During an exclusive interview with the widow of Muhammad Ali on Tuesday’s NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer worried: “Muhammad's message was to bring people together, and we live in a time right now in this country, and around the world, when there’s so much division. And I wonder in the last years of his life, was he disappointed and distressed by that?”
Lonnie Ali replied: “He was pretty distressed, especially some of the things that were going on in the world, because he thought that we had sort of crossed a line, crossed the barrier. And he was a little disappointed with that.”
Lauer followed up by fretting over the tone of American discourse following recent terrorist attacks:
I remember, you sent me a message from Muhammad after some of the anti-Muslim rhetoric that started to go around in the wake of some ISIS-inspired attacks, and it was profound and it was moving and it was powerful and I missed his voice. You know, I wish so much that he could have spoken the words he wrote.
At the time of Ali’s passing in June, NBC used the opportunity to celebrate his left-wing activism early in his boxing career and conveniently edited out his support for Republicans like Ronald Reagan later in life.
Here is a full transcript of the August 23 exchange:
8:23 AM ET
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MATT LAUER: Muhammad's message was to bring people together, and we live in a time right now in this country, and around the world, when there’s so much division. And I wonder in the last years of his life, was he disappointed and distressed by that?
LONNIE ALI: He was pretty distressed, especially some of the things that were going on in the world, because he thought that we had sort of crossed a line, crossed the barrier. And he was a little disappointed with that. But you know, Muhammad was a man of eternal optimism, he always believed in the power of humanity. And that’s what he touched in most people.
LAUER: I remember, you sent me a message from Muhammad after some of the anti-Muslim rhetoric that started to go around in the wake of some ISIS-inspired attacks, and it was profound and it was moving and it was powerful and I missed his voice. You know, I wish so much that he could have spoken the words he wrote.
ALI: But this is what this movement that we are doing now with – there is Ali in all of us. And why I say Ali in all of us, it's the humanity in all of us. Because that's what Muhammad always touched in people, was their humanity. Regardless, he could always see it.
(...)
