Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:09 pm
Matt Lauer did his country a grave disservice due to his shoddy interviewing during NBC’s “Commander-in-Chief” forum, and the Patriotic Millionaires are not impressed.
Patriotic Millionaire Chair Morris Pearl slammed Matt Lauer’s performance in a statement and called on NBC to redeem itself with the first debate, which NBC News’ Lester Holt will be moderating.
“As an American and an avid believer in the importance of the fourth estate in our democracy, I am deeply disappointed in Matt Lauer’s performance last night,” Pearl wrote. “At a moment when Americans are desperately looking for the right answers, Mr. Lauer failed to even ask the right questions.”
“We hope that NBC will redeem itself at the first national presidential debate to be held on September 26th by both asking the right questions and demanding the candidates actually answer them,” the Patriotic Millionaires Chair continued.
Pearl called out the specific questions the group would like to have asked, “In particular, we hope that Lester Holt will ask the candidates about their plans to repair our American democracy, which is currently under egregious attacks by monied interests and unscrupulous politicians who use disenfranchisement as a political strategy.”
Pearl called on NBC to do its job, “NBC has an opportunity two weeks from now to deliver the kind of robust discussion we need about the health of our democracy. At a time when the gap between the powerful and the powerless is wider than it has been in a century, the press has a grave responsibility to the public. I urge NBC and Lester Holt to fulfill their duty to the citizenry of this great country.”
The Patriotic Millionaires describes themselves as “a group of 200 high-net-worth Americans who are committed to building a more prosperous, stable, and inclusive nation. The group focuses on promoting public policy solutions that encourage political equality; guarantee a sustaining wage for working Americans; and ensure that millionaires, billionaires, and corporations pay a greater percentage of taxes.”
The group pushes the novel idea that millionaires should pay more taxes than people who make less:
On Wednesday, the Patriotic Millionaires “launched an aggressive campaign to demand that the first presidential debate center on issues of democracy”, including an open letter to Lester Holt, who will be moderating the first presidential debate.
In their letter, they wrote, “You must help us learn whether or not each of these candidates actually believes in the essential equality of each and every citizen. You must ask exactly how they plan to address the gross imbalance of power that has cracked our foundation and threatens to rip our society apart. How will they match the idea of equality with the realities of American politics?”
We started off with a forum during which Matt Lauer let Donald Trump lie about his support for the Iraq war and consistently refuse to answer questions. Lauer was so bad that NBC execs admitted it was a disaster.
The debates will be moderated by Lester Holt, Martha Raddatz, Anderson Cooper and Chris Wallace. Chris Wallace has already announced that he doesn’t think fact-checking is his job as moderator.
It remains to be seen whether more seasoned political journalists can handle the many challenges of this election cycle, but it is a fact that it is their job to inform the public. It is not their job to let a candidate fill the airwaves with debunked propaganda, like Lauer did last night.
Lauer was a big disappointment. Let’s see if NBC can redeem itself.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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