'Media Buzz' on Simone Biles, Jan. 6 hearing

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Emotional testimony at Jan. 6 Hearing

This is a rush transcript from "Media Buzz," August 1, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS HOST (on camera): I knew it. I knew from the moment that CNN's Don Lemon denounced unvaccinated Americans for their idiotic behavior that we were headed into a surge of anger against those who haven't gotten the shots. That's why I played it last Sunday. Then The New York Times did a major piece on rising resentment among the vaccinated, but I say that's driven by the pundits.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: If you're unvaccinated and you're going around without being tested, you are an arrogant, selfish SOB.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Piers Morgan revealing that he got a mild case of COVID although he's vaccinated, denounced a lot of deluded, ill-informed, shamefully scare-mongered or complacent Americans, some whom believe insane conspiracy theories.

President Biden offered a similar message but in much milder language.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: If you're not vaccinated, you're not as smart as I thought you were.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Look, with COVID cases surging, I'm worried, I'm frustrated, I'm all for persuading and cajoling more of the 90 million unprotected Americans to get the vaccine. Their reluctance isn't just about politics and the CDC's incredibly muddled messaging on masks is making things worse.

But I'll tell you this about the unvaccinated. Ripping them and ridiculing them, slamming and shaming them are not going to work. It just ticks them off, and these piling on pundits ought to know better.

I'm Howard Kurtz and this is MEDIA BUZZ.

Ahead, conservative author Ben Shapiro argues that liberals are pushing the media and other institutions in authoritarian direction.

Joe Biden's decision to all but mandate vaccines for federal workers and contractors have pushed local and business officials to take similar step is combining with the CDC's overwrought mask guidance to fuel a polarized media argument over whether Americans should be forced to get these shots.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: If you're not vaccinated, you put your doctors and nurses at risk. The same frontline essential workers who put their lives on the line over the past year have gone through hell.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Even Biden himself admitted that COVID deaths are way down, nowhere near their peak. So why are we continuing to hold America hostage for a disease that is overwhelmingly survivable?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: It's all these Trumpers and people on the right side of the aisle saying you can't force people and what about freedom, what about -- I think that narrative needs to flip to who is the voice of the vaccinated.

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: So the vaccines work, the only people getting sick are the vaccinated, but the vaccinated still have to wear masks. Why is that?

JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST: I do expect more members, more members of the press getting angry about the fact that a lot of these jack assess are literally putting their children's lives in danger because they're trying to make a political point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now to analyze the coverage, Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist and a Fox News contributor, and Clarence Page, columnist for The Chicago Tribune.

Mollie, the media are generally in favor of vaccine mandates and usually sympathetic to President Biden, so it's not shocking that they think that Biden's idea, telling four million federal employees either get the vaccine or you got to show twice weekly COVID negative tests, is a great idea.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR, SENIOR EDITOR AT THE FEDERALIST, SENIOR JOURNALISM FELLOW AT HILLSDALE COLLEGE: It's not surprising that they would support something like this but their personal views shouldn't really play into how they cover this.

And there are significant issues that have been raised by federal employee unions and civil rights practitioners, saying that this is something that is not going to be appropriate for federal employees.

There is the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prevents people from enforcing medical tests on employees unless they're absolutely necessary.

The Biden administration came out in such a way as to say they're really doing this more to force people to take vaccinations rather than saying making the argument that this is medically necessary for their jobs.

The media need to cover all of these issues which are really important in part because the more politicized the vaccine debate gets, the more resistance you face to vaccination as well.

KURTZ: And it has gotten really politicized. Clarence, are the media in praising the Biden speech and his new order giving short shrift to the argument that this is an infringement on civil liberties, that people shouldn't be pressured or essentially forced to get a shot they don't want?

CLARENCE PAGE, COLUMNIST, CHICAGO TRIBUNE: Well, not all media are praising Biden, as you know. I won't name any names. Anyway, the fact is that I think we're learning a lesson here not just the media but medical establishment, et cetera, that just because you tell people common sense doesn't mean they're going to believe it.

We have the same problem getting it in the presidential campaign when a lot of members of the press were making cynical, sarcastic statements about Donald Trump and Trump supporters. We saw this backlash that people were even more eager to support Donald Trump.

I say this is happening now. People who were kind of a halfway on the vaccine are getting polarized now, whether to have it or not. Frankly, I think as we're just beginning to discover that there is a -- there has been a deleterious economic effect by people declining -- so many people declining to get vaccinated.

I think as that increases, we're going to see some more minds change just as we've seen minds changed recently --

KURTZ: There has -- there has --

PAGE: -- as people see their own friends and loved ones get the virus.

