Be here. Hell share why he decided to publish a new column by matt lauer. Lauer went ahead and reinvestigated some of the accusations against him. Lets begin by looking into the future. What will historians say about this moment . How will history books record this time . Well nobody knows for sure, but i think weve already seen heroes emerge and also some villains in the midst of this pandemic. This weekend the New York Times, which likes to think of itself as the first rough draft of history, is trying to fight coronavirus fatigue and pay proper tribute to those we lost. Todays front page is a list of american covid19 victims. It goes on and on for three more pages. Names and brief descriptions of 1,000 lives lost. The total here, the thousand, is just 1 of the nearly 100,000 confirmed dead in america. I think the history books decades from now will grapple with a lot. Theyll grapple with the differing death rates from country to country. The deadly differences between early Safety Measures and delayed responses. The unequal treatment of vulnerable populations like nursing home residents. Historians will look back at late february and early march and say what were they thinking . Who was in charge . They will sift through old tweets and they will see who is in charge. They will see President Trump. They will see President Trump weighed deeper and deeper into d disinformation and distraction. He flouted safety guidelines this week and refused to keep his mask on even at a manufacturing plant where it was required. The only photos of trump modeling a mask were taking by Anonymous Sources and smuggled out to the press. Historians will show the president undermined his own government by downplaying the threat and hyping unproven solutions. They will note the thrill in his voice when he said he was taking hydroxychloroquine, despite mounting evidence it doesnt work against covid19 and could be harmful. The history books will note his obsession with the press, like when he said i was just waiting to see your eyes light up when he said he whe was taking hydroxychloroquine and he didnt want to give the press the pleasure of seeing him with a mask on. Americans were confused by the president s conduct who were distracted by his deep state conspiracy rhetoric. They will note the president had entire Propaganda Networks at his disposal to help change the subject. They will note how sad it was that everything, even doctors and researchers were placed on a pro trump or antitrump spectrum. Historians will also address why so Many Republican leaders sat there silently while the president s conduct went from alarming to appalling and beyond. Maybe this doesnt belong in a history book. Maybe its too pathetic. But President Trump is continuing to accuse Msnbcs Joe Scarborough of being a murderer. This weekend trump is urging people to investigate it. This claim was investigated and debunked 20 years ago. But hes out there sharing it like hes sharing twitter posts mocking Nancy Pelosis face and Stacey Abrams weight and Hillary Clinton. On friday night the president called the New York Times editor one of the dumbest men in journalism. Theres nothing dumb about putting these names it on the front page. Thats pretty smart. Its a nod to history. Because we dont have to wait 20 years, 30 years to read the history. Deep down inside we know the story. So we shouldnt mince words when we talk about it. I think it helps to take a list, to make a list, to take stock of all of the abhorrent behavior that happens daytoday. Because incredible leaders have risen up from this tragedy. Think about the past two to three months of this pandemic and the leaders weve seen emerge. Some have risen while others have sunk to new lows. Historians some day will say everyone had to decide for themselves how low would they go. To what depths would they sink . What about you . If accusing people of murder isnt too low, what is . The balancing act for the press is we have to document leadership failures in the face of a crisis. We have to be very clear about it. But not lower ourselves and fail the audience. On that front you should hold us accountable. With me now is the chairman of the renewed democracy initiative, author and former world chess champion, Garry Kasparov. Garry, this threeyear long situation where the president says something new and outrageous every day. You predicted this. You said there would be a crisis every day. Are there more or fewer crises than you expected . Um, no more no less. Its exactly as i expected. Thats the way for out tro caau deal with the crisis, come up with a new crisis and forget the previous one. Thats why i said crisis almost every week. The problem trump is dealing with now, is that covid19 is too big to distract. Thats why hes getting crazier and crazier. So you think tweets like i think we might have lost that signal. Well try to get garry back. The idea that when the president is tweeting about joe scarborough, accusing him of murder because the anchor criticizes him, thats a reaction to the virus is very interesting. I dont think we have garry back. Well take a quick break, well receipt with ed yong and jennifer senior and many more guests. Well be right back. These days, its anything but business as usual. Thats why working together is more important than ever. At t is committed to