NBC’s Today show on Friday provided giddy coverage of leaks from former FBI Director James Comey’s salacious new memoir, touting his nasty personal attacks against President Trump as “bombshell” revelations. While CBS This Morning and ABC’s Good Morning America found to time discuss criticism of Comey’s “pettiness” and the “unseemly tell-all quality” of the book, the NBC morning show avoided such unflattering critiques of the ex-Bureau chief.
“Taking his shots. Fired FBI Director James Comey’s book leaks overnight, and it’s a bombshell. Calling the President a liar, comparing him to a mob boss, and saying his administration is a ‘forest fire.’ This morning, we have a first look inside the pages,” co-host Savannah Guthrie excitedly proclaimed at the top of the broadcast.
Introducing the lead story moments later, Guthrie repeated: “But first, let’s talk about those bombshells from former FBI Director James Comey’s upcoming book. It’s on everything from the scandals surrounding the Trump administration to the President’s relationship with the truth.” Correspondent Peter Alexander gushed: “This is surely among the most anticipated books of the year and it’s certain to set off the President.”
The reporter eagerly quoted some of Comey’s most vile insults of Trump: “James Comey delivering a scathing indictment of President Trump, detailing how Comey says the President lives ‘in a cocoon of alternative reality.’ Describing him as a ‘congenital liar devoid of human emotion’ and driven by personal ego.”
Like Guhtrie, Alexander used the favorite media phrase: “At the White House this morning, new fallout from a bombshell book, former FBI Director James Comey unloading in a blistering takedown of Trump.”
Claiming that “Comey still looms large over the Trump presidency,” Alexander hyped: “In his explosive new memoir, A Higher Loyalty, Comey calls the President unethical and ‘untethered to the truth.’”
The reporter cited one vicious attack line after the other against the President:
The nation’s former top law enforcement officer compares President Trump to notorious mobster, Sammy The Bull, explaining how his interactions with the President gave him “flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the Mob...The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview.” All of it, in Comey’s words, creating “the forest fire that is the Trump presidency.” “What is happening now is not normal,” he writes, “it is not fake news. It is not okay.”
It was only at the very end of the report that Alexander offered any push-back to Comey’s assertions, with just a single sentence on the White House response: “Just moments ago, the press secretary here at the White House responded, saying, ‘One of the few areas of true bipartisan consensus in Washington is that Comey has no credibility.’”
At the end of a follow-up report early in the 8:00 a.m. ET hour, Alexander allowed another single sentence of White House dissent: “Just moments ago I spoke to Kellyanne Conway here at the White House, who basically is discrediting Comey, saying he has no credibility, insisting that he is a disgruntled former employee.”
After Alexander’s initial report at the top of the show, Guthrie conducted an exclusive interview with former House Speaker John Boehner. However, rather provide any criticism of Comey, the Republican simply called him a “good public servant” who “did a good job at the FBI.”
Compare that to CBS This Morning co-hosts John Dickerson and Gayle King saying that Comey’s personal insults were beneath him and “looks like pettiness.” The Today show coverage was also in sharp contrast to ABC Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas labeling Comey the “most controversial FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover” on Good Morning America.
Even MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews scolded Comey for taking so many “cheap” shots at the President. Why couldn’t the Today show have played a clip of that Friday morning?
Here is a full transcript of the April 13 report:
7:02 AM ET
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: But first, let’s talk about those bombshells from former FBI Director James Comey’s upcoming book. It’s on everything from the scandals surrounding the Trump administration to the President’s relationship with the truth. NBC National Correspondent Peter Alexander is at the White House, been up all night looking at this book. Peter, good morning.
PETER ALEXANDER: Yeah, that’s right, Savannah, good morning to you. This is surely among the most anticipated books of the year and it’s certain to set off the President. Overnight, we got our first full look, James Comey delivering a scathing indictment of President Trump, detailing how Comey says the President lives “in a cocoon of alternative reality.” Describing him as a “congenital liar devoid of human emotion” and driven by personal ego.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Comey vs. The President; Calls Trump “Untethered to the Truth” in New Book]
At the White House this morning, new fallout from a bombshell book, former FBI Director James Comey unloading in a blistering takedown of Trump.
DONALD TRUMP [JANUARY 2017]: There’s James. He’s become more famous than me.
ALEXANDER: Nearly a year after his firing, Comey still looms large over the Trump presidency. In his explosive new memoir, A Higher Loyalty, Comey calls the President unethical and “untethered to the truth.” And highlights Donald Trump’s apparent fixation with salacious but unverified details from an intelligence dossier, including allegations that Russians had recorded Mr. Trump with prostitutes at a Moscow hotel in 2013. Comey writes, during a private conversation at Trump Tower in January 2017, President-Elect Trump “strongly denied the allegations, asking – rhetorically, I assumed – whether he seemed like a guy who needed the service of prostitutes.”
“He then began discussing cases where women had accused him of sexual assault, a subject I had not raised,” Comey writes. “He mentioned a number of women, and seemed to have memorized their allegations.”
NBC News obtained a copy of the book, due out on Tuesday, along with other news outlets, including The Washington Post.
PHIL RUCKER [WASHINGTON POST]: Comey says Trump called him the next week to mention the dossier again to try to convince him that the allegations were not true and asked him if the FBI would investigate them.
ALEXANDER: The nation’s former top law enforcement officer compares President Trump to notorious mobster, Sammy The Bull, explaining how his interactions with the President gave him “flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the Mob...The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview.” All of it, in Comey’s words, creating “the forest fire that is the Trump presidency.” “What is happening now is not normal,” he writes, “it is not fake news. It is not okay.”
Comey also defends his handling of the Clinton e-mail investigation.
JAMES COMEY: It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election.
ALEXANDER: Comey now writes, “I have read that she felt anger toward me personally, and I’m sorry for that.”
Just moments ago, the press secretary here at the White House responded, saying, “One of the few areas of true bipartisan consensus in Washington is that Comey has no credibility.” As for the question of obstruction of justice, Comey describes himself as a witness and doesn’t draw any conclusions about it. He says it’s certainly possible that the President was trying to obstruct justice, but acknowledges he does not know all the evidence that Robert Mueller’s team may have collected.