KURTZ: There has been a bit of an uptick, which is good. But meanwhile, the CDC's mask guidance has real impact. The D.C. mayor just re-imposed the mask mandate, which is why I now have to wear one of these in the Washington bureau despite relatively low numbers here.

So Mollie, the CDC chief, Rochelle Walensky, tells Bret Baier on Friday that the Biden administration is looking into the idea of a national vaccine mandate, covering the whole country. An hour later, she walks it back on Twitter, no, no, no, no national mandate, I was talking about private companies. Have you ever seen a week of such botched communications?

HEMINGWAY: It was a disaster of messaging from the CDC whether it is about mask guidance or about even what is happening with the vaccine. We 164 million people who have been vaccinated. Less than one-tenth of one percent of those people had gotten sick. Less than one-one thousandth of one percent of those people had died.

It is an incredibly effective good vaccine. That should be the message that the CDC is putting forward. Instead, they are sending all this mixed guidance about how the vaccine is a no way going to prevent you from going into lockdown or being masked.

It is really damaging to people's willingness to accept the vaccine and otherwise. They're making it political and everyone can see that they're making it political. And what little they've shared about how they have come to their decision making has really weakened their credibility and confidence that people have had in the CDC.

They probably had a little too much confidence in the CDC going in the past but they're really losing that credibility that they built up and it is not good when you're still in a global pandemic.

KURTZ: Yeah, and this at a time when in the United States yesterday, 77,000 new COVID cases, that compares about 15,000 in the beginning of June.

Clarence, The Washington Post hit the CDC pretty hard for abruptly changing the mask guidance but not releasing the data behind it. Then the paper obtained internal documents showing that the CDC was saying, or at least in internal document, that the delta variant of the coronavirus is as contagious as chickenpox and can be even more harmful to the vaccinated than previously thought.

Why do we have to depend on leaks to find out what the science is -- the non-published studies that the CDC is relying on?

PAGE: Precisely because the CDC has seen the mixed reactions the public gave on the initial mask guidance and Dr. Fauci as well. You know, people who are anti-vax continue to quote old statements based on old data.

This is a new disease. Remember, this is a new pandemic we're dealing with here, much like the early days of the AIDS crisis back in the 80s.

You saw Fauci moved too slowly on that. President Reagan moved too slowly.

KURTZ: Wait, Clarence, Clarence, are you -- are you defending the Centers for Disease Control for making this new guidance but sitting on the data, not putting it out because of a fear of overreaction? What happened to the administration is going to be transparent? We're going to trust people with the science?

PAGE: You're right, it runs counter to say you're going to be transparent and you're not transparent. But this is all new information that the CDC is gathering right now. I think they're gun shy, looking at the kind of wild backlash reactions they've received so far. I don't blame them.

KURTZ: Yeah, the Biden White House say even criticizing The New York Times, among others, when they tweet out something like, well, it's as contagious as the chickenpox when in fact the White House officials said if you fail to include the much lower infection rate for vaccinated people, it's less than one percent, you're doing it wrong.

Mollie, I want to get you in on that. But also, with such private companies as Facebook, Google, Netflix, Washington Post, New York Times, all saying vaccinations are required for their employees, you can't now go to a Broadway show if you can't show you've been vaccinated. Doesn't that present a different debate for the media because these are private companies?

HEMINGWAY: It's absolutely different for private companies versus government employees and that's an important distinction. It's also true that we're not talking about who is affected by these mandates, and I think that the media presentation has been that it's a bunch of right-wing yokels who aren't getting vaccinated.

The fact is that the people least likely to be vaccinated at this point in our story are African-Americans and Hispanics. If they are banned from working or banned from public participation, that could have an uneven racial desperate impact that is not healthy.

And so you want really still be encouraging people, answering legitimate questions that they have about why they're not getting vaccinated and why it is good to get vaccinated.

It's also true that the criticism of these media companies for being, you know, just talking about this pandemic porn as opposed to really giving people facts is legitimate. There's nothing wrong with the Biden administration doing that.

What we really focused on early in this pandemic is focused protection, making sure that our older citizens are the ones that are really protected and we have done a great job with that. The fact is it's different if you're four rather than if you're 95 and we have vaccinated our older population.

KURTZ: Yeah, it is different in the sense that there's now this conventional wisdom in the media that it's just Republicans over Democrats who are much more wary.

When you actually go out and interview people as The New York Times does in a story today, you find out that some people are just worried about the fact that the FDA still hasn't given final approval, what the side effects may be. If they live in a rural area, they may not have as much access. It is a much more complicated problem.