keeping you connected. So you can keep your patients cared for. Your customers served. Your students inspired. And your employees closer than ever. Our network is resilient. Our people are strong. Our job is to keep your business connected. Its what weve always done. Its what well always do. Hold on one second. Sure. Okay. Okay safe drivers save 40 guys guys check it out. Safe drivers save 40 safe drivers save 40 safe drivers save 40 thats safe drivers save 40 . It is, thats safe drivers save 40 . Hes right there. Its him hes here. Hes right here. Hi hi. Hey thats totally him. Its him thats totally the guy. Safe drivers do save 40 . Click or call for a quote today. However, there is one thing you can be certain of. The men and women of the United States postal service. Were here to deliver cards and packages from loved ones and also deliver the peace of mind of knowing that essentials like prescriptions are on their way. Every day, all across america, we deliver for you. And we always will. I have moderate to severe pnow, theres skyrizi. Things are getting clearer, yeah i feel free to bare my skin yeah thats all me. Nothing and me go hand in hand nothing on my skin thats my new plan. Nothing is everything. Keep your skin clearer with skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90 clearer skin at 4 months. Of those, nearly 9 out of 10 sustained it through 1 year. And skyrizi is 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. I see nothing in a different way and its my moment so i just gotta say nothing is everything skyrizi may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. Before treatment your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms such as fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches or coughs, or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. Nothing is everything ask your dermatologist about skyrizi. Were back on reliable sources after a little technical gremlin before the break. And Garry Kasparov is back with me. We were talking about the president s strategies in the face of this ongoing pandemic. Garry you wrote on twitter this week that the president is lowering the moral bar for all, for everyone. Can you tell me more about that . Yeah again, its typical. Im bad but everybody is bad. Were all bad. So why did all of a sudden is this corruption in ukraine to cover trumps corruption. The obama is incompetent to cover trumps incompetence. Its all about destruction, l e lowering moral bars, its been working for a while, but now hes dealing with a virus that wont go away. He cannot block the virus. Thats why i think things could get worse because if crazy tweets do not work, crazy action also follow. His warnings about the election, about mailin ballots being rigged, all of this nonsense that runs counter to the facts. It will be a very long six months between now and november if hes going to try to delegitimatize the election ahead of time. I predict he will. If the numbers are not looking good for him, so far its not working the way he expected, he will be getting crazier and crazier. Thats why i think this election will be very unorthodox. So we should expect the worse, dealing with people like trump you should prepare for the worse. If it can happen, work as if it has happened. Let me ask you about his treatment of pro trump media. He seemed to give up the game a few days ago tweeting out to the world about fox news saying contrary to what you think, fox news is not helping me win reelection and then criticized some of the democratic guests and anchors on fox. He is always name calling. But this idea hes saying, hey, i think fox news is in my camp, theyre just not doing a good enough job. Its saying the quiet part out loud, isnt it . Yes, but hes getting more and more desperate. His typical tactic is no longer working. He couldnt block the virus [ no audio ] doing a good job. Its all about its all about, you know, having all the power and no responsibility. Garry, thank you very much for being here. Great to see you. Apologize for the technical challenges in between. Follow garry on twitter. I want to show you one more thing from the White House Press briefing that took place the other day. This was absolutely sinful. This was White House Press secretary, keyleigh mcenany, trying to deflect reporters questions about safety by suggesting reporters dont care about religion. They dont want to go to church. They dont care about worshipping. Thats why they were questioning or challenging the president s comments about opening up the churches. Lets watch what she said. Boy, its interesting to be in a room that desperately wants to seem to see these churches and houses of worship closed. I object to that. I go to church. Im dying to go back to church. The question that were asking you and would like to have asked the president and dr. Birx is, is it safe . Thank you, jeff mason for saying what so many were thinking in that moment. As for keyleigh mcenany, if shes going to stay in this job and have any respect from the press corps she cant question faith of the people she works with. Lets turn to some front pages and Television News segments now about memorial day weekend and about this pandemic. Some front pages are featuring beachgoers, while at the same time others are carrying warnings like this one. A hospital official