Appearing on Meet the Press's web-based feature Press Pass, New York Times opinion editor Clay Risen told NBC host David Gregory that just as Republicans "had to be convinced" that civil rights legislation in the 1960s "was a moral issue," so too would the GOP have to convinced on the issue of "gay rights": "...a lot of people who, when it comes down to it, don't really have an opinion one way or another but maybe just had a default position against it, starting to come around and say, 'Okay, I get why this is important.'" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
The commentary was prompted by Gregory comparing the two movements: "...we even see parallels with what a lot of people think is a parallel to gay rights, to marriage rights now, a debate about what the federal government should do, the courts should do, and what states should be allowed to do themselves."
David Gregory
Chuck Todd, NBC News Chief White House Correspondent Political Director and host of The Daily Rundown on MSNBC, did his best to separate the current immigration crisis from the overall immigration debate taking place in our country.
During an appearance on Meet the Press on Sunday, July 6, Todd maintained that “we have immigration law conflation going on here. This crisis is separate from the immigration issue that’s been debated here in Washington but it’s been conflated obviously back and forth.” [See video below.]
NBC’s David Gregory did his best to minimize Speaker of the House John Boehner’s soon-to-be lawsuit against President Obama, dismissing it as a “political stunt.”
During an interview with Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, on Meet the Press on Sunday, June 29, Gregory insisted that the lawsuit had no real merit and wondered “isn’t this just to gin up the base in the midterms?” [See video below.]
At the top of the 9 a.m. ET hour on Wednesday's NBC Today, weatherman Al Roker suggested in jest that his colleague David Gregory deserved to be punched in the face by former President Bill Clinton after the Meet the Press moderator asked Clinton in a recent interview about wife Hillary being "out of touch." Roker joked: "You know, I'd give anything if after David finished the question, Bill just kind of hauled off and popped him. Just see what happens." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Moments later, co-host Hoda Kotb rushed to the defense of the Clintons: "There are certain people who when you look at them you think that money is their issue and that's – they're entitled or whatever. You don't really think that when you think of the Clintons. It's not the first thing, I don't think, that pops into people's heads." Roker lamented: "I think we were all probably raised that you don't talk about money and how much people make. And it's unfortunate."
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton told ABC's Diane Sawyer on June 9 that when she and her family left the White House in 2001, they were “dead broke.” The reaction to that remark took an interesting turn on Tuesday, when her husband and former president Bill Clinton leaped into the fray by asserting that his wife's comment “is factually true” and the potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate is “not out of touch.”
The former Democratic occupant of the White House made his remarks during an interview with David Gregory, host of NBC's Meet the Press Sunday morning program, as part of an event for the Clinton Global Initiative in Denver.
Liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne did his best to spin on behalf of the IRS over their targeting of conservative groups during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Dionne was part of the panel on Sunday, June 22 and insisted: “The problem with the IRS story is the IRS was trying to do what needs to be done, which is there is an abuse of the 501 (c)(4) status.”
The people at NBC who are agonizing over David Gregory's ongoing audience freefall at his Meet the Press perch need only look at the first half of his interview with 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to see why it's happening.
Gregory basically refused to acknowledge the existence of Romney's core argument, which is essentially that he wouldn't have done what President Obama did in withdrawing from Iraq so hastily and leaving things to run on auto-pilot. Instead, he insisted on sticking with a "Well, what would do now?" line of questioning, even though, as Romney indicated, he doesn't have access to intelligence briefings necessary to assert an informed opinion. When that didn't work, he tried to hold Romney to a stale 2007 quote from when conditions were obviously very different. The fact is that wouldn't be facing the present quandary if Obama hadn't acted directly against the (often privately expressed) desires of Iraqi leaders and U.S. intelligence officials to maintain at least a significant advisory presence there. Video and a transcript of the Iraq-related portion of the interview follow the jump (bolds and numbered tags are mine):
Ken Cuccinelli, former Attorney General and Republican Gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, poked fun at supposed “juggernaut” Hillary Clinton and offered praise to GOP congressional candidate Dave Brat.
Appearing as a guest on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, June 15, Cuccinelli commended Brat and how he “Connected when he talked about issues. He’s an economics professor...he's a conservative professor so he's covered by the Endangered Species Act.” [See video below.]
On Friday's NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams strongly hinted that the recent Islamist blitzkrieg in Iraq was completely former President Bush's fault: "Make no mistake: what's happening in Iraq right now is a direct outgrowth of the U.S. decision to invade the country over a decade ago." However, he glossed over the Obama administration's failure to negotiate a continued U.S. presence and pulling out all American forces in late 2011 as a factor in the crisis.
Williams repeated his point to David Gregory: "How does the President sell any action at all to the component of the American people who feel...it's not our dance...even though...we broke it?" Gregory seconded his contention: "Right, that Pottery Barn rule: you broke it; you own it; you got to somehow fix it." Later, Stephanie Gosk did reference the troop pullout, but didn't mention President Obama by name: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
Psst: David Gregory! You can stop auditioning to fill Jay Carney's White House spokesman spot. President Obama has already appointed someone else. Given his rotten Meet The Press ratings, it's understandable that Gregory would be prospecting for his next position. Even so, his performance on today's Morning Joe was pitiable.
With even liberals like Mika Brzezinski, Donny Deutsch and John Heilemann dumping on the Bergdahl deal, there was Gregory as President Obama's lone defender. Thus: Dianne Feinstein has criticized the lack of consultation? Meh: she's been critical of the Obama admin on other things. And twice Gregory made the argument that Commanders-in-Chief, whatever the circumstances, just don't leave soldiers on the battlefield. That was too much even for Heilemann, who argued that there are limits to what a C-in-C should do, particularly when the soldier in question might have been a deserter. View the video after the jump.
In an interview with Dr. Ben Carson for Meet the Press's web-based feature Press Pass, NBC host David Gregory dismissed Carson's call for "a government that placed the Constitution of the United States at the highest level": "There are some people who say that. That's a very highly charged thing to say. Where is the Constitution not placed in the right level today?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Carson gave Gregory a dose of reality: "Because it helps to define what the role of the government is. It doesn't include being in every aspect of our lives....when you take people who are perfectly capable of doing things and you pat them on the head and then you say, 'There, there, you poor little thing, we're going to take care of this and this, you won't have anything to worry about.'"
While all three broadcast networks provided critical coverage of the Obama administration's decision to exchange five Taliban terrorists for American soldier Bowe Bergdahl, Meet the Press host David Gregory and CBS This Morning co-host Norah O'Donnell both attempted to spin the controversial deal as brilliant diplomacy. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Interviewing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Sunday's Meet the Press, Gregory argued: "This is potentially a good sign if you think about the future of Afghanistan....does this pave the way for perhaps a new round of negotiations with the Taliban directly between the United States and the Taliban about the Taliban's future in running Afghanistan?"