Clarence, what about media people like Don Lemon, Geraldo, Piers Morgan, who are saying, you know, if you haven't gotten the shot, you're arrogant, you're selfish, you're ignorant, you're idiotic? How does that help the situation?

PAGE: Well, you were right before when you said that the media need to be accurate, they need to be thorough. There are a lot of different reasons people have for not getting the vaccine. A lot of them would like to get the vaccine but it's not very close. That accounts for a lot of African- Americans.

I had to go about 30 miles to get my own vaccination. I got the vaccination. A lot of other folks aren't as -- haven't got the time necessarily to be able to track down a place to get their vaccine. I think over time, you're going to see these numbers change.

I'd like to see those stories break it down as to why people aren't getting the vaccine because they've got a lot of different reasons.

KURTZ: Yeah. We're seeing more of those stories. I still think that yelling at them and shaming them is just precisely the wrong thing to do.

Mollie, I got about half a minute. This sniping in the House, as you know, Nancy Pelosi re-imposing the House mask mandate. And she was getting into a car and she said to a reporter that Kevin McCarthy is a moron. I think the press kind of enjoyed that, where if McCarthy called the House speaker a moron, I think there would have been a bit of an uproar.

HEMINGWAY: I think there has been a growing tension for Nancy Pelosi who historically carried a great deal about the institution that she is speaker of.

But in this last year or two, has really broken down all the norms, whether it was ripping up that state of the union speech, she kind of made it difficult for people to visit the Capitol complex now, she keeps the record of everybody who is visiting, she is running her House in a bit of a tyrannical way.

You're seeing a lot more pushback from Republicans --

KURTZ: Yeah.

HEMINGWAY: -- who are right there on the cusp of retaking the House. She is having trouble right now.

KURTZ: All right. But there is sniping on both sides.

Ahead, Ben Shapiro in a wide ranging interview about how the media treat conservatives.

When we come back, a media clash over the House's new January 6th committee and emotional testimony by four police officers who were under attack during the Capitol riot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): The coverage of the new House committee investigating the Capitol riot has reflected the intense partisanship surrounding its very existence and that hasn't changed despite the first day's harrowing and heartbreaking testimony from four police officers who had to fight the mob on January 6th.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIEL HODGES, D.C. POLICE OFFICER: At best, I would collapse and be a liability to my colleagues. At worst, be dragged down to the crowd and lynched.

AQUILINO GONELL, D.C. CAPITOL POLICE SERGEANT: I could feel myself losing oxygen and recall thinking to myself, this is how I'm going to die, defending this entrance.

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: It is disgraceful that the liars and deniers think that they can just ignore those officers who are still recovering from their injuries today.

INGRAHAM: The theatrics were intended to produce an emotional reaction, logic and facts, be damned. They came across as political actors. That doesn't help anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Mollie Hemingway, I get the critical coverage surrounding the formation of this committee controlled by Nancy Pelosi, but I don't understand how the police officers, although a couple made anti- Trump comments, can get anything but admiration from the press for the life-threatening ordeal that they went through.

HEMINGWAY: The context is that this is a very theatrical effort by Nancy Pelosi to deal with this situation. And in the case of one of the officers, he didn't just make anti-Trump comments, he actually celebrated the violent and deadly riots of the previous summer, he joked about President Trump being under a security threat when it was believed that he was -- when he had to be rushed off a stage, and he made a bunch of anti-Trump, anti- conservative comments.

That doesn't take away from what he went through at the riot on January 6, but the entire situation is that the media are cheering on these hearings.

And they're not thinking about the context that we had a summer where the media themselves and other elites really celebrated political violence, they downplayed the harm caused in terms of the dozens of deaths, the billions of dollars of damage, the attacks on the White House, federal courthouses in Portland, police precincts across the country.

That's something that a lot of Americans would like to have investigated in part because corporations gave money to the groups that were behind some of this, that we're at much more danger --

KURTZ: Okay.

HEMINGWAY: -- of something like that continuing than this few hour riot that went bad and awful at the Capitol. That's something that the media is not doing a good job covering at all.

KURTZ: All right. I flatly disagree the media is celebrating political violence although certainly the coverage of the demonstrations and riots could have been better.

Clarence, one of those officers talked about a stream of racial epithets when he was trying to defend the Capitol. Did they get a pass for criticizing Donald Trump and making some of the political comments that Mollie cited?

PAGE: Well, I'm sorry, who did get a pass? Did the media get a pass or --

KURTZ: The officers who testified, couple of them were pretty anti-Trump.