saying the covid19 crisis is far from over. These are the tensions and contradictions of this memorial day weekend. You have fda commissioner steven hahn tweeting a reminder that the virus is not yet contained. He says social distancing, hand washing and Wearing Masks protects us all. He says that on twitter but his president does what his boss does, President Trump, doesnt match that covering. Do the boardwalk scenes and beach scenes represent whats really happening or are these outliers . Theres a lot to be praised about how people adapted to this crisis. We see 2k3wgatherings in cars, socially distanced graduation ceremonies. Drivein cinemas opening up instead of regular theaters. Americans and people around the world are proving to be adaptable in the midst of this pandemic. Lets make sure the camera is on that as well. Lets discuss this with staff writer from the Atlantic Ed Yong out about a big story on the patchwork pandemic, and New York Times columnist jennifer senior is here as well. Ed, you said this is a patchwork pandemic. Can you describe what that means . Different parts of the u. S. Are experiencing this pandemic in many different ways. In some places like new york famously the visrus struck hard and it is waning, but in other places the virus is just taking off. So people are getting are differing experience. Some people are staying home, others are flocking to the outdoors again. We need to be mindful of that when we think about the coverage of the virus. Americans are actually strangely united in their attitudes and their behaviors. Opinion polls and other surveys have shown that upwards of 70 of people support measures like distancing, mask wearing, you cant get 17 of americans to agree on anything but a lot of them are agreeing on this. That stands in stark contrast to the views of people to breaking Public Health advice, going out and being incautious. That is contributing to a different view of a different understanding of the pandemic. It seems like my neighbors are going to the beach. Maybe i should go to the beach. Youre saying these scenes on television this weekend are the exception, not the rule. I think that they are its obvious why theyre being covered. Its much more compelling to show someone flocking out in a public space than to show me sitting at home and following guidelines. Yet the latter is probably more reflective of what most americaamerican s are doing. That discrepancy of what is the majority and what is more telegenic is a problem. Ill do this for 15 seconds. Ill be part of the problem. Heres a viral social media video from the ozarks, from missouri. All of these partygoers, playing in the pool. I seen this spreading on twitter this weekend with the differing reactions to these scenes. Obviously theyre not abiding by what Health Officials are saying. But these videos will circulate, ed. I guess its incumbent on everyone on twitter and social media and tv newsrooms to keep it in perspective, not overreact to it . Is that fair . Yeah, thats right. I think providing the context thats necessary to interpret all of this breaking stuff will be crucially important, not just now but as we go on to further months of this pandemic. This problem is not just going to be over by memorial day. It will be with us for much of the rest of the year. And i think we need to adapt our practices to dealing with the crisis that is persistent and lingering and patchworked. Jennifer senior, youve been writing about the president and his handling of this patchwork pandemic. I wonder what you make of maskgate, these sorts of moments where he runs contrary to Public Health officials recommendations. What do i make of it . I mean, i think on some level its a its a sign of the fact that trump this compromises the kind of image he wants to project. He wants to show strength. He sees this on some level it seems to be slightly emasculating to wear a mask, he likes how he looks resolute at his desk. Theres a strange part of trump that doesnt quite believe things he cant see. His whole attitude towards this has been one since the beginning has been slightly p z puzzling to me. He will say, well, if it becomes a problem well deal with it. The second something visibly becomes a problem its too late to deal with it. So any prophylactic measure to him doesnt compute in a weird way. Interesting. Really interesting. Yeah. And i think that generally this is a larger obstacle when we look at the media coverage. Ed was just talking about exactly this idea. Weve been hammered from the beginning by what we can see and cant see in general in this pandemic. Its easy to cover a group of people protesting outside a state house or partying on the beach, its until jenuntelegenih me making pancakes to s ts for and not going out. In hospitals youre using valuable ppe because youre running afoul of privacy laws, so youre not getting the measure of how dire it is, and what the death and scale of suffering looks like, which is happening inside homes that you cant see. Trump is sort of walking out naked it all seems part of this strange cognitive inability of ours to go with what we can see rather than what we cant. The harms are not registering. A month ago, you were in praise of pessimism. Are you still pessimistic today . Yeah. I was youre use, because i want to ask ed the same question. Ed as a