Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press”, Chuck Todd aired a clip of Attorney General William Barr’s interview with CBS News’ Catherine Herridge from this week, when he was asked how history would look back on his department’s decision to dismiss the case against General Michael Flynn.
Shortly after, Kerri Kupec, the Department of Justice Spox, ripped NBC’s Chuck Todd for “deceptive editing” a clip of the Attorney General, which appeared to cast his response in a negative way.
Chuck Todd said on Sunday to Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan and the panel: “I want you to listen to this, Bill Barr’s answer to a question about what will history say about this. Wait until you hear this answer, take a listen.”
“Well, history is written by the winner. So it largely depends on who’s writing the history,” Barr had said in the video clip, which aired only the first two sentences with his response.
“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,” Todd said. “He was almost admitting that, yeah, this is a political job.”
During the CBS interview, however, the attorney general told Herridge right after: “But I think a fair history would say that it was a good decision because it upheld the rule of law. It helped, it upheld the standards of the Department of Justice, and it undid what was an injustice.” Continued Below
DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec responded on Twitter to the clip NBC aired and tweeted: “Very disappointed by the deceptive editing/commentary by @ChuckTodd on @MeetThePress on AG Barr’s CBS interview.”
While attaching screenshots of the Attorney General’s remarks from the CBS interview, she added: “Compare the two transcripts below. 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.”
NBC’s “Meet the Press” twitter account issued a response to Kupec on Twitter, writing: “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.” Video Below
Chuck Todd’s remarks:
Today on Meet The Press, @chucktodd wildly took context out of an answer AG Bill Barr gave about his decision to drop the case into Gen. Michael Flynn.
I cut Todd's segment along with Barr's full answer together. Look at how blatantly dishonest this is. pic.twitter.com/tODOEwL48V
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 10, 2020
President Trump also responded on Twitter in a series of tweets calling for Chuck to be fired:
“Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd should be FIRED by “Concast” (NBC) for this fraud. He knew exactly what he was doing. Public Airwaves = Fake News!” the president declared.
“He should be FIRED by Concast. If done by a Republican, would be “prosecuted,” he added. “THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE. Sadly, our Lamestream Media is TOTALLY CORRUPT!”
Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd should be FIRED by “Concast” (NBC) for this fraud. He knew exactly what he was doing. Public Airwaves = Fake News! @AjitPaiFCC @FCC https://t.co/fLTDhjMXo4
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 11, 2020
He should be FIRED by Concast. If done by a Republican, would be “prosecuted”. @AjitPaiFCC https://t.co/Lqi3oWEaiP
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 11, 2020
THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE. Sadly, our Lamestream Media is TOTALLY CORRUPT! https://t.co/S4hRDIZIOQ
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 11, 2020
Continued Below
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
Also, no mention by Todd that the AG spent a large portion of the CBS interview explaining the legal reasoning supporting the request for dismissal. The full transcript has been available on CBS’ website since Thursday night, including the answer NBC aired in its edited form. https://t.co/R1c4HEcZi9
— KerriKupecDOJ (@KerriKupecDOJ) May 10, 2020
Catherine Herridge weighed in as well, and she tweeted on Sunday:
#FLYNN Two big moments from our exclusive AG Barr interview @CBSNews “I think a fair history would say that it was a good decision because it upheld the rule of law. It helped, it upheld the standards of the Department of Justice, and it undid what was an injustice.” pic.twitter.com/aRtFnnx7da
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) May 10, 2020