PAGE: The officers, whether they were anti-Trump or pro-Trump, to me, it is irrelevant. The question is why can't I see more consistency from Republicans who usually are the first to support the police and want to protect the police and want to punish those who attack the police physically? We saw all that kind of melt away in this new polarization.

Yes, I support the police as long as you support Donald Trump. That's what you saw in those hearings the other day and that's what we're continuing to see from republican leadership on Capitol Hill. You know, that is not political biased statement. This is the fact.

KURTZ: Mollie, the press wanted this committee, obviously don't seem to care that Nancy Pelosi knocked off a couple of pro-Trump Republicans. But did the gravity of the testimony from those officers, which I found riveting, cast at least the beginning of its investigation in a more serious light?

HEMINGWAY: So, first of all, if you want to talk about consistency, you have to deal with the fact that we had a political party that embraced a movement to defund the police for an entire year and now we're pretending that they care so much about the police. I think it has --

KURTZ: Hold on. Hold on. I mean, the entire Democratic Party didn't embrace he defund the police and Joe Biden --

HEMINGWAY: The defund the police movement, which the media and other Democratic partisans strongly celebrated, which was effected in cities across the county --

PAGE: And Republicans.

HEMINGWAY: -- by Democratic -- by Democratic politicians was something we experienced in the last year.

PAGE: And Republicans.

HEMINGWAY: I think that you've seen -- no, Republicans have not supported defunding the police. That is obviously not true.

PAGE: No, you supported calling -- you're saying that Democrats do that. You've got great mileage out of that. It is not accurate. It's worth a much longer discussion.

HEMINGWAY: So, I have seen --

PAGE: We're not going to get that today.

KURTZ: Let Mollie finish.

PAGE: I just want to throw a word in for truth here.

HEMINGWAY: I've seen much more consistency between the wide variety of Americans across the political perspective who opposed political violence, whether or not it's affecting the White House or federal courthouses or the Capitol. There has been consistency there.

That's not what you see in this committee where you have people who actually believe that the 2016 election was illegitimate. You have Adam Schiff who perpetrated the lie that the previous president wasn't legitimate but had colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. You have people who voted against certifying electors in previous elections, including the 2016 election.

This entire thing is a joke. The context is important and that's why people aren't taking it as seriously as the media are pretending to because everyone knows that this is not legitimate --

KURTZ: All right.

HEMINGWAY: -- and not actually trying to find facts.

KURTZ: Clarence, I got about 20 seconds for you to respond.

PAGE: I'm sorry. I have a technical problem here. I'm not able to hear.

KURTZ: Let me just pick it up by saying I do think the media have to acknowledge that the hearings helped them politically, doesn't mean there shouldn't be an investigation. By the way, this is headed in a direction where now we have the Justice Department officials' notes, in which Donald Trump in the final weeks told an official at that department just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and our congressmen. You will be hearing a lot more about that.

Thanks to Clarence and Mollie.

Up next, the White House and the Hill moving toward a back from the dead infrastructure deal, and the press is giving Mitch McConnell some credit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: The Politico headline a few days ago was "Pigs Fly: McConnell Weighs Giving Biden a Bipartisan Win." Well, after months of gridlock, Mitch McConnell was one of 17 Republican senators backing a test vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Joining us now, Mike Emanuel, Fox's chief Washington correspondent. And Mike, between Mitch McConnell voting on this thing and taking off pro- vaccination ads on Kentucky radio stations, he's getting some good press which is extraordinarily rare for the Senate Republican leader.

MIKE EMANUEL, FOX NEWS CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, pretty chocking. Most mainstream media folks do not care much for Mitch McConnell. For one, he is not really a sound bite machine. Mitch McConnell traditionally tells you exactly what Mitch McConnell wants you to know and not really flowery sound bites.

They also see him as an obstacle to the Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer agenda typically. But when he comes around and he is one of 17 to start this bipartisan infrastructure package and now is pushing Americans to get vaccinated, a moment of good press for Mitch McConnell. We'll see how long it lasts, Howie.

KURTZ: Yeah, McConnell affirms he doesn't really care that much for what the media think. But, you know, this package could easily collapse on infrastructure. It's not really paid for. A lot of counting gimmicks, there is no tax cuts and there is no virus crackdown (ph). But after months on life support, the press is giving President Biden a lot of kudos because he campaigned on the idea of working across the aisle.

EMANUEL: Yea, this plays into the narrative that President Biden likes out there and his White House team likes out there that he can reach across the aisle, he can work with Republicans. And so 17 is a significant number. Let's give him credit on that.

But after covering Capitol Hill for a decade, I will tell you, nothing is done until it gets to the president's desk for his signature. So this could bounce around some more. There could be some more obstacles.

In fact, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez today threatened that basically if the Senate doesn't pass the $3.5 trillion democratic progressive wish list, that there will be no bipartisan infrastructure bill getting through the House. And so we'll see where it goes from here.

KURTZ: Yeah, there are 17 different ways this could go down and the bill isn't even written yet, so caution is the watch word there.

I want to ask you about the new NPR ethics policy. It says that editorial employees can march or support for certain values, including in favor of people not facing discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity. That sounds like it's okay to support Black Lives Matter, gay rights, legislation, abortion. Wouldn't that raise questions about the impartiality of NPR reporters?

EMANUEL: Absolutely. Most folks in our business see their role as calling balls and strikes but not being active participants actively supporting a cause.

I think what would be fascinating would be if an NPR employee went and said, okay, I want to go to a pro-life rally or I want to go to a pro- Second Amendment rally.

You would probably see a lot of executive heads explode over at NPR and probably a decision to look at modifying the ethics policy once again. But bottom line, they say, yeah, if you want to go participate, come and talk to your boss, and then we will look at allowing you to participate going forward as long as it's doing it in a constructive way, helping society.

KURTZ: Yeah. I just don't think journalists should be marching in demonstrations. You have your rights but you give up some of that when you become a journalist. Most news organizations don't allow that sort of thing.

Mike Emanuel, nice to talk to you as always.

EMANUEL: Thank you, Howie.

KURTZ: Next on MEDIA BUZZ, he's been slammed by NPR because his daily wire is so popular. Ben Shapiro on the media and what he calls the authoritarian left, right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): Some writers just don't mince words. My next guest tweeted that when it comes to conflicting guidance about vaccines and masks, the CDC should shut the f up. I spoke earlier with Ben Shapiro, the conservative writer and podcaster, founding editor of The Daily Wire and author of the new book "The Authoritarian Moment: How the Left Weaponized Institutions Against Dissent."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: Ben Shapiro, welcome.

BEN SHAPIRO, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, DAILYWIRE.COM: Thanks for having me.

KURTZ: The CDC's messaging on masks has been an absolute mess. But you say the media are using its findings to peddle misinformation on vaccines and that the agency should shut the blank up. Pretty blunt words.

SHAPIRO: Yes. Well, the fact is that the media unfortunately have really done terrible work in even twisting the bad information the CDC is giving out. Their headlines, for example, from the New York Times and the National Post over the course of the last a couple of days suggesting that vaccinated people are transmitting the virus in the same way that unvaccinated people are transmitting the virus, that's not true.

Vaccinated people who are having breakthrough infections may be transmitting the virus in the same way that unvaccinated people are transmitting the virus. However, vaccinated people are not getting breakthrough infections at the same rate that unvaccinated people are getting infections. There's a pretty scale difference, for example. That's sort of alarmism is actually scaring people away from the vaccines, rather than drawing people to them.

KURTZ: That is an important distinction. Now you say you always warn lefty people about the dangers of blowback from associating with you. Quote, "there are consequences for treating conservative as humans." You talk about one Hollywood producer who interviewed you and then said some nice things about you and had to way back off. How did it get so bad?

SHAPIRO: Yes, it's unfortunate but there has been this move particularly on the radical left to basically destroy anyone who even reaches out across the aisle, to make it unpalatable to even have conversations with anybody who disagrees.

A few days ago, I thought it would be a fun thought experiment to say that everybody, basically in politics, should put out a tweet naming a bunch of people who voted away they didn't last time around and just say they are nice human being and they had dinner with them and they enjoy their work.

I notice a lot of people on the right were happy to do that for people on the center and center left. I didn't notice a lot of people on the center, center left doing that because they are much more afraid to the blowback than anybody on the right, that's for sure.

KURTZ: Yes, that's kind of a chilling prospect. All right, from your book, nearly every major American institution is committed to the idea that all conservatives are vicious racists, know nothing, xenophobes, bigoted idiots. All conservatives? I mean, skeptics will say that's a pretty dramatic over statement.

SHAPIRO: Yes. Well, I mean, that think about anybody who voted for Trump as sort of a subset. Because the truth is, that the vast majority of conservatives voted for Trump. And if you look the major institutions in our society, that simple fact if you say I voted for Trump at your corporate workplace there's a serious problem for you socially and maybe in terms of career.

That's certainly true if you're work in academia, if you work in the media, you are certainly a persona non-grata, unless maybe you work at Fox News. If you are in social media, that makes you persona non-grata. The institutions of our society have been militarized in a pretty significant way.

KURTZ: Is it all Trump related? Because would it apply to Mitch McConnell or Mitt Romney or George W. Bush being painted with that kind of brush?

SHAPIRO: I think Trump makes it much easier for the left to do this because painting the entire conservative movement with Trump is easier picking than doing that with say, George W. Bush or Mitt Romney. But the truth is, that conservatives without Trump being in office are still being treated these ways. And trump may not be the nominee next time around, he hasn't been president for six months. I'm not seeing any signs of this abating.

KURTZ: We talked on this program last week about an NPR story about your huge Facebook traffic which said experts worry you may be furthering polarization and you're fighting conservative culture wars, and you've made outrage into a business model. How do you plead?

SHAPIRO: Well, I'm -- if the idea is that we're conservative, I plead guilty. If the idea is that the only way to solve polarization is for there to be a monopoly, for there to be a mono like one poll, then I strenuously disagree. But that seems to be the idea behind the NPR article.

NPR in that article admitted we don't tell lies on the site, we don't engage in conspiracy theories on the site, and at the bottom of every single article we print we say we're a conservative web site, which is a lot more honest than the New York Times or the Washington Post or BAC or for that matter, government funded NPR.

The fact that that in of itself, the fact that we are conservative was enough for NPR to write a 2,500-word piece talking about how terrible it is that we get heavy Facebook traffic, should be telling. I mean, I've never called for Facebook to suppress NPR's traffic, for example.

KURTZ: Yes. I guess it's the price of success but I would just call (Ph) it there was no recognition that hey, liberals also peddle outrages part of, you know, what a lot of folks do online.

Now, I've never been a fan of Donald Trump's phrase, fake news, but you say it's real. And you write the following. People who work there, I guess pretend to be news outlets but actually are partisan activist. Now there's any question that major news organizations have moved sharply, clearly, and even blatantly more to the left during the Trump years but not everybody who works at these outlets is a partisan activist.

SHAPIRO: For sure. I mean, there are certain people who try harder than others to be objective. And I think that we probably know their names. But I think that there are a lot of people out there who are very openly partisan who maintain that they are objective and the networks overall maintain that they are objective when they very clearly are not and that I think is an act of radical dishonesty.

I'd much rather that everybody just came out with where they are on politics. I don't spend a lot of time in the book or on my show for that matter criticizing MSNBC. They are pretty obvious about where they are. CNN, however, maintains that they're objective while at the same time pushing for almost all the time the same line that MSNBC would.

KURTZ: Yes. Sometimes say what they really think on Twitter when they don't think anybody is looking. There was this incident some months back involving Politico where you were asked to guest edit the playbook column for one day. A bunch of liberal writers had it. Within hours, 225 angry staffers were on a conference call, confronting management over this choice, a Washington Post columnist said this was willful moral malpractice based on one column. What do you think was really going on there?

SHAPIRO: I mean, what is really going on is that, I had invaded a sacred space. And that sacred space was the political playbook which is perceive by the left as a tone domain. And again, what was amazing about that is that there were people like Don Lemon who wrote the Politico playbook inside that same week. Don Lemon obviously is a partisan political player despite his protestations to the contrary.

And the mere fact that I wrote a piece for Politico playbook, I warned them from by the way that they were going to get this kind of blowback, that drove 225 staffers to get on the phone to complain about it, it says something about the nature of how people perceive these institutions to not only have been captured but these institutions the doors must now be closed so that no one can else can get in who might argue with them.

KURTZ: I got half a minute so it makes me wonder, and there's been so many incidents in the newsrooms about this, about free speech which journalists are supposed to be in favor of.

SHAPIRO: It is very troubling that the greatest advocates for crackdowns on social media these days seem to be in the fourth estate which would have shocked the founding fathers. They thought freedom of the press meant that members of the press would at least defend freedom of the press for people who disagree. I think that the press because they have become so activist have moved away from that core obligation.

KURTZ: All right. Ben Shapiro, "The Authoritarian Moment." Thanks very much for joining us.

SHAPIRO: Thanks a lot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: After the break, the media are in an absolute tizzy over Simone Biles quitting the Olympics for mental health reasons. We'll look at that and more, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): When Simone Biles suddenly pulled out of the gymnastics competition at the Tokyo Olympics, blaming her mental state, she became media fodder both for those praising and denigrating her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIMONE BILES, OLYMPIC GYMNAST: I just feel like it would be a little better to take a back seat, work on my mindfulness and I knew that the girls would do an absolutely great job.