science writer, youre studying this every day, where are you on the optimism pessimism scale . I think the facts of the matter force us to be pessimistic. I think thats a matter of political will. Its a question of whether our leaders can rise to the challenge. As i wrote in the patchwork pandemic, a lot of local leaders are doing their best and doing a good job. Thats not evenly distributed. It requires federal coordination. Im not optimistic well get it. But like if you want me to Say Something optimistic about this, this is not some really super weird impossible to deal with disease. Weve seen measures that work in different places. They are the standard Public Health repertoire that people have been dealing with for over a century. Testing, tracing, isolating. Its not rocket science. And social interventions that can do a lot of good. Paid sick leave. Hazard pay. All of these things can make a huge difference to our ability to fight the virus. We just need to get our act together and ramp these things up. The end game shouldnt be impossible. Pessimism stems from fake and whether our political system can rise to the challenge adequately. Ed yong, jennifer senior, thank you both very much. Quick plug for our nightly news letter. You can find their work and so much more if you sign up at cnn. It reliable. Coming up next on reliable sources, why the old adage about crossing your ts and dotting your is is so important. And why New York Times media columnist ben smith is questioning ronan farrows reporting. Here from ben smith in a moment. [ engines revving ] its amazing to see them in the wild like th shhh. For those who were born to ride, theres progressive. If you have a garden you know, weeds are low down little scoundrels. With roundup sure shot wand you dont need to stoop to their level. Draw the line. The sure shot wand extends with a protective shield to pinpoint those pesky bedfellows. It lets you kill whats bad right down to the root, while comfortably guarding the good. Draw the line with the roundup sure shot wand. Roundup brand. Trusted for over 40 years. 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Just ask what can i say to find more of what you love with the xinity voice remote. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will be holding his Daily Briefing on the coronavirus at noon eastern time. Cnn will bring it to you live when it begins. Now to the story that had journalists buzzing all week long. Its a reexamination of ronan farrows epic reporting streak from the past few years. Farrows reporting shook the internal power structures of journalism, hollywood and beyond for Companies Like cbs and nbc. The new York Attorneys Office and many more. Now ben smith is essentially reevaluating, scrutinizine ini farrows reporting. He said he found omissions and misleading story telling and this sparked a debate about farrow, his work and what smith suggests is resistance journalism. What does that mean . With me now is the aforementioned media columnist, ben smith who started at the New York Times a few months ago, formerly the editor and chief of buzzfeed news. What is resistance journalism . You know, i think its something that every reporter feels to some degree, which is there are these incredible powerful narratives, many of them broadly true, that kind of drive the media conversation drives social media, and theres a strong impulse to play to them in every case, to always sort of fulfill that expectation. This story i begin with in the piece this week this is certainly not something that is, you know, that ronan farrow is the only person who does this, i think probably every person feels this gravitational pull in some ways, but the story i began with was a story of a suggestion of a coverup in the department of treasury of Sensitive Files regarding michael cohn. The headline was missing files motivated this high profile leak of this financial information, and the story turned out not to be true at all. Michael avenatti got this junior analyst as his defense analyst put it to watch too much cable news and leak him some files. And it got sort of spun into a recognizable sympathetic narrative in a way that was a huge splash on the internet but just dissolved. It turns out the files were not missing at all, they were restricted. Somebody who went looking for them, it would have hit a notice saying basically if you need these, call the librarian. So perhaps a source or several sources led farrow astray, doesnt that happen to everybody . Absolutely. I was surprised that wasnt the new yorkers defense of that story. You know what, we got it wrong. I think if you read the writing of this story, theres a caveat. This could just be that they were restricted, but even in that case Anonymous Sources indicate that would be a bombshe bombshell. And every piece of evidence ends towards confirming peoples expectations. And towards conspiracy. One of your main critiques of f farrows book is that he alleges conspiracy but never really proves conspiracy. He presents the evidence, lets the reader decide. He says thats good enough. He doesnt go beyond the facts. You know, i think thats i think im not sure he quite said that. I think that is actually like our jobs. I think reading catch and kill but this is not something specific to his work. Maybe hes the highest profile