On Fox News Channel’s MediaBuzz on Sunday, host Howard Kurtz spoke with conservative author and Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro, USC Annenberg Media Center Director Christina Bellantoni, and former Director of Strategic Communications for Hillary Clinton, President of Elrod Strategies Adrienne Elrod about Omarosa Manigault Newman, her alleged “n-word” recording of President Donald Trump, and the media coverage associated with it.

The panel of guests don’t seem like they’d have a lot to agree on, but in the case of Omarosa, they had several points of common ground. Especially, and importantly, the media’s week-long coverage of a tape that has not yet been played or heard, nor for which there has yet been any evidence offered: the infamous alleged n-word tape.

The two general points being discussed, and they commingled, was whether the media gave too much coverage to Omarosa and why, and whether they gave too much attention specifically to the existence of the alleged tape, and why.

Shapiro answered first, after Kurtz said “they are giving her a huge platform to condemn the president she once praised, what do you make of it?”

“Well I mean, she’s getting ‘strange new respect’ that accrues to anybody anybody who is inside the administration and then leaves the administration, and bashes the administration, and that’s not particularly surprising, I mean, she’s a story, obviously,” said Shapiro. “But when half of the conversation is about a tape that doesn’t exist, or may not exist, or we have no evidence of existing, that’s when it starts getting into troubling waters.”

“What she says that she heard, that’s news,” he continued. “What she says that she has on tape, that’s news, but it’s not really news when you say that you may have heard that there may be a tape at some point that you may have heard, and this becomes the cause of conversation for an entire week.”

Kurtz said that he agreed especially with Shapiro’s last point, and then asked Bellatoni whether the press were just embracing Omarosa’s anti-Trump narrative.

Bellatoni made a point that doesn’t get made enough in criticism of media coverage of Omarosa, accurately pointing out that it was “a big headline when [Omarosa] joined the White House.”

She added that making news for and of herself is something Omarosa is good at, which we’ve known since 2004. “She knows how to be provocative and command attention,” said Bellatoni.

“This going to continue to draw headlines, and the President is feeding into that as well,” she pointed out, which is also a fact, but adds that Omarosa is trying to sell a book, and that the media scrum she’s created is certainly part of that.

“Typically somebody like this would not- a disgruntled staffer would not get this kind of coverage,” said Adrienne Elrod. “The difference here is that Omarosa has known President Trump for 15 years, she’s got tapes- it’s a drip-drip-drip, let’s not forget, when John Podesta’s emails during the 2016 campaign were being released every day, that was such a media spectacle, right, the media was covering it like breaking news every single day, this is not dissimilar to that.

Kurtz said then that he’s not saying it’s not a story, but his question is “why is it such a big story?”

“Because she has tapes, emails and evidence, text messages, that she is willing to drip drip drip out,” Elrod replied.

Kurtz and Shapiro discussed Omarosa’s credibility, with Shapiro saying she’s been “fired more times than an M4 in Anbar Province,” and also noting that, in the reality show that is the Trump administration, Omarosa could still have another star turn if she flips and starts praising Trump.

Bellatoni pointed out that not all the media coverage has treated her credibly, particularly noting April Ryan who has been extremely critical of Manigault.

Bellatoni added that it’s entirely possible that there are unflattering tapes out there, that there could be about anyone, but that we have no idea whether Omarosa specifically has what she’s claiming.

Elrod agreed with Kurtz, Bellatoni, and Shapiro on that particular point. “There are plenty of people in the media who want to keep this going because it is good for television, it is, again, a disgruntled staffer who has known President Trump for a long time who is coming out and making these allegations,” she said. “But I do agree, I mean, eventually this tape has either got to come out or we need to stop talking about it and giving it the oxygen that she’s trying to give it.”

“So we have a rare consensus on that,” noted Kurtz.

Really it’s two points. They all agree that this is a news story that warrants coverage, and they all agree that the speculative part needs to either bear fruit or stop dominating that coverage.

Watch the clip above, via Fox News.

[Featured image via screengrab]

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