Stories and now the brief leave of absence can the face of nbc news survive this credibility crisis. A National Furor over vaccinating kids. This is the pandering that can be dangerous. Rand paul is a doctor. I dont know where he is getting that data from. I dont think that we should be engaging people in this paranoia. These what you are. Youre science deniers. But is it fair for the press to tight antivaccination movement to conservatives . Plus rand paul rips a cnbc anchor in a very con tententious interview. Part of the problem is where the interview is so slanted and full of distortions that you dont get useful information. Sgr was the senator treated unfairly or did he overreact . Well go to the videotape in our new segment, media buzz saw. Im howard kurtz and this is media bus. Mediabuzz. Mediabuzz. He Brian Williams told his staff yesterday its become painfully apparent that he is too much a part of the news due to his own actions, but that hell return to nightly news after several days of leave. The Dramatic Development rooted in the invasion of iraq when he was on an Army Helicopter ground grounded by a sand storm and he recounted what happened to another chopper. On the ground, we learned the chinook ahead of us was almost blown out of the sky. But his story kept changing and by 2013, the anchor was telling this version to David Letterman and alec baldwin. Two of our four helicopters were hit including the one i was in, rpg and ak47. What happens the minute everybody realizes youve been hit . We figure out how to land safely. And we did. We landed quickly an hard and we put down and we were stuck. Did you think you would die . Briefly. D hard and we put down and we were stuck. Did you think you would die . Briefly. He repeated it last week. The story started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an rpg. Our traveling nbc news team was rescued surrounded and kept alive by an armored mechanized platoon. But Army Veterans on that mission told the stars and stripes newspaper williams was not on the chinook he was hit. I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago. It did not take long to hear from some brave men and women in the air crews who were also in that desert. I want to apologize. I said i was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by rpg fire. I was instead in a following aircraft. Veterans who spoke to stars and stripes were fuming. What are these guys who were actually thinking hes been doing with this story . You uyou know, they position he think he wants the glory. Sglechb the sglechb. Joining us now, sharyl attkisson, David Zurawik and paul farhi. Let me take a moment to update you on some exclusive details i reported last night on foxnews. Com. Brian williams stepped aside voluntarily. He was not prodded to do this by the nbc brass. There is no nbc internal investigation in to this matter. Its a fact gathering inquiry to help nbc answer questions. There wont be any report on his conduct. And he is considering an invitation to go on David Letterman show where you saw that clip thursday to discuss this further. Youve had a little experience flying on military aircraft. What is the magnitude of Brian Williams mistake about iraq . Its a large mistake because unless you have been on so Many Missions and shot at so many times that maybe youve confused which mission on which you were shot at and which ones you werent, you know. But what strikes me is an even larger glaring thing that a lot of other people know, too. The people who were with you know, the crew knows you werent shot at. And the network who where you worked at the time knows that you were not shot at. So as he was telling the story, there are a lot of people around him who i think knew it was not the case for quite a while. And williams already told america that it was another cop that was hit as weve shown in that brief clip from 2003. David, the big question. What should nbc news do now faced with this crisis. Well, a, i dont know of course none of us know what do you think should happen . Will. I think he should no longer be manage editor and anchor of their lead newscast. Ill. I think he should no longer be manage editor and anchor of their lead newscast. Ll. I think he should no longer be manage editor and anchor of their lead newscast. I think he should no longer be manage editor and anchor of their lead newscast. I think he should no longer be manage editor and anchor of their lead newscast. I think he should no longer be manage editor and anchor of their lead newscast. And i wrote this wednesday. If they care about credibility. This is a serious, serious why would you trust anything this man says . It isnt just that he lied. Its the kind of lie he told. There are so many people in this country who are either part of a military family or served in the military who live every day with the wounds and the scars of those battles. Here is this rich anchorman who is over there for a little time and he tries to steal some of the honor they earned. How in the world could anybody in a military family not look at him on television and have contempt for this man . I think they should do it. Will they do it . This is a test of nbcs moral character at this point. And i give him credit for putting his life at risk which makes it more inexplicable to me why he at the time thefelt the need about embellishing the story. An apology, but no word of support. How in your dealings how is nbc handling this . Well theyre trying to get beyond it. If they can. Its a real question, can they get beyond it. The lack of a statement of support for Brian Williams is striking in itself. But Brian Williams apparently did not want a particular statement of support because in the case of David Gregory they supported him on meet the press. Look what happened to him. They do not