I say put mental health first because if you don't, then you're not going to enjoy your sport.

CLAY TRAVIS, FOUNDER, OUTKICK: Simone Biles' story to me is about making quitting not only acceptable, but heroic. Praise-worthy. Evidence of how brave she is.

NICOLLE WALLACE, HOST, MSNBC: I found it soul crushing to see a little pocket of doughy, white, right-leaning losers who probably have a hard time getting dates attack her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now to analyze the coverage in Idaho, Jim Gray, the veteran sportscaster and Fox News contributor, and in New York, Kat Timpf of Fox's Gutfeld show.

Jim, Simone Biles as we just saw is being called a quitter in some corners, but many others especially women including Michelle Obama are praising her for walking away. What accounts, what do you make of this media divide?

JIM GRAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's just disappointing. I mean, you have to be at full strength to be able to compete so mentally she couldn't line up physically. So, you know, it's not a cause for celebration. This is a great disappointment. I'm sure she didn't work for five years to go to all the way to Tokyo, a year into a pandemic, put in all of this work and hard effort and be a great champion in the past to go over there to not be able to compete.

So, it's just, it's just a fact of life. Things don't always work out. And to say that she quit, if she goes out there and lands on her head, she's in serious shape and can injure herself and only she knows how she feels. So, for everybody else to jump in there and say they know better, I don't agree.

KURTZ: Yes, pundits are very good at they know better. Kat, she said on Instagram the day before that she felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. Now you have Piers Morgan writing, are mental health issues now the go-to excuse for any poor performance in elite sport, what a joke, just admit you did badly. And then Piers got dragged for that. It seems like everybody is using her as a punching bag one way or the other.

KAT TIMPF, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Right. I don't think that mental health issues are, you know, a blanket excuse for anything. Look, I have things that I personally struggled with and it's been really hard for me to get to work and I'm proud of myself for pushing through anyway. You know, a few years ago I was going through a rough time.

But what I do is not gymnastics, as Jim alluded to. She was saying that she had, you know, the twisties, basically, it's where you lose awareness of where you are in the air. I talk to a friend who was in the national team, albeit many years ago. But I mean, this is something that's happened before.

In the '80s, Julissa Gomez, you know, she was struggling with the vault, she pushed through. She ended up injuring herself so badly that she was paralyzed and ultimately died from those injuries at just 18 years old.

When you are talking about gymnastics, it's something where if you don't have the mental -- you're not completely there mentally with it, you can absolutely kill yourself. It's completely different than a lot of other things that it's being compared to.

KURTZ: Yes, the worst thing for a pundit who is having problems, as you comment you sound kind silly on the air.

TIMPF: Right.

KURTZ: Well, Jim, I take your point about all the training that she did and what a crushing disappointment this must be for her to have to walk away from her team. But when you look at some of the articles, the New Yorker, the radical courage of Simone Biles. The New York Times' Lindsay Crouse, Simone Biles just demonstrated a true champion mindset. I've got to ask you if this was a male athlete, wouldn't people just say he choked?

GRAY: Well, I don't think it has anything to do with gender. I mean, look, we don't celebrate when a guy is injured and misses the Super Bowl. So, it's nothing to be celebrated. It's not courageous. She knows her body, she knows her mind and she couldn't perform.

But part of -- one of the fundamental tenets, Howard, is to be able to perform under pressure. That's what sport is. That's why we look up to Tom Brady because he came back down 28 to 3. That's why we look up to Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan making that shot against Russell in his final play with the Chicago Bulls.

So, part of sports is being able to handle the pressure. That doesn't mean that if you're mentally not fit and not ready to perform that you go out and injure yourself to try and prove to people you're tough. No, I just don't see it like that.

KURTZ: Yes. The Texas deputy attorney general apologizing for calling Simone Biles a national embarrassment. So, Kat, do you agree that gender is not a factor with all of these columnists praising Simone Biles. Many of them female sports writers.

And also, you know, it seems to me one reason that she is getting a lot of praise and has become this huge figure even before the events of the past week, is that she has spoken publicly about being one of the hundreds of sexual abuse victims of the heinous doctor gymnastics doctor, Larry Nasser. And that took courage.

TIMPF: Right. And I think that that is the one aspect where I think gender could be at play, when we talk about the Me Too movement and Larry Nasser, and she's had, you know, first time competing in the Olympics where this is all public knowledge.

And of course, this is the sort of thing that it's -- I'm not saying it doesn't happen to men because it does and it has, but it more often happens to women and most women have some experience certainly not on that level, but with harassments from, you know, maybe a man who is in position of power over you. It is a very common experience for many women. So, I think that that part in particular is where the gender could have played a role.

