned his ability to impose a mandate.

KURTZ: Let me go back to Robby. I understand you're saying the mask to you and to many people seem kind of a side show. But with the reopening of schools -- and I don't want my kids to have to wear masks all day, but it seems to have been a flash point now, because particularly, obviously, for kids 12 and under, they don't have any ability to get vaccinated. So, the question is, do you protect them by ordering vaccinations for the people around them? And that's the media focus right now.

SOAVE: Kids have a tremendous thankful natural immunity to COVID. They can of course get it. But if you look at the statistics, they are as safe from a severe COVID outcome basically as a vaccinated adult is. So, I'm not of worried about them.

I think it's reasonable to worry about their teachers. And you could. And I would support this, I think employees of public schools, of government agencies, the government should require them to get vaccinated or not teach there. And that's actually something that DeSantis' other order gets in the way of.

So, I could understand criticism of prohibiting vaccine mandates for public employees but the media is not talking about that. They're talking about the mask mandates which are so -- which are inferior to getting people vaccinated. So that's why this is ridiculous.

KURTZ: At times I talked about. But let me come back to our top story. Because we all woke up this morning to find out that the Taliban are marching into Kabul, the president of the Afghan government has fled the country, this happened with stunning swiftness.

And Liz, one of the questions I have is, you know, the finger pointing has already started. President Biden by pulling out the troops may have triggered this. On the other hand, I've always found, going back to Iraq, that the media/foreign policy establishment is more hawkish than probably most of the country. Your thoughts?

CLAMAN: Well, my thoughts are that the press this time around is not giving Biden any kind of pass. All you've had to look at is both -- whether it's Fox reporters who have really hammered John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesperson or CNN this morning.

I mean and NBC, you had Chuck Todd of Meet the Press, I watched him, he hammered Tony Blinken, saying -- speaking of not aging well, --

KURTZ: Yes.

CLAMAN: -- what you said just weeks ago is not aging well. This has been a total disaster. But again, Biden is doing what President Trump had also wanted to do, four presidents, two decades, disastrous war in an area that just doesn't want us there and, you know, it's stone age war lords going at it with each other. It's a horrific situation.

But the way that Biden pulled out shows a real disaster as far as intel is concerned. He kept saying that it would be fine. Four weeks ago, that the Afghan military was up to the point to the -- up to the point of what they needed to do.

KURTZ: Yes.

CLAMAN: Clearly, that's not true. With lightning speed, --

KURTZ: Right.

CLAMAN: -- the whole thing has fallen apart.

KURTZ: And Robby, that's the thing. While you certainly can blame President Biden for the way this withdrawal has been managed, he was carrying out a withdrawal process that was first negotiated by Donald Trump and public opinion, after 20 years, after all the billions, after all the people have died, the brave soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a lot of war a fatigue out there.

SOAVE: It's understandable. I mean, this was the inevitable result. The American people had realized correctly this was always going to happen at the end of our occupation and we have been lied to by our generals, by our intelligence officials.

Think of all the quotes from top generals over the years, right, saying the government is stable, the military there is getting better every day, the situation is improving. All of those statements were false.

I mean, Mark Milley has kind of recently become a hero I think to some of the mainstream media for, you know, defending the teaching of anti-racist kind of stuff in the military, which is all well and good, but where is the scrutiny --

KURTZ: OK.

SOAVE: -- from the media of these people --

KURTZ: Yes.

SOAVE: -- along who kept saying we're about to win, everything is great. Those were lies. Those were outrageous lies and the media needs to do a better job of holding, like you say the foreign policy establishment that is far too hawkish responsible.

KURTZ: All right.

SOAVE: Yes.

KURTZ: Now over the years, administration and military officials may have diluted themselves into thinking that what they said was true, that the Afghan military would be willing to fight, clearly that's not true. The Taliban walking into Kabul unmolested.

