Why Matt Lauer’s ‘Commander in Chief’ Interviews Were an Unmitigated Disaster

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Were Interviewed by Matt Lauer. It Didn’t Go Well. For Democracy.

Wednesday night NBC’s Matt Lauer held “Commander in Chief” pre-debate interviews in the USS Intrepid, with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the first almost-debate of the 2016 general election. It didn’t go well. 

Why NBC News chief Andrew Lack decided Matt Lauer would be the perfect moderator is anyone’s guess. Rachel Maddow, whose MSNBC show is the new network’s crown jewel, and who literally wrote the book on the evening’s topic, was literally on deck to mop up at 9 PM after Lauer nearly sunk the ship.

In a nutshell, Lauer put the screws to Clinton, almost berating her over her emails, which have nothing to do with the event’s topic, while he effectively pour Trump a beer and sat back watching football. The systemic sexism was mind-boggling. 

Almost immediately, journalists (yours truly included) took to social media with jaws hanging open, shocked at the journalistic malpractice NBC News (remember NBC’s CNBC GOP debate that was also an unmitigated disaster?) has foisted upon the American democracy.

New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait penned a widely-circulated article titled, “Matt Lauer’s Pathetic Interview of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Is the Scariest Thing I’ve Seen in This Campaign.”

It begins, “I had not taken seriously the possibility that Donald Trump could win the presidency until I saw Matt Lauer host an hour-long interview with the two major party candidates. Lauer’s performance was not merely a failure, it was horrifying and shocking.”

Chait sums up the consequences, noting that, as it turns out, the average voter, especially those who are still undecided, “subsist on a news diet supplied by the likes of Matt Lauer. And the reality transmitted to them from Lauer matches the reality of the polls, which is a world in which Clinton and Trump are equivalently flawed.”

In other words, Lauer has perpetrated the myth that either candidate is equally acceptable.

Veteran journalist and Huffington Post editor-at-large Michelangelo Signorile offered this insight hours after the event:

The New York Times (which has little right to criticize others after its extremely offensive anti-Clinton slanted coverage,) reports,” Mr. Lauer found himself besieged on Wednesday evening by critics of all political stripes, who accused the anchor of unfairness, sloppiness and even sexism in his handling of the event.”

Thursday morning, Signorile followed up, rightly telling the Times that what happened Wednesday was their fault in part, after their anti-Clinton coverage:

Raw Story rightly points to CNN senior media and politics reporter Dylan Byers’ analysis, saying Byers “crushed” Lauer:

“Political interviews, forums, town halls, debates, these are really big, significant deals,” Dylan Byers said on CNN (video below). “They’re especially big, significant deals given all that’s at stake in the 2016 election. You don’t send Matt Lauer to do a political reporter’s job. Look, in a debate, it might be fair to argue that you can let the two candidates fact-check each other. But when it comes to these one-on-one interviews, these forums, you have to step up and play that role. That onus is on you, and Matt Lauer didn’t do that. He certainly didn’t do that with Donald Trump. He didn’t do it on the Iraq War. He didn’t do it on a number of other issues and frankly, this criticism that he went a lot harder on Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump, I think, is well founded.”

Rob Reiner also weighed in:

Others: