Meet the Press host Chuck Todd apologized on Tuesday for airing a deceptively edited interview with Attorney General William Barr on Sunday’s program that lacked proper context leading Todd to criticize Barr’s stance on the Michael Flynn case.
“I want to take a moment to talk about something that occurred on Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press,” Todd said during his weekday MSNBC program.
“During the program, we had a sound bite from a CBS News interview with Attorney General Bill Barr. In the bite that we aired and commented on, Mr. Barr was asked about how he thinks the history of his decision to end the prosecution of former national security adviser Michael Flynn will be written. Mr. Barr answered, ‘History is written by the winner so it largely depends on who’s writing the history.’ In the full version of the interview and transcript, he went on to say, ‘But I think a fair history would say that it was a good decision because it upheld the rule of law.'”
WATCH: NBC’s @ChuckTodd just gave an on-air apology for @MeetThePress's deceptive Barr edit, blaming partial CBS clips. He called it "a mistake that I wish we hadn't made and one wish that I hadn't made… I obviously am very sorry for that mistake." pic.twitter.com/q55eHN7tMA
— TV News HQ (@TVNewsHQ) May 12, 2020
Todd continued:
“Now, we did not edit that out. That was not our edit. We didn’t include it because we only saw the shorter of two clips that CBS did air,” Todd said. “We should have looked at both and checked for a full transcript, a mistake I wish we had not made, and one that I wish I hadn’t made. The second part of the attorney general’s answer would have put it in the proper context and had I seen that part of the interview, I would not have framed the conversation the way I did and I am obviously very sorry for that mistake,” adding “We strive to do better going forward.”
The Justice Department has not commented on the apology.
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