practitioner. Hillary clintons spokesman calls him he describes it as ominous and said it was an instance of power protecting power. It suggests that Hillary Clinton is taking Harvey Weinsteins side, and theres no evidence that that happened at all. Its a theory that many, Many Americans are eager to believe, there are these conspiracies of powerful people. Thats often quite true, but its you have to prove it. You cant just sort of imply it and then when called on your implications say, hey, i never literally said it and to take these legalistic defenses. There are a lot of people including people watching this program who admire ronan farrow. Youre not saying hes making stuff up. You just seem to be saying sometimes he doesnt cross his ts and dot his is. Thats essentially your critique, is that right . Thats a quote from a friend and mentor of ronans. In the case for him, to the degree he contributed to the fall of Harvey Weinstein, who is a monster, that was a great service. I wouldnt want to take that away from him. There are other stories that he broke wide open. He added important reporting on. Let me show ronans tweet in response to some of this. The new yorker supported him, expressed support for him and farrow tweeted out i stand by my reporting. Do you think theres a lesson for journalism students or aspiring journalists in what youve looked at . Im not trying to be a professor here. Come on, ben. From my perspective, this is an argument you and i have had for a long time. I probably dont totally agree with the New York Times on all these things, you should err on the side of transparency. Write what you know and dont know. You should show the readers what youve got. This has come up around the tara reid story in a certain way, too. I think that audiences look so closely at us and are examining not just what we find but how we find it so intensely that you shouldnt try to spin people. Let me give you an example involving your paper. That incredible front page this morning with the thousand names of covid19 victims. Some sleuth found that one of the thousand died of a homicide, not covid19. Then all the trolls tried to act like this was all discredited, fake news. Shame on them for taking one error and smearing the New York Times for it. Thats the world we live in. People take good but clawed reporting and try to smear with it. You know, im not sure about good faith and bad faith, i think all reporting will be flawed. Its always the best we can do. Were always trying to get you as much as we know when we know it. To the degree we pretend otherwise, that sets us up for criticism. Every journalistic project that errors. Sometimes you get things totally wrong. Often you get things a little wrong, the best thing you can do is correct them as fast as you can. We ought to be straight with our audiences about that. My concern is that we live in an environment where any error turns into a conspiracy or proof of a plot. Thats damaging. I dont know how to fight back against that. I dont know how to show folks that journalists are mostly acting in good faith. Yeah. I do think theres broadly this moment when people in this unbelievably disoriented and talk moment are looking for wheels within wheels. One strange thing for me about working for the New York Times where i just arrived and everything is interpreted through these institutional motives. It was an incredibly wildly shared tweet i do not think ronan believes this or suggested it at all, but smith must have written this because farrow has something coming about the New York Times. This is sort of an institutional defensive maneuver. For someone not paying you can see why that has a certain logic to it and how compelling that logic is. We have to resist that seduction. We do. Ben, thank you for being here it turns out that former today show host matt lauer was also scrutinizing farrows work. How does lauer back up his claims and why did mediaite publish his column . Dan abrams is next. If thats not enough, were throwing in four Samsung Galaxy phones. On us. And now, sprint customers enjoy access to expanded coverage on the tmobile network. Shop from the comfort of your home at sprint. Com or come see us in our stores. For people with hearing loss, visit sprintrelay. Com. The coronavirus continues to affect us all, and we are here, actively supporting you and your community. Every day, were providing trusted information from top health experts. Sharing tools to help protect families from fraud. And creating resources to support family caregivers everywhere. As always, you can count on aarp to advocate for you and your family. Join us and stay connected at aarp. Org coronavirus for you and your family. Your bank can be virtually any place you are. You can deposit checks from here. And you can see your transactions and check your balance from here. And pay bills from here. Because your bank isnt just one place. Its virtually any place you are. Just download and use the chase mobile app. Visit chase. Com mobile. That ben smith column in the New York Times about ronan farrow prompted a response of source from former nbc today show anchor matt lauer. Lauer was fired in 2017 for what the network said at the time was inappropriate sexual behavior with a colleague. That colleague later told farrow that lauer raped her during the sochi olympics in 