During the Today's Professionals panel segment on Wednesday's NBC Today, fill-in co-host Tamron Hall promoted an online petition to get 90-year-old actress Betty White to appear at the Democratic National Convention, noting that the creator of the petition, "is concerned that Clint Eastwood gave elderly people a bad name with what he did" at the Republican convention.
Advertising executive Donny Deutsch declared that "Republicans still have egg on their face from the Clint Eastwood thing" and urged the Democrats not to do it. NBC medical editor Nancy Snyderman added: "I would not counter something that didn't go well." Attorney Star Jones rounded out the discussion by calling on Democrats to "Let the stench stay over there," meaning on the Republican side.
Here is a full transcript of the September 5 exchange:
9:09AM ET
NANCY SNYDERMAN: Don't counter-
HALL: You're the elderly one, go ahead, Donny.
DONNY DEUTSCH: No, I don't think they'll do it.
STAR JONES: Under no circumstances.
DEUTSCH: Because I think the Republicans still have egg on their face from the Clint Eastwood thing. It looks like a stunt. It kind of trivializes the thing. Obviously Betty White is beloved. If I was producing it, I would not do it.
JONES: Too much is going on in the country, too many issues that we need to discuss, too many people that we'd like to hear discuss them. As much as I want to see Betty White, I don't want to see her at the DNC.
HALL: Right, and I think that-
SNYDERMAN: And I would not counter something that didn't go well.
HALL: Right.
SNYDERMAN: I wouldn't even enter that space. Time to move one.
HALL: I think that's why there are only 12,000 signatures on it.
JONES: Let the stench stay over there.