Let me get a break here. Chris Cuomo saying nothing about his brother's resignation, has that compounded his problems at CNN? And stay tuned for the buzz beater.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): Chris Cuomo hasn't made a single comment about his brother's resignation despite reports from the New York Times and elsewhere that he privately advised him to quit. The CNN host had already taken flak for joining strategy calls with the governor and his top aides.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, HOST, CNN: I understand why that was a problem for CNN. It will not happen again. It was a mistake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): And for helping write or edit the governor's initial denial of sexual harassment allegations back in February. A Fox digital reporter tried to question Cuomo during a preplanned vacation in the Hamptons.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: Did you advise him to step down? Are you continuing to advise him? Do you think that's an ethical conflict?

CUOMO: I think you got a job to do and I'm letting you do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Liz Claman, do you think Chris Cuomo should be speaking out about the resignation of his brother that he privately advised even though he's not allowed to do it on CNN and do you think this entire episode has damaged him.

CLAMAN: He's a journalist and he should not be speaking out on it, especially because he is right there as one of the so-called faces on, you know, the Mount Rushmore over at CNN Primetime. CNN was in a tough position, you know, and basically, they probably held him to exactly what journalistic standards require, and that is anybody, whether it's a pundit or a reporter.

If there's a conflict of interest they cannot participate in that conversation. That particular night when Governor Cuomo stepped down and resigned, well, yes, CNN audience didn't get to hear that story because he didn't weigh in but CNN did what they had to do under that circumstance, short of pulling him off the air.

If he weighs in, Howie, that's a total disaster. There's very little upside to that. It's an awful situation for him to be in. The governor is his brother. And so clearly, yes, it was a tight spot.

KURTZ: Right. But the problem Robby, as I know you understand is that CNN last year changed its rules to allow Chris Cuomo to interview his brother, 11 love filled appearances on his Primetime show. And then that's when Andrew was riding high, and then pulled the plug on that.

So, how much responsibility do you think Chris Cuomo has in what admittedly is and was a difficult situation.

SOAVE: Yes, that was a disastrous decision to allow him to interview his brother. You know, I don't blame Chris for sticking by the governor, a family should stick together. I think it's wrong to expect denunciation of family members. So that's fine. It makes sense to me. But he just can't do that and also be this very important host of this central news hour on CNN. You know?

They were in a difficult situation because it's weird to have a very important political figure and on one hand and then his brother, the head of a very important news slot on a mainstream cable channel. I mean, that's the problem.

KURTZ: Yes.

SOAVE: So you have that situation and then an unsolvable conflict of interest issue comes along. Yes, there's no good answer --

KURTZ: Perhaps.

SOAVE: -- but that's why you shouldn't have that arrangement in the first place.

KURTZ: Perhaps it might have been better if he had taken a leave of absence as CNN had once suggested.

SOAVE: Sure.

KURTZ: You know, people don't realize that Chris and Andrew Cuomo growing up as a sone of a governor both had some resentment towards the press because of the way they felt their father Mario Cuomo had been treated with baseless rumors of mob ties.

Liz, Chuck Todd, MSNBC, the Atlantic has a piece on this, that Andrew Cuomo could rise from the ashes here and run again in the future. That seems rather far-fetched to me.

CLAMAN: Highly unlikely. And here's why. When he resigned there wasn't a political friend in sight, Howie. That is a big issue. And obviously, the situation is such that, you know, it was sexual harassment and there were multiple, multiple cases, so when you think about exactly what has transpired here, it would be very tough for him to come back. I'm not saying he won't try.

KURTZ: Yes.

CLAMAN: You know, the ego of these politicians and the arrogance is so inflated on so many levels. But, you know, it's different. I was thinking of Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina back in 2009, had a scandal, he disappeared for five days, said he was hiking the Appalachian trail. In essence, he was in Argentina with his mistress. He resigned.

But just by 2013, he was nominated, and he was elected, rather --

KURTZ: Yes.

CLAMAN: -- as House of Representatives for South Carolina because he was able to do that, you know, you had Nikki Haley putting Tim Scott who had been in that seat to Jim DeMint's Senate position --

KURTZ: Got it.

CLAMAN: -- so it became available.

KURTZ: All right.

CLAMAN: He ran, he got 54 percent vote.

KURTZ: Yes.