2014. Lauer denies any rape allocation or any unwanted sexual contact. He spoke out in a column publ h published this week by mediaite. Lets talk more about that with dan abrams, the founder of mediaite. You are the legal analyst for abc news, founder of the Law Crime Network and host of the dan abrams show on sirius xm. You think about these legal and media issues all the time. Why did you think it was appropriate to publish the column . Tom jones said he would welcome the chance to interview lauer but just not appropriate to publish lauers column. Why did you think it was . This was definitely a controversial piece. Im not convinced the decision to publish was that controversial. I run a media site. We cover media critique. And what matt lauer did, he reached out to four different witnesses who were cited in ronan farrows book. And checked with them as to whether ronan farrow talked to them and whether the accounts described in farrows book were accurate. According to all four of them they werent. Ronan farrow had not contacted them. And these were critical pieces to the story about what ronan farrow was telling about what happened to matt lauer. That doesnt mean by publishing it its a defense of matt lauer. Its simply saying this is newsworthy. This was fact checked with regard to the four people that matt lauer said he spoke to, and we felt that it was certainly worthy of publication that matt lauer should be able to defend himself. That doesnt mean that ronan farrow loses any of the credit that he deserves. He deserves enormous credit for the work that hes done. But i also think hes got questions to answer in connection with what matt lauer was saying. Farrow dent take down matt lauer, lauer took down himself essentially. Brook nevils, the accuser, described this alleged rape. Lauer focuses in on according to catch and kill, nevils said she broke up with her boyfriend over her anguish about the encounter with lauer, but according to lauer, farrow did not call the exboyfriend and talk to him. Those are the sorts of issues that lauer is raising. Mediaite then followed up with these individuals like the exboyfriend. You all fact checked lauers rereporting, is that right . Right. We treated it the way we would any opinion piece where someone makes these allegations. Hes citing four conversations that he claims he had with critical people that undermined ronan farrows reporting. We werent just going to publish it and take matt lauers word for it. So before publishing they reached out to these four individuals, these four witnesses cited in loronans bo to find out if matt lauers account was accurate. They said it was. That doesnt answer the ultimate questions here, but from a media critique perspective theres no question that it was worthy of publication. It adds more grays to the black and white. I suppose what i wonder, are we heading into a world where men who have been accused in this me too movement will rereport the stories and on some cases report on their accusers . Look. This is this, i dont think, can be compared people said to me the main critique is why did you want to publish matt lauers story at all. I didnt want to hear from matt lauer. I would ask that you read it first before you critique it. This isnt just like publishing a piece by Harvey Weinstein saying i didnt do it. This is a media an Important Media critique of what was the essential and key allegation against matt lauer. Hes saying, look, about the reporting on this, about the witnesses who are cited to bolster the account, they didnt say what the book suggests that they said or this didnt happen as the book suggests it happened. If you care about accuracy, and you care about journalism, i think thats important. And again ill say it, ronan farrow has done a terrific job of amplifying important voices here, but i think its for that same reason that he ought to at least respond to the specifics of lauers response and also more specifics with regard to bens piece as well. For the record, farrow tweeted this about the column by matt lauer. He said all i have to say is matt lauer is just wrong. Catch and kill was thoroughly reported and fact checked including with matt lauer himself. He didnt address the other questions about who he didnt call for the story. Final thought . He didnt address any of the specifics. By the way, we wrote a separate piece on farrows denial. We did a whole piece about what his publisher is saying. Its not as if were picking a side here. Its doing media critique and media analysis. You can find it on mediaite. Com. Dan, thank you very much. Coming up on the program, is President Trumps dream of actually staterun tv coming true . Well unpack the president s pick to lead an obscure federal agency that spends your tax dollars. This week he got one step closer to the job. The men and women of the United States postal service. Were here to deliver cards and packages from loved ones and also deliver the peace of mind of knowing that essentials like prescriptions are on their way. Every day, all across america, we deliver for you. And we always will. Join me joe mantegna, gary sinise and me gary sinise, joe mantegna for a special presentation of the National Memorial day concert. With performances from around the country honoring all of our american heroes. Featuring general colin powell, sam