want this kiss of death. A source told me it would be the kiss of death and yet a lot of people asking why nbc, you know it was not until late friday that any statement at all was put out. And i find that odd given the magnitude of this problem. Sharyl, you covered for cbs the story of hillary clinton. She was recounting what happened when she landed in bosnia back in 1996. Let me play a brief clip. Is that is senator clinton talking to me on the military flight and these are the pictures we recorded of the greeting ceremony. Compare that to senator clintons account. I remember landing under sniper fire. Hillary clinton said she landed under sniper fire. You were on the trip. There was no sniper fire. She later backed off. Do you see any similarities . Strange similarities. And not the least of which is 12 years after the fact in both cases. Just sort of a coincidence of time. Also once Hillary Clintons misstatement was exposed she doubled down instead of doing sort of an apology, she actually said, yes, i shook hands with a little girl, but then i ran and ducked and ran for cover. So we did a second story that showed, no, she posed for pictures with 7th sgrader, she visit theed the troops. That remains unexplained. She didnt explained a she convinced herself that it happened, werent there people around her such as chelsea who was on the trip saying, mom, we werent shot ap. Celebrities, sheryl crow, everybody. This is one of the stories everybody is talking about at the water cooler. Why would Brian Williams feel the need do this. If i idea about that . The one thing i have avoided steadfastly is to try to psycho analyze, to try to do what is going in Brian Williams head. None of us can really answer. I dont think any of us can really answer it. But if you look at his career sense he took the anchor seat of branding himself, of promoting himself, and thats part the industry here today. Heres the sin of this. He never took the journalism part of his job once he became anchor and managing editor as seriously as he took the celebrity portion. I dont think thats fair. This is a guy who has guest hosted saturday night live, he goes on the daily show, he uses his sense of to be more than just a reading off the prompter anchor. But he also has traveled around the world and when you say he didnt take the journalism part seriously, what do you base that on . When they gave him a prime time Network Magazine show, he showcased Chelsea Clinton as a special correspondent at 600,000. Thats what i mean. Lets not try to parse the journalism because this isnt ultimately about journalism per se. Its about the promotion of the journalism. Its about what brian has said in the many years since he reported this story. There is not a real question about what he reported. Its the way hes characterized it since. And part of brians charm is that he gets on these shows and he sells his charm he sells himself. Thats why hes the number one anchor in part. But the question now is did he go too far in doing those things. 9 Million Viewers for nbc nightly news. You made a point and i want to put up video from thenightly news about the ceremony of the hockey game about the way it was edited. So take a look at that. It appears to show him on the chinook the way they rode it and the way he spoke over it. And it appears to show afterwards then looking at the rpg injury to the chinook as if he were on it and what i was saying is whoever looked at the video, producers, editors, at some point i will think would know he was not on that chinook. My question is who did this know this and were they forced to cut the video in a way that supported a story that they knew not to be true, were there complaints internally. The big problem with the apology im told, when he said he was in a following aircraft it sounded like he was 20 feet behind the chop their got hit. In fact he was in a different Helicopter Company that did pass this other group of helicopters, one which have wasof which was fired on. Briefly when cnn reported based on the an interview with the pilot, that there was small arms fire. Lets play a brief clip on cnn. Did the helicopter that you were in, that Brian Williams was in, did it take any rpg fire or small arms fire in. I was on the second aircraft and mr. Williams was on board my aircraft. We took small arms fire. He has now retracted that and doesnt even appear to have been the pilot. I think cnn should have been more careful in this sense. When stars and stripes reported this story, they had a wall of people who were there talking about it. So all of a sudden on wednesday or thursday, one guy comes out and is going to contradict everything. You really have to vet that. If this is a discipline of verification, they did almost none of that. And as you reported, the next day he recanted totally, saying he didnt want to talk about it anymore and disappeared. And cnn called it revision. They were they were revising. It was a retraction. It wasnt jake tapper, it was another cnn reporter. And another problem for Brian Williams this New York Post cover headlines calling him lying brian, the pinocchio nose growing. Its become a cultural story and story every makes fun of and that is not a comfortable place for an anchor to be. Were not done with this. Send me a tweet. howardkurtz. Well read some of your messages later. When we come back, more on the Brian Williams saga with new questions being raised about his Hurricane Katrina reporting. Is this just piling on . And later a look at the coverage of the vaccination uproar and whether some politicians are being treated unfairly. There are also new questions about Brian Williams reporting on Hurricane Katrina. When you look out of your hotel room and watch a man float by face down when you see bodies that you last saw in indonesia and swore to yourself that