President Trump called for Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” to be fired after the program issued an apology for “inadvertently and inaccurately” cutting short a clip of remarks made by Attorney General William Barr about former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
In a tweet blasting Todd late Sunday, Trump wrote:” Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd should be FIRED by “Concast” (NBC) for this fraud.” “He knew exactly what he was doing. Public Airwaves = Fake News!” Trump added.
His comments came hours after Kerri Kupec, director of communications and public affairs for the Department of Justice (DOJ), called out Todd and his morning show on Twitter for cutting short remarks Barr made about his department moving to drop Flynn’s case.
“You brought up Bill Barr. Peggy Noonan, I want you to listen to this Bill Barr answer to a question about what history will say about this. Wait until you hear this answer. Take a listen,” Todd said on Meet the Press.
A clip then begins of an interview Barr gave on CBS, during which an interviewer can be heard asking him, “When history looks back on this decision, how do you think it will be written?”
“Well, history is written by the winners. So, it largely depends on who’s writing the history,” Barr responds in the shortened clip.
After the clip is stopped, Todd then goes on to say, “I was struck, Peggy, by the cynicism of the answer. It’s a correct answer. But he’s the attorney general. He didn’t make the case that he was upholding the rule of law. He was almost admitting that, yeah, this is a political job.”
In a full transcript of the CBS interview, Barr’s actual answer was, “Well, history is written by the winner. So it largely depends on who’s writing the history. But I think a fair history would say that it was a good decision because it upheld the rule of law.”
Kupec said she was “disappointed” by what she referred to as the “deceptive editing/commentary” by Todd and the NBC show in her tweet on Sunday.
“Not only did the AG make the case in the VERY answer Chuck says he didn’t, he also did so multiple times throughout the interview,” she added.
You’re correct. Earlier today, we inadvertently and inaccurately cut short a video clip of an interview with AG Barr before offering commentary and analysis. The remaining clip included important remarks from the attorney general that we missed, and we regret the error. – Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) May 10, 2020.
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