CLAMAN: There are ways to come back but this one will be tough.

KURTZ: Look, Chris -- Andrew Cuomo does have an $18 million war chest. But the media would be against him from day one and what a contrast that is as we said earlier to the way in which he was lionized last year.

We are out of time. Robby Soave, Liz Claman, thanks very much for joining us this Sunday.

Still to come, Snopes suspends its co-founder over an ethical disaster. A major victory for the free Britney campaign. And Jeopardy's new how overcomes a negative campaign. That and more on the buzz beater.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): Time to beat the clock on this week's buzz beater. Go. Turns out the co-founder of the fact checking site Snopes has no sense of journalistic ethics. BuzzFeed discovered that David Mikkelson wrote 54 plagiarized articles. Someone to a fake byline with passengers just lifted from elsewhere. Snopes has suspended him, saying plagiarism undermines our mission and values. Full stop.

Mikkelson apologized for his serious lapses in judgment. And said something about not having formal journalistic training. Seriously? But he'd also urge staffers to plagiarize when stories break to get more traffic. This is the watch dog site that sits in judgment of everyone else? What a travesty.

Britney's social media campaign actually worked by constantly attacking her father for suffocating her during a 13-year conservatorship. Britney Spears pressured him into agreeing to withdraw. Her lawyer calls this vindication for Britney. We are disappointed, however, by their ongoing shameful attacks on Ms. Spears.

Now Britney didn't win in court but Jamie Spears withdraw, saying in his filing that while he's the target, the unremitting target of unjustified attacks, he does not believe a public battle with his daughter is helping her. A public battle through the press is the only option she had with a lawyer who wouldn't represent her interest while she earns millions. Hash tag free Britney is now a reality.

Jeopardy producer Mike Richards beat out a whole bunch of celebs to succeed Alex Trebek but hasn't exactly gotten a standing ovation from the media. Huff Post lead story was, wrong answer for Jeopardy host, questions whether all those tryouts were just for show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE RICHARDS, HOST, JEOPARDY: I very distinctly remember watching Jeopardy like 10, 11 and you don't get very many right when you watch Jeopardy when you're that age. I thought, just someday I want to -- I'm going to read. I want to get smarter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): But Richards had to beat a wave of negative press, one model filed suit when was at The Price is Right, saying she was treated differently when she became pregnant. Another model sued saying, he wouldn't talk to her at all.

Richards who have said in statement the complaints don't reflect the reality of who I am, wound up winning. And actress Mayim Bialik got the consolation prize hosting a few primetime specials.

MSNBC's most popular liberal host is strongly considering leaving the network when her contract ends up early next year. Rachel Maddow sounds a bit tired after 12 years of the primetime grind. In a Daily Beast report she is intrigued by podcasting and streaming video. Well, this could well be a negotiating ploy. But she has talked about the importance of work/life balance.

CNN host S.E. Cupp says she's getting treatment for a deep black hole of anxiety related to all the bad news out there. She writes in New York's daily news that she hasn't been able to watch any stories without spiraling into an uncontrollable sense of panic and fear, Cupp says. The anxiety I nurtured and cultivated over the years became an absolute monster during this perfect storm, pandemic, politics, problems. I can't string together a cohesive thought about the story I've been covering my entire career.

You know, it takes courage to acknowledge such a painful struggle. And we wish her well.

And I am, support that is. There we go. That's it for this edition of Media Buzz. I'm Howard Kurtz. We hope you'll like our Facebook page. I post my daily columns there. And let's continue the conversation on Twitter at Howard Kurtz.

Check out my podcast, Media Buzz Meter at Apple iTunes, Google podcast or on your Amazon device. We tore up the show today obviously because of the breaking news in Kabul. Who ever dreamed that this would happen so quickly? The Taliban takeover is going to be analyzed by the media for a long time to come.

We'll stay on it today here at Fox and we'll obviously be talking about it I am sure among other topics on our show next week. Which tease me up to say we will be back here next Sunday, 11:00 Eastern, 8 a.m. on the West Coast. We'll see you all then with the latest buzz.

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