you would never see in your country. The new orleans advocate says it doesnt believe williams saw floating bodies. But yesterday a respected newspaper saying there was water there and a couple people had seen dead bodies. Is this now piling on . Thats what is really going to be tough i think for williams and nbc is everybody will go over every inch of this and it will be fact checked that way. I thought on this one i thought, well, when i first heard it i thought either you can find out there is a fact. Either there was water there or not, lets find it out before publishing it. So i think in some case there is is a tendency to do that. I went to new orleans with brey an Brian Williams some months after katrina and he showed me where he saw the first body. He was very emotionally invested in this story. Went back to new orleans eight or nine times. So this didnt ring true to me. The floating body story is the least questionable element of what he has said about his katrina coverage. He said that gangs were overrunning his hotel. No the hotel was a staging area for law enforcement. Very, very unlikely that there were gangs overrunning that hotel. There were other claims, as well. And all of them add up to a record, not a piling organization but a record that needs to be examined. Now weve reached the point where some Media Outlets said because brian is famously a new jersey volunteer fireman at one time he said he saved a pup if i from a fire, puppies from a fire. So it comes back to the question of the anchor credibility, and what nbc news how it deals with it. Maybe the biggest problem is not just the examination of what hes said in the past, but how he moves forward. What sort of things can he cover now. Lets say there is another military conflict. There will be lingering questions. Just briefly, he has ten year career, some people like Brian Williams some people think he leans to the left. But is that career just sort of wiped out by the one egregious terrible mistake . I dont know that its wiped out. Hes actually been a very good reporter over the years. The question is his credibility so damaged that you cant watch Brian Williams deliver the news and believe what hes saying. Thats what anchor men sell. Does he still have it. And if he loses a piece of thatted that audience thats a big big. But if hes two or three instead of one, thats another thing sflp well have to go. Thanks for joining us. Ahead with the isis butchers putting out that video of burning a jordanian pilot to death, how should the media handle those horrifying images some but up next president obama causes a furor by bringing christianity into a discussion of isis but some Media Outlets gont think thats news. President obama made some very controversial remarks at a white house Prayer Breakfast this week, but the coverage has been remarkably spotty. Heres what the president said. We see isil, brutal that in the name of religious uncarries out unspeakable acts of barbarism. Unless we got on our high horse and position thatthink this is unique remember during the crusade, people committed terrible deeds in the name of christ. Joining us now nina easton, jim geraghty, and mara liasson. Jim, the president makes these very controversial marks. The cameras are rolling. Newscasts devoted zero minutes. Because these are embarrassing remarks. Were all watching isis setting a guy on fire and then at the national Prayer Breakfast, he thinks highest priority is high horse of american christians. Most krichristians are saying why are you giving me grief in . Because the fact president obama chose to are you suggesting that because this was embarrassing for the president , some found it offensive, thats the reason it didnt make air . In strange strangely enough, people are much more interested in the gaffes of their opponents than the ones they like. At the very least, how far you view these remarks, isnt it a story in . I think its a story. There might have been a lot going on this week, but it is a story. It is true the ku klux klan burned crosses. Hes factually correct. But there has been so much coverage of the president s unwillingness to call isis cad radical islamists. And i thought it was interesting that he called them a vicious death cult. Hes tiptoeing his way to strike them that they have an ideology, theyre not just criminals. So vicious deltath cult, the crewusades crusades. Again, isnt it worth covering . It wasnt just offensive. The New York Times seems to think that it was just a bunch of christians on the right who were are offended by it. Because its a broader story here. Its a question of whether the president is down playing the terrorist threat and its a question of whether he is trying to dws connect the word islam from the word terror. And actually the Washington Post did a good job of pointing out how he in a story about the Prayer Breakfast, how he is trying to do that. And hes recently said this is a perversion of islam. The other thing about the press coverage it didnt challenge the president. What christians role in the civil rights movement, Martin Luther king, there was no push back on that from print papers that actually covered it. When you dont cover it at all, you dont get any analysis or context which is why i ifind this puzzling. Coming up, a huge flap over some saying childhood vaccinations should be voluntary. But is this a problem for conservatives . And rand paul denounce as cnbc anchor for loaded questions. Was the interview fair. The question of vaccinations is suddenly ineffecting the president ial campaign. New york times calls the controversy, quote, a twist on an old problem for the republican party. How to approach matters that are largely settled among scientists,. That drew a rebuke from matt lauer. Becomes a hot potato. Liberal New York Times puts this way and