KURTZ: Right. And we saw tennis star Naomi Osaka get some of that criticism when she bowed out of the French Open, didn't want to talk to the press. She at least competed but then she lost and then she got a lot of heat in Japan, they'll, you know, and sometimes in sports you win, sometimes you lose.

Let me get a break. Still to come, the Olympic athletes who engage in social justice protests and why some in the media are rooting against U.S. teams.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): The coverage of the Tokyo Olympics has of course become heavily politicized. The woke gestures by certain American athletes have some in this country actually rooting against them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The U.S. women's soccer team is a very good example of what's going on. They unexpectedly lost to Sweden three to nothing.

(CROWD CHEERING)

TRUMP: And Americans were happy about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Newsmax host Grant Stinchfield also kicked the soccer team and said he's happy the men's basketball team suffered a loss.

GRANT STINCHFIELD, HOST, NEWSMAX: I found myself rooting against, not just may Megan Rapinoe and her merry band of America hating female soccer players. The collection of whiny overpaid social justice warriors are very hard to root for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Kat, was the conduct of these soccer and basketball players in Tokyo so egregious that media people including a certain former president should openly root against the American players?

TIMPF: Look, I'm not surprised that it happened this way. I think that it's a symptom of a larger issue, right. The women's soccer team and others have done certain things to protest, you know, they're protesting police brutality or certain aspects of specific things in this country, but many people see that, and they see as them protesting the United States so then they may not want to root for them. And I don't think that that represents a large percentage of people but certainly some.

But then of course the, you know, people on the women's soccer team whoever responded or certain pundits defending them, saying of course, it's because it's the women's soccer team and conservatives hate women and it's just like two screaming ships passing in the night, and it could be a place where more nuance would be, I think beneficial to us all.

KURTZ: Jim Gray, this debate obviously has been going on for several years now, a protest and taking a knee in several sports. Is the Olympics different, though, because if you win, you stand up there with the American flag.

GRAY: Well, I'm personally for every American athlete to do well but that's the freedom of choice that we have in this country. If some people don't want to root for them, they're free to do that, just like the athletes are free to make their demonstrations and free to say what it is that they're protesting. And to try to and curtail that it's just not going to be, it's just not going to happen.

These folks have ideas that they that they want to put out there. They're using their platform and they're going to do it and that's the beauty of our country. And the other beauty is, if you think that rooting against an American athlete somehow satisfies you, then go ahead.

KURTZ: Yes. Well, that's a great free speech argument. There is this question, though, is the Olympics the place to do it. And you're right, everybody gets to weigh in on whatever they want.

Kat, I want to touch on one other thing which is New York Times sports writer Karen Crouse, she did this glowing profile of the former Olympic swimming champion, Michael Phelps, sprinkling advise like the pope blessing his flock with holy water. It was a favorable piece.

She was suspended and has now left the paper for having failed to disclose to her bosses that's she signed a deal to co-author a book with Michael Phelps. What?

TIMPF: Yes, I will say, look, I have written hundreds of columns throughout my career and I will say this to anyone who has not had a career where they do that. The way that it works is not you get an assignment and then the first -- the only further communication is you file the piece, you send the piece back.

There's a lot of back and forth in between the pitch and the actual finished product. She certainly had every opportunity to disclose this at any time and it's something that was going to come out. She absolutely should have. It's absolutely absurd, absurd that she didn't do so.

KURTZ: Yes. The times had to run an editor's note saying that she would have not gotten the assignment to profile Michael Phelps had they him about --

TIMPF: Right.

KURTZ: -- this big book deal. It seems pretty elementary to me.

TIMPF: Yes.

KURTZ: By the way, the ratings for NBC in the Tokyo Olympics down 43 percent for the first number of days, and maybe that's because of the politics, maybe that is also because of the fact that it's COVID and there are no fans in the stands. It's just an unusual year.

I appreciate your analysis, Kat Timpf, Jim Gray, thanks for joining us.

TIMPF: Thank you.

GRAY: Thanks, Howie.

KURTZ: And that's it for this edition of MEDIA BUZZ. I'm Howard Kurtz. We hope you like our Facebook page. We post my daily columns there. And let's continue the conversation on Twitter at Howard Kurtz. Check out my podcast Media Buzz Meter, we pick the top five stories and we buzz about them and get a lot of other things as well.

You can subscribe at Apple iTunes or Google podcast or on your Amazon device. Well, we got it all in. We're back here next Sunday. We hope to see you then, 11 Eastern with the latest buzz.

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