Brian Williams’s mouth is getting him in trouble again. The disgraced ex-Nightly News anchor on Monday closed out a segment on Castro by declaring liberal Washington Post writer Eugene Robinson a “Pulitzer Prize-winning communist.”
Williams tried to dig himself out of the hole, retreating, “Communist. Wow! Columnist....I think I have that on the mind. You are not, in fact, a communist. You are a friend of ours and a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist with the Washington Post.”
The slip came after Robinson was discussing Cuba’s “dangerous path for survival” as it attempts reforms. It was at that point that Williams blurted, “Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize-winning communist.”
A partial transcript is below:
Place for Politics 2016
3/21/16
3:01pm ETBRIAN WILLIAMS: The president calls on Jim Acosta from CNN a Cuban American whose father was from Cuba, and you could look at President Castro's face and see him thinking, “this is why we don't have Q and As here.”
EUGENE ROBINSON: Exactly. Exactly. They have Q and As, but when they Q and As, it's usually, “Tell me what's on your mind, Mr. President.” That sort of thing. And these sorts of uncomfortable, direct questions that demand a direct answer are certainly something that President Castro would be unfamiliar with and did not particularly like, given the body language and tone of voice. And you could almost see the wheels in the back of his mind saying, “Is this what I'm going to have to put up with now?” But, in fact, it may be, right? Cuba is going to change and I really think this regime is trying to get its mind around that. And trying to ride this sort of ride this wild horse it has decided to get on, something it’s resisted for five decades and that it’s a dangerous path for the survival of this government in this present form. Yet, clearly, it’s something the Cuban government believes it must now do.
WILLIAMS: Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize-winning communist — Communist. Wow! Columnist.
ROBINSON: Thanks, Brian!
WILLIAMS: I think I have that on the mind. You are not, in fact, a communist. You are a friend of ours and a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist with the Washington Post. Eugene, thank you very much.
