While playing a game of "Never Have I Ever" on Friday, the hosts of NBC's Today made a series of embarrassing confessions – everything from admitting to having "sexy dreams" about each other, to being drunk on air, to seeing each other naked.
Matt Lauer
By Kyle Drennen | January 22, 2015 | 12:56 PM EST
Introducing a segment on Thursday's NBC Today about parents saving for college, co-host Matt Lauer and the show's financial editor Jean Chatzky spent a scant twenty-four seconds on President Obama's recently announced proposal to hike taxes on college savings accounts. Lauer noted: "Talk to me a little bit about what President Obama was referring to when he gave the State of the Union address and he talked about proposing changes to 529 accounts."
By Kyle Drennen | January 21, 2015 | 12:02 PM EST
In a softball interview with Joe Biden on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer fretted over there being "more tension than normal" during Tuesday's State of the Union address with Republicans in control of Congress and slammed GOP reaction to a line in the speech: "...the President was talking about having arguments that are worthy of the body and the country, and then he said, 'I've run my last campaign,' and there was a smattering of applause, maybe even laughter from some Republicans and the President shot back. Did you see that as a moment of disrespect? Was it a symptom of the very pettiness that the President was referring to?"
By Kyle Drennen | January 20, 2015 | 1:01 PM EST
On Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer actually grilled White House chief of staff Denis McDonough on President Obama's tax hike proposal: "During the President's last press conference of 2014, he was asked how he might be able to work with the new incoming Republican-controlled Congress and he said, quote, 'The tax area is one area where we can get things done.' And now he's proposing a middle class tax cut paid for with a tax hike on the wealthiest Americans that just about everyone says cannot pass this congress. So why is he going this route?"
By Jeffrey Meyer | December 30, 2014 | 10:49 AM EST
It appears as though NBC has gone all in by creating yet another musical for the network. Following primetime productions of The Sound of Music and Peter Pan, NBC decided to create a Today musical featuring the cast and crew of the network's morning show. The 30-minute special aired on Monday, December 29 and while it included numerous scenes, one featuring Matt Lauer and his female colleagues was the most bizarre. During a scene in which Lauer was having his pants ironed by an NBC staffer, the NBC anchor turned to Savannah Guthrie, Natalie Morales, Jenna Bush Hager and Tamron Hall opened his suit jacket and told them to “drink it in ladies”
By Kyle Drennen | December 10, 2014 | 12:08 PM EST
Appearing on Wednesday's NBC Today, former CIA Director Michael Hayden went after the network for hyping the so-called "torture report" released by Senate Democrats on Tuesday. After Hayden denounced the partisan report as something that "reads like a prosecutorial screed rather than an historical document," co-host Savannah Guthrie pressed him on what he disagreed with. Hayden replied: "Well, I disagree with the fact that you're claiming it to be news. These topics and subjects were all out there."
By Matthew Balan | December 8, 2014 | 4:30 PM EST
On Monday, ABC and NBC's morning newscasts both touted the upcoming congressional report on the CIA's post-9/11 interrogation techniques as "explosive" and "damning." However, neither network pointed out that it was Democratic members on the Senate Intelligence Committee that commissioned the document. By contrast, CBS This Morning reported that "Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee are set to release a controversial report on the CIA."
By Kyle Drennen | December 8, 2014 | 12:13 PM EST
Appearing on Monday's NBC Today, ex-CNN host Piers Morgan called on Time magazine to name the Ferguson protesters as the publication's "Person of the Year" for 2014: "If you ask me what has been the single biggest issue facing Americans right now in this country, it is the whole issue surrounding what happened there....Everyone's got to come together and say we are simply better than this."
By Kyle Drennen | November 11, 2014 | 1:29 PM EST
On Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer and Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd began writing Barack Obama's political obituary, but did so in the most sympathetic way possible. Lauer cited a line from Todd's new book on the President: "And you write that in the foreseeable future, quote, 'He [Obama] will be a president whose potential wasn't realized.' He came to Washington promising to bridge the political divide, change the discourse. Has that been his biggest failure?"
By Kyle Drennen | November 6, 2014 | 3:29 PM EST
Of the three network morning shows on Thursday, only NBC's Today highlighted Kentucky Senator Rand Paul's viral social media meme, #HillarysLosers, which pointed out that every Democratic candidate that would-be 2016 presidential contender Hillary Clinton campaigned for in 2014 lost in Tuesday's midterm election.
By Kyle Drennen | November 5, 2014 | 9:28 AM EST
Following the big Republican wave in Tuesday's midterm election, on Wednesday, Today co-host Matt Lauer immediately demanded that the new GOP-controlled Congress capitulate to President Obama: "Republicans have control of the House and Senate for the first time in eight years....In January, voters are gonna say,'What are you going to do with the power?' Opposing the President's policy is not a policy. Specifically, what can Republicans do with this power?"
By Matthew Balan | November 3, 2014 | 5:30 PM EST
NBC's Today and CBS This Morning both led their broadcasts on Monday with euthanasia advocate Brittany Maynard's drug-induced suicide. The morning shows' anchors sang the praises of the "beautiful, brave young woman," as Gayle King labeled Maynard. Charlie Rose touted how the cancer patient's "short and meaningful life is over." Savannah Guthrie gushed, "What a remarkable young woman, and to share it with everyone, obviously, took a lot of courage."