Matt Lauer hosted the NBC presidential forum on Wednesday night and completely blew the whole event. The NBC morning show host let presidential nominee Donald Trump slide on his blatant inconsistencies about the Iraq War and repeatedly cut off democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during her answers.
The NBC News forum, also called the “Commander-In-Chief” forum, was the first official news event before the first scheduled presidential debate on September 26 in New York. Lauer, who typically hosts NBC’s The Today Show proved an ill-equipped moderator for the event on Wednesday.
The forum was supposed to function as a sparring match between candidates which allowed them to give more in depth answers about specific topics such as national security and veteran affairs. The venue even allowed spectators to ask candidates questions, but unfortunately the solid answers were hard to come by due to Lauer’s blundering.
Lauer interviewed each candidate for 30 minutes, but he did not use his time effectively. According to the New York Times, Lauer spent a third of his time with Clinton asking about the candidate’s use of a private email server, a topic that has been asked repeatedly and is a line of questioning that offers no new information to the viewing audience.
More egregiously, Lauer repeatedly cut off Clinton’s answers and even stymied her response before she could even open her mouth. In response to an audience member asking Clinton if she would deploy ground troops to stop ISIS, Lauer interjected for her to speak, “as briefly as you can.”
Considering the NBC forum was on a time schedule, this misstep could be attributed to Lauer keeping his eye on the clock. However, he did not rein in Trump on his answers and the documented falsehoods the Republican candidate has expressed in the past.
During the forum, Trump boasted one of his go-to lines.
“I was totally against the war in Iraq. And I was against the war in Iraq because I said it’s going to totally destabilize the Middle East, which it has.” However, the Washington Post reports that Trump’s claim has been refuted multiple times .
In 2002, Trump told Howard Stern in an interview that he actually supported the war in Iraq. Although this claim has been debunked by news agencies in the past, Lauer completely missed the mark to call Trump out on his obvious falsehood.
Lauer even prefaced a question to Trump by saying, “no one would expect you to know this” even though Lauer is moderating a discourse between two candidates that could govern one of the largest countries in the free world. Throughout the NBC forum, Lauer appeared to hold Clinton to a higher standard than Trump, including reprimanding her for throwing jabs at her opponent.
Although Lauer lacked significant journalistic ability during the NBC forum, the reporter can’t say it’s from lack of experience. Lauer has interviewed thousands of guests on The Today Show and even asked Ryan Lochte more serious questions than he asked Trump.
During the forum, journalists from all over the country were tweeting their outrage at Lauer’s missed opportunities and unprofessional interview style. Some news organizations have speculated that time was an issue considering Lauer only had one week to prepare for the forum, but the entire event seemed like the host was just rattling off questions and he didn’t care about the answers.
The fallout from Lauer’s abysmal performance at the NBC forum has not gone unnoticed. CNN Money quoted one anonymous NBC executive who said it was a “disaster.” Fifteen million people tuned in to watch Clinton and Trump finally appear on the same stage, but Lauer’s bungling and unprepared interview style sank the whole television event.
Despite the backlash from journalists and Lauer’s own network, The Today Show host has yet to face any network reprimands. However, it’s clear that he will not be hosting another presidential candidate interview anytime soon.
[Photo by Andrew Harnik/AP Photo]
