With the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump just a few short days away, Brian Williams put together a program looking back at The Obama Years slated for late Monday night. Williams appeared on Chris Matthews’ Hardball to promote it, and the two of them took the time to gush about President Barack Obama’s time in office. “What do you think he thinks about how he fits the job, how comfortable he is, or not, with being president in this early part of the 21st century,” wondered Matthews.
“It's interesting. We draw no conclusions, of course, but I do make the point more than once in the hour, he's a thoroughly modern man,” remarked Williams, “Not all of our presidents have reflected the era they've served in. Some of them are usually kind of on a taped delay.” The disgraced journalist continued to glow:
He was a thoroughly modern man. This was a thoroughly modern family. First real social media president. I think he adlibbed it like a jazz musician. I think he made it up as he went along. There's no way you can anticipate what that mantle looks like and feels like. There’s no way, especially with a model-breaker president that you can have any rule book to proceed you in the job.
What Williams was glorifying about the outgoing president was what the liberal media hated about the incoming president. They can’t stand Trump’s use of Twitter, yet he’s the “First real social media president.” Obama “made it up as he went along” but they hammered Trump for running his campaign the same way, or so they claimed.
That aside, Matthews had only one thing on his mind, “One thing I try to figure out is: how he knew how great it was to do Al Green, how he just knew he could slide right into that part, sing this soul kind of music which is so smooth and so cool and he did it without any sweat.”
“And he did it with a lot of courage. It takes a lot of guts to do that,” Williams opined, “And then later in his presidency, after Charleston, after the shooting when he sang "Amazing Grace" to a stunned congregation, that is a moment that lives on in our hour as well.”
Matthews was also concerned about Obama’s health and how drastically he aged over the last eight years. Rambling to Williams, Matthews asked:
I'm looking, as always we do, at the youth of this man who took the office eight years ago, how young he looks. Michelle Obama looks about the same. She's always looked great. He looks older. What do you think those eight years, when you put this together for tonight, told you about the wear and tear on this human being, Barack Obama?
After droning on about how much “crazy privilege” they had for being able to interact with presidents, Williams touted the rarity of people like Obama, “It takes a very rare individual getting dressed in the morning, to look in the mirror and say, ‘You know what, you ought to be president of the United States.’ That's why we're fascinated by these 45 people.”
Transcript below:
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MSNBC
Hardball
January 16, 2017
7:50 29 PM EasternCHRIS MATTHEWS: I'm now joined by Brian Williams host of The 11th Hour here on MSNBC. Brian, I guess we keep forgetting about what a big actual day it was in terms of the event itself. The number of people that came out of – all over the country but especially from the Washington, D.C., area, the parts of the town that don't often show up to the public events on the mall. Everybody came to that.
BRIAN WILLIAMS: We'll be comparing and contrasting the crowd size from what we see later in the week, Chris. And yes, you’re right, all presidents make history. This president made more than most. And so many millions of Americans sensed that moment and almost 2 million of them on the coldest day possible stood there to witness that history.
MATTHEWS: I'm looking, as always we do, at the youth of this man who took the office eight years ago, how young he looks. Michelle Obama looks about the same. She's always looked great. He looks older. What do you think those eight years, when you put this together for tonight, told you about the wear and tear on this human being, Barack Obama?
WILLIAMS: Well, first of all, Chris, we looked back, our long-suffering producer of this hour, Jenna Cline, looked back through 12 years of television and discovered, to our surprise, I had interviewed this young president 16 times over a dozen years. And in the crazy privilege of these jobs we get to have, imagine two kids growing up where you and I did, obsessed with the presidency all of our lives and then fast forward through life, you get to know actual presidents. You get to be around them and experience them.
So you'll see clips of before he was president. You'll see first term, second term. You can see the progression. Can you imagine the stress and strain? Can you imagine the burden of office? It takes a very rare individual getting dressed in the morning, to look in the mirror and say, “You know what, you ought to be president of the United States.” That's why we're fascinated by these 45 people.
MATTHEWS: I'm fascinated by any president who gets up in the morning at the White House and realizes, “Yeah, I'm president of the United States, I've got to brush my teeth, go to the bathroom, shower, shave, and then I got to put on a suit. What am I going to wear today?” Of course you get a valet, that helps. But what do you think he thinks about how he fits the job, how comfortable he is, or not, with being president in this early part of the 21st century?
WILLIAMS: It's interesting. We draw no conclusions, of course, but I do make the point more than once in the hour, he's a thoroughly modern man. Not all of our presidents have reflected the era they've served in. Some of them are usually kind of on a taped delay. He was a thoroughly modern man. This was a thoroughly modern family. First real social media president. I think he adlibbed it like a jazz musician. I think he made it up as he went along. There's no way you can anticipate what that mantle looks like and feels like. There’s no way, especially with a model-breaker president that you can have any rule book to proceed you in the job.
MATTHEWS: You know, we're both not minorities, but I have to tell you one thing I try to figure out is: how he knew how great it was to do Al Green, how he just knew he could slide right into that part, sing this soul kind of music which is so smooth and so cool and he did it without any sweat.
WILLIAMS: And he did it with a lot of courage. It takes a lot of guts to do that. And then later in his presidency, after Charleston, after the shooting when he sang "Amazing Grace" to a stunned congregation, that is a moment that lives on in our hour as well.
…
