ABC's Good Morning America on Saturday stood out as the only Big Three newscast so far to cover Hillary Clinton's new denials about her e-mail scandal. Devin Dwyer reported that Clinton was "asked about details of her decision to use private e-mail...[and] answered 20 different times with a variation of 'do not recall.'" The morning show, along with ABC's World News Tonight and CBS Evening News on Friday, also reported on the latest batch of John Podesta e-mails released by Wikileaks. NBC only mentioned Wikileaks in passing on Saturday's Today. [video from the ABC e-mail report below]
On Friday, ABC, CBS, and NBC's evening newscasts devoted a total of 11 minutes and 28 seconds to full reports on the latest sexual assault accusations against Donald Trump. NBC Nightly News, by itself, set aside four minutes and 43 seconds to the Trump accusers. However, the NBC newscast completely ignored the Wikileaks release. CBS Evening News aired a two minute and 45-second segment on Trump, along with two minute and 22-second report from correspondent Nancy Cordes to the latest Podesta e-mails. Cordes underlined, though, that "Clinton might want to thank her opponent [Trump], whose wild week obscured the Wikileaks release of more than 10,000 e-mails hacked from the account of her campaign chair, John Podesta."
ABC's World News Tonight led its broadcast with a four-minute report on the latest Trump sex assault allegations. They followed with a two minute and 51-second segment on the Clinton campaign. Correspondent Cecilia Vega buried her reporting on the Wikileaks release amongst footage of President Obama campaigning for Mrs. Clinton, along with clips of the Democratic presidential nominee herself appearing on The Ellen Degeneres Show.
CECILIA VEGA: With the President on offense, team Clinton playing defense — that steady drip of her campaign chairman John Podesta's hacked e-mails not letting up — Wikileaks releasing 1,100 more today. ABC News has not independently confirmed their veracity. One dates back to the brutal 2008 primary between Clinton and then-Senator Obama. Among the questions top Democrats considered polling voters on: Obama's ties to Islam — asking what they thought of this statement: 'Obama's father was a Muslim, and Obama grew up among Muslims in the world's most populous Islamic country.' On the other side, possible statements like, 'Clinton will say and do anything to win.' Clinton's camp not commenting on individual e-mails.
The following morning, ABC's Good Morning America devoted another three minutes and 34 seconds to the latest Trump accusations. Dwyer's segment came after this reporting:
PAULA FARIS: Also overnight, Hillary Clinton weighed in on what she calls Trump's mistreatment of women — all of this as her campaign is facing a fresh batch of hacked e-mails dropped by Wikileaks.
And ABC's Devin Dwyer joins from our Washington bureau with more. Good morning, Devin.
DEVIN DWYER: Good morning, Paula. Hillary Clinton said overnight she gets no satisfaction from the controversy surrounding Donald Trump; but as she prepares now for the third debate, her team says she won't shy away from those accusations of sexual assault.
DWYER (voice-over): This morning, Hillary Clinton taking Donald Trump to task over those sordid headlines prompted by as many women accusers.
HILLARY CLINTON, (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE (from campaign event): The whole world has heard how Donald Trump brags about mistreating women, and the disturbing stories keep coming. If we do our job in 25 days, Donald Trump will stop being on the news every single day. (audience cheers and applauds)
DWYER: At a Seattle fundraiser, Clinton lashing out at Trump and his new strategy of scorched Earth attacks. Clinton getting some help from her top surrogate, President Obama — on the road in Ohio Friday, he unleashed on Trump.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA (from Hillary Clinton campaign event): And he figures that if — if he makes our politics just toxic; then, maybe, you'll just figure out you got no good choices, and you just get discouraged, and you just don't vote.
DWYER: The President laying out the stakes in stark term.
OBAMA: Equality is on the ballot. Kindness is on the ballot. Democracy itself is on the ballot right now—
DWYER: Meanwhile, Clinton answering new questions under oath about her private e-mail server — her team submitting written answers in a lawsuit filed by the conservative group Judicial Watch. Asked about details of her decision to use private e-mail, Clinton answered 20 different times with a variation of 'do not recall.'
DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE (from presidential debate: The thing that you should be apologizing for are the 33,000 e-mails that you deleted.
FARIS (live): All right. Devin, I want to ask you: Wikileaks has claimed that they have 50,000 e-mails from the Clinton campaign. So far, they've released roughly 11,000. So when will they be releasing more, and what can we expect?
DWYER: Well, Paula, Wikileaks says they plan to release thousands of pages of these e-mails every day up till the election. Now, keep in mind: these are e-mails from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta's hacked account. Now, so far, no bombshell in here, but they do reveal insensitive language towards Catholics and Latinos; some reveal the calculated — highly-calculated inner workings of the campaign.
Now, the Clinton team says they're not confirming the authenticity of any of these messages. They claim Russia is behind them to help Donald Trump. Paula and Dan?
FARIS: All right — 24 more days of this — Devin, thank you.
CBS This Morning Saturday led with a three minute and four-second report on the Trump accusers, and then reaired Cordes's segment from Friday's CBS Evening News. NBC finally reported on the latest Wikileaks document on Saturday's Today, but only set aside 28 seconds of coverage during a three minute and 56-second segment from correspondent Jacob Rascon on Trump:
JACOB RASCON: Hillary Clinton's campaign, meanwhile, also on defense, after Wikileaks released another round of embarrassing e-mails — one from Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook asking Bill Clinton to cancel a speech to a Wall Street investment firm — eventually convincing Bill and Hillary Clinton the speech would be a — quote, 'very consequential unforced error' just before she announced her White House bid.' NBC News has not authenticated those Wikleaks documents.
