Top NBC News brass were panicked after “Today” host Matt Lauer’s maligned performance quizzing presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on the Intrepid Wednesday night. When critics widely panned his interviews, sources said NBC honchos were desperately spinning positive stories with little luck.
A source told Page Six, “[NBC News President] Deborah Turness was panicking yesterday trying to get [positive] headlines out about Matt’s performance. They were scrambling. In the morning meeting, [staffers] were speechless [when] Turness asked if anyone picked up any of the positive stories they’re trying to spin” about Lauer — whose interviewing skills received insults such as “disorganized” and “pathetic.”
Our source added, “Tweets calling for [infamously deposed ‘Today’ co-host] Ann Curry to come back were the extra dagger” for Lauer.
The Post pointed out that “Lauer was quite relentless with Clinton when it came to her handling of classified information on an unsecured private server, even going so far as to ask whether it disqualified her from the presidency.” Clinton supporters cried that Lauer unfairly grilled her, and Clinton’s campaign capitalized on the backlash by mentioning in an e-mail to Democratic donors on Friday that “Lauer fell flat.” Chelsea Clinton weighed in on the Lauer talk on ABC’s “The View.”
Another NBC insider insisted that Turness “did not freak out” about the Lauer reviews at that morning meeting. “She congratulated the news team and, like any other meeting, was trying to focus on the actual news that came out of the forum to move the story forward. There wasn’t even a discussion of Matt’s performance.”
NBC News chairman Andy Lack sent out a memo praising the forum as a “success” on Friday afternoon, writing to staffers, “Against all odds, we were able to bring the two presidential nominees together for the first time and presented an important examination of what each would bring to the role of commander-in-chief.”
A rep for NBC did not comment.