NBC Nightly News was the ONLY legacy nightly newscast to report tonight on the decision by Attorney General Pam Bondi to order a grand jury investigation into the Russia Hoax document drop, pursuant to a criminal referral by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. But they didn’t actually report anything.
Instead, the story was used as an example of a “distraction” from President Donald Trump’s firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor statistics:
TOM LLAMAS: We turn to politics now and some breaking news. A senior Trump administration official telling us Attorney General Pam Bondi is calling for a grand jury, expected to investigate Obama-era officials' handling of the Russia interference in the 2016 election. Garrett Haake joins me now live and Garrett, this would be a major step.
GARRETT HAAKE: Yes, Tom. This is a significant escalation of a probe that the president had publicly pushed for and which gained momentum after DNI Tulsi Gabbard filed criminal referrals with the Justice Department last month. Democrats have dismissed this new investigation as a distraction lacking in evidence, and it comes as the Trump administration may be looking to shift focus from disappointing economic headlines and the president's Friday firing of the official who oversees monthly job report data.
The report would then shift to the dismissal of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, after Friday’s jobs report which contained multiple downward revisions of previous reports and a slew of revisions in the final year of the Biden administration. The grand jury order served as little more than a narrative device for NBC, a “distraction” from the real important issue of the day. Fox News reported on this a little more seriously:
Former President Barack Obama and his intelligence officials allegedly promoted a "contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win, selling it to the American people as though it were true. It wasn't," Gabbard said during a press briefing of the intelligence.
Among the declassified material was a meeting record revealing how Obama allegedly requested his deputies prepare an intelligence assessment in December 2016, after Trump had won the election, that allegedly detailed the "tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election."
That intelligence assessment stressed that Russia's actions did not affect the outcome of the election but rather were intended to sow distrust in the democratic process.
Whereas ABC and CBS omitted the story entirely from tonight’s evening newscasts, NBC did something far more insidious. They reported on the allegations as intentionally ambiguously as possible so as to avoid discussing the matter and immediately pivoted to more favorable territory. If it weren’t for double standards, there’d be none at all.
Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on the NBC Nightly News on Monday, August 4th, 2025:
TOM LLAMAS: We turn to politics now and some breaking news. A senior Trump administration official telling us Attorney General Pam Bondi is calling for a grand jury, expected to investigate Obama-era officials' handling of the Russia interference in the 2016 election. Garrett Haake joins me now live and Garrett, this would be a major step.
GARRETT HAAKE: Yes, Tom. This is a significant escalation of a probe that the president had publicly pushed for and which gained momentum after DNI Tulsi Gabbard filed criminal referrals with the Justice Department last month. Democrats have dismissed this new investigation as a distraction lacking in evidence, and it comes as the Trump administration may be looking to shift focus from disappointing economic headlines and the president's Friday firing of the official who oversees monthly job report data.
Tonight, The White House on defense over the president's Friday firing of the federal official responsible for monthly jobs report data.
ELIZABETH WARREN: Trump just strikes a match and sets it on fire. He tells the entire world, don't trust data coming out of the United States.
HAAKE: The president posting this morning, without evidence, that Friday's jobs report, which showed a significant slowdown in hiring over the past three months was, quote: “rigged with fake political numbers.”
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Do you believe that to be true?
KEVIN HASSETT: You know, as an economist I like to go for what I can prove, and what I can prove is that the datas are- the data have become very unreliable.
HAAKE: But economists say jobs data has actually gotten more reliable in the seven decades that BLS has conducted their monthly surveys. Their reports critical for policymakers and businesses making hiring and investment decisions. In last week's report the Bureau made revisions to some estimates, which is typical.
When you see revisions coming in month after month, what do you see?
WILLIAM BEACH: I see a successful survey because we are getting more information. I don't see a problem. It is just the normal course of events.
HAAKE: Trump's first BLS commissioner, William Beach, says it would be impossible for a commissioner to rig the jobs data.
BEACH: The claim made by President Trump is that the commissioner led that conspiracy and was basically shaping the data. That is not possible, in my view and the view of anybody who served in that position.
HAAKE: Garrett Haake, NBC News, The White House.
