Matt Lauer

On Thursday's NBC Today, while scolding New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for his handling of a heckler, correspondent Kelly O'Donnell declared: "Christie's week has been a lot like a series of battle rounds, from tangling with nurse Kaci Hickox over [Ebola] quarantine conditions....to the verbal towel snap Christie delivered in a live Today interview when Matt referred to the nurse's lawyer as…

Today co-host Matt Lauer spent most of a Tuesday interview with Chris Christie attacking the New Jersey governor's response to the Ebola crisis: "I want to read to you what Dr. Anthony Fauci from NIH said yesterday. He called the mandatory quarantine of all health care workers who come in contact with Ebola patients in West Africa and then return, 'draconian'....Is it possible, Governor you're on…

On Wednesday, Today co-host Matt Lauer began an interview with Bill O'Reilly by citing liberal New York Times columnist Frank Bruni actually criticizing the Obama administration's handling of the Ebola crisis: "One dimension of the disease's toll is clear. It's ravaging Americans' already tenuous  faith in the competence of our government and its bureaucracies." O'Reilly agreed with Bruni's "…

On Thursday morning, all three network morning shows hyped Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott’s refusal to appear on stage for a scheduled debate with his Democratic opponent, former Governor Charlie Crist, due to the appearance of an unapproved fan. Despite the “big three” enthusiastically covering the Republican governor’s “Fangate” episode, the networks have repeatedly refused to cover…

After their cameraman Ashoka Mukpo contracted ebola while covering the epidemic in Africa, NBC chief medical editor Nancy Snyderman and her team of reporters were supposed to be under a voluntary 21-day quarantine. Instead, Snyderman herself was recently spotted in public in her New Jersey neighborhood, reportedly getting take-out.    In response to the growing controversy over the clear…

During the 8:30 a.m. half-hour of NBC’s Today on Monday, Matt Lauer interviewed far-left actor Russell Brand and gave him ample opportunity to promote his new book and what Lauer described as his “big thoughts on big issues,” ranging “from drug laws and voting to the redistribution of the wealth around the world.” Substitute co-host Tamron Hall gushed that Brand’s book is “funny and, as always,…

While ignoring any mention of the pivotal midterm election less than a month away that could decide control of the United States Senate, on Tuesday, NBC's Today instead devoted a full two-minute segment in its first hour to newly discovered photos of John and Jackie Kennedy's wedding – from 61 years ago. Co-host Matt Lauer introduced the segment by announcing "a stunning series of never-before-…

During an interview with former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer cited Panetta's criticism of President Obama in a new memoir and made a surprisingly tough observation: "So did the President put the vital interests of the United States on a lower priority than fulfilling a campaign promise to end the war and pull out all troops?" Panetta tried to soften…

Appearing on Monday's NBC Today, ex-CNN host Piers Morgan kept up the anti-gun crusade that caused his ratings to plummet, denouncing his colleagues in the press: "I wish more American media people, American news anchors stood up. Because so many of them privately to me would say, 'I love what you're doing. Keep going, it's really important.' But I never heard that on air. And I think there's a…

On Tuesday, NBC's Today seized on accusations of anti-Muslim bias in the NFL after Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah was hit with a 15-yard penalty after appearing to pray in the end zone after scoring a touchdown against the New England Patriots Monday night. This was the same network that censored any mention of the Islamic extremism of an Oklahoma man who beheaded a co-worker on…

In an interview with Ben Affleck on Monday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer observed that the actor's new murder mystery thriller Gone Girl was "a little hostile to the institution of the media." Affleck agreed but reassured Lauer: "Yeah, it's not media broadly. It's not you guys or The New York Times or even the news. It's about that stripe of media that's the sort of the cable, 24-hour, 'Who…

Even as President Obama clearly attempted during a Sunday 60 Minutes interview to blame others for his failure to recognize ISIS as a growing threat in the Middle East, Monday's NBC Today spun the buck-passing as a "very candid" admission by the commander-in-chief. Co-host Matt Lauer opened the morning show by proclaiming: "Underestimated. The President admits his administration and U.S.…

In an interview with United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer pointed out President Obama contradicting himself on fighting terrorism: "Many times during his presidency, the President has said that the tide of war is receding....But yesterday, he talked about this fight against ISIS and he said, 'The only language understood by killers like ISIS is the…

Running defense for Barack Obama on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer touted "some of the President's defenders" pushing back against a video of the commander-in-chief sloppily saluting Marines while holding a coffee cup by "circulating this photo of George W. Bush during his presidency...saluting service members while holding his dog, Barney." [Listen to the audio] Lauer noted that…