elliott, cynthia erivo, laurence fishburne, trace adkins, esai morales, renee fleming, kelli ohara, christopher jackson, and mary mccormack. The National Memorial day concert. Sunday, may 24th, 8 7 central on pbs. You know when your dog is itching for an outing. Or itching for some cuddle time. But you may not know when hes itching for help. Licking for help. Or rubbing for help. If your dog does these frequently. They may be signs of an allergic skin condition that needs treatment. Dont wait. Talk to your veterinarian and learn more at itchingforhelp. Com. Theyre going to be paying for this for a long time. They will, but with accident forgiveness allstate wont raise your rates just because of an accident, even if its your fault. Cut sonny. Was that good . Line the desert never lies. Isnt that what i said . No you were talking about allstate and insurance. I just. When i. Lets try again. Everybody back to one. Accident forgiveness from allstate. Click or call for a quote today. A book that youre ready to share with the world . Get published now, call for your free publisher kit today voice of america is funded by the American Government but proudly independent. President trump doesnt seem to like that. He seems to be trying to gain control of the o. A. And he took a step in that direction this week. Cnns sunlander is fadty has the story. Reporter conservative michael pack, friend of steve bannon, President Trumps nominee to lead the u. S. Agency for global media, whi. Its moving forward on capitol hill even as new questions are being raised over his finances. The d. C. Attorney general how investigating the nonprofit run by pack for possible misuse of funds, according to senator menendez. Why are we voting a nominee who is the subject of an investigation for unlawful selfenrichment. Is this the person you want running a u. S. Government agency with a budget of almost 1 billion. Reporter cnns calls to pack have not been returned. The its latest development in a nomination that has languished for two years. I feel called back to international broadcasting. Americas adversaries has stepped up their propaganda and disinformation efforts. Reporter now as trump focuses his ire on the voa voice of america is run in a terrible manner. Terrible. Theyre not the voils of america. Theyre the opposite of the voice of america. Reporter the white house accusing the voa for spreading coronavirus. Hes been stuck in committee for two years preventing us from managing the voice of america. Very important. If you heard what is come ought of voice of america, its disgusting. Reporter with fears trump might try to convert the voa into a megaphone for his policies abroad. Democrats are concerned about packs independence. I guess if it comes down to we say no when you get a call from somebody a political person telling a journalist what to do. But i will look for ways to make sure are you i think so. I have said no before. Reporter on capitol hill, these political dynamics spilling out into a contentious meeting on thursday of the Senate ForeignRelations Committee with republicans pushing forward on packs nomination, the chairman holding the meeting off camera. Democrats leader releasing their own video of the meeting. Mr. Chairman please dont interrupt now. Reporter and made repeated attempts to block a vote in the committee. Mr. Chairman, i move to postpone the Committee Vote on michael pack. The committee ultimately voting along party lines to advance packs nomination out of the committee. Now just one step away from final confirmation in the full senate. The republican majority of the Foreign Relations committee is turning the cameras off so the press and the public cant see what theyre doing. Giving a promotion to Steve Bannons business partner, in the middle of a health crisis. And sources within the voa tell me theres a sense of apprehension about what comes next. And adding to the concern, michael pack would potentially have unilateral control over the agency. There were some changes made in the final few months of the obama administration. They actually disbanded a bipartisan board and replaced it with a Advisory Board made to make things move efficiently but means less of a fire wall if and likely when michael pack is confirmed. Sunlen, do we know when itll happen . The senate is on recess next week. He was pushed through the Senate ForeignRelations Committee on thursday. Senate majority leader mcconnell has been mum so far as to when hell take up the final confirmation vote on the floor of the u. S. Senate. Thank you. Were out of time here. We want to remind you about the weekly pod cast. This weeks guest is nprs head of news nancy barnes. Hear about how her organization is covering the pandemic. Quickly, reminder, as well, for an interesting event happening later today on cnns sister channels. Phil mickelson, tiger woods playing. Well see you back here this time next week. Ere plaque psoriasis. Now, theres skyrizi. Things are getting clearer, yeah i feel free to bare my skin yeah thats all me. Nothing and me go hand in hand nothing on my skin thats my new plan. Nothing is everything. Keep your skin clearer with skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90 clearer skin at 4 months. Of those, nearly 9 out of 10 sustained it through 1 year. 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