RUSH: You know, you got Chuck Todd openly misquoting Barr on Meet the Press yesterday, so much so that NBC’s had to admit the “error.” It wasn’t an error. It was a purposeful lie. It was a purposeful “mistake” in editing Barr to make him look like he is operating outside the law. And what was crazy about this was that Barr had already said everything he had said to CBS in an interview with Catherine Herridge.
Let me get the audio on this. Hang on a minute, folks, while I find it here in the audio sound bite roster. Is it 12? (interruption) Yeah, then 13 but what? Okay. We’ve got two sound bites here. So here is Chuck Todd on Meet the Press yesterday, and he is talking to… Well, he was talking to Peggy Noonan, but I… Well, I tell you what. Here, just play the bite and we’ll figure out what it says…
HERRIDGE: When history looks back on this decision, how do you think it will be written?
BARR: Well, history’s written by the winners, so it largely depends on (chuckles) who’s writing the history.
TODD: I was struck 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… This is a political job.
RUSH: He did no such thing. Now, Chuck Todd purposely edited all of Barr’s comments. He did it on purpose so that he could say he was “struck by the cynicism of the answer.” He wanted to be able to say that Bill Barr is not a good lawyer but rather a political hack.
Here’s what Barr actually said on Thursday night. This is on Thursday. Meet the Press happens on Sunday. F. Chuck Todd had three days to get this right. So Catherine Herridge says, “This was a big decision in the Flynn case. When history looks back on this decision, how do you think it’s gonna be written?”
BARR: Well, history’s written by the winners, so it largely depends on (chuckles) who’s writing the history. But I think a fair history would say it was a good decision, because it the upheld the rule of law. It upheld the standards of the Department of Justice, and it undid what was an injustice.
RUSH: Well, that’s what F. Chuck didn’t play for his audience. F. Chuck stopped it after Barr said, “Well, it largely depends on who’s writing the history.” But Barr went on to say, “But I think a fair history would say it was a good decision ’cause it upheld the rule of law. It upheld the standards of the Department of Justice. It undid what was an injustice.”
Now, Chuck Todd he knows he said all that. Chuck Todd knows he said it. He went on Meet the Press and purposely did not play that portion of Barr’s answer in an attempt to deceive people watching Meet the Press into thinking Barr is nothing more than a political hack. So Trump is out tweeting that NBC ought to fire Chuck Todd.
Now, that’s not gonna happen, either. But it is. It’s unprofessional. It’s beyond the pale. But it’s typical. NBC is noted… You know, they blew up a truck to make it look like a General Motors manufacturing process was flawed on one of their magazine shows way back when? You remember the Trayvon Martin case and the “white Hispanic,” George whatever his name was?
Remember the infamous 911 call? (interruption)
Yeah, George Zimmerman.
That’s right, the first “white Hispanic” known to exist in America. They edited the 911 call. You probably don’t remember this. Let me refresh your memory real quick. George Zimmerman, after having had an encounter with Trayvon Martin in the neighborhood where he was a watch commander, calls 911 to report that there’s some suspicious guy running around the neighborhood.
And he wants the cops to show up and wants 911 to show up. So the dispatcher asks for a description. How tall is he? What’s his race? Is he black, is he white, is he Hispanic? And George Zimmerman answers the question. When that 911 tape was released and played on the air, NBC made it look like Zimmerman was a racist, and was informing — without being asked — on the race of Trayvon Martin.
“Well, he’s black! He looks mean. He looks…”
They tried to portray the guy as an absolute racist when in fact he wasn’t. NBC has a long history of this. Chuck Todd got caught here total hands down. There should be… If Chuck Todd really takes seriously what he does, and if he wants everybody else to take him seriously — if he wants people to believe that NBC News is trustworthy, that it is not political hackery — then he ought to be out apologizing for this.
He ought to be doing it personally, not leaving it up some faceless PR hacks in the PR department to do this. But he won’t. He won’t even acknowledge that this happened. Put it in the rearview mirror, hope people forget about it. Sadly, it is the way things operate in American media today. It’s not an exception. To purposely attempt to characterize Bill Barr as a political hack by editing his complete answer?
An answer that everybody who’s been watching news has heard since Thursday night! It was dumb. It was stupid. It was childish. It was unprofessional, and it was foolish on the part of Chuck Todd to do this. But, boy, oh, boy, was it indicative of who he is and what his objective is. And if there’s any political hackery going on, it is at NBC News.
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