was struggling. i always thought i was pretty empathetic, emphatic. i think i was very, excuse me, empathetic. you know, that s an example of the stroke, empathetic. before having a stroke. but now after having that stroke is, i really understand, you know, much more kind of the challenges that americans have day in and day out. what you saw and heard there, the auditory processing challenges, the speech challenges howard: the nbc correspondent also shared this observation with her viewers we did find that in small talk before the interview without captioning it seemed it was difficult for fetterman to understand our conversation. howard: this prompted a fierce backlash. podcaster kara swisher called burns account just nonsense. maybe this reporter was just bad at small talk. new york magazine offered up a cover story on fetterman saying his comprehension is not at all impaired. he understands everything. burns didn t suggest otherwise, but plenty of stories have r
his comprehension is not at all impaired. he understands everything. burns didn t suggest otherwise, but plenty of stories have ripped her for her remarks. nbc and dasha burns were transparent, but that was rejected by some in this business who just want john fetterman to win that senate seat. i m howard kurtz, and this is mediabuzz. howard: ahead we ll talk to kellyanne conway about the coverage of the midterms in these final weeks. the pundits, not surprisingly, are taking opposite sides on the john fetterman controversy. nbc s lawrence o donnell told fetterman that there are two democratic senators who suffered strokes this year are. no one, including none of the republicans mt. senate, thought in the senate, thought that those two senators should resign their office because they had strokes. howard: but media conservatives