NBC News has recently faced criticism from conservatives over how the network handled a retraction it made regarding a false claim Kristin Welker made during an interview with Republican Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on “Meet the Press.” During the conversation, Cotton and Welker discussed Donald Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery, where the former president was accused of politicizing the event.
As Cotton defended Trump, who visited to pay respects to the 13 fallen U.S. service members who died in the Biden-Harris administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, Welker made a false claim that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were present during a ceremony which honored the deceased soldiers.
Welker asked, “The bottom line, though, I guess senator, is it ever appropriate to make campaign content at military grave sites?” Cotton responded, “He didn’t take campaign photos there, these families, Gold Star families, whose children died because of Joe Biden Kamala Harris’s incompetence, invited him to the cemetery, and they asked him to take those photos.”
Cotton continued in his defense, “Because, as they told me yesterday when I spoke to Kelly Barnett and Darren Hoover, the parents of Taylor Hoover, who has Arkansas ties, they don’t get to go to the beach on Labor Day. They don’t get to have barbecues. This is their one chance to have a memory of their children, to commemorate their service and honor their sacrifice.”
He added, “They wanted President Trump there. They wanted to take those photos. You know who the families also invited Joe Biden Kamala Harris. Where were they? Joe Biden was sitting at a beach. Kamala Harris was sitting at her mansion in Washington, DC. She was four miles away 10 minutes. She could have gone to the cemetery and honored the sacrifice of those young men and women, but she hasn’t. She never has spoken to them or taken a meeting with them.”
However, Welker interjected, claiming, “Well they did meet with them during the with them during the dignified transfer.” Cotton, ignoring the assertion, continued, “Her and Joe Biden’s incompetence, that those 13 Americans were killed in Afghanistan.” After the segment was aired, the network was forced to issue a correction. The Meet the Press official X account posted, “On our broadcast this morning, we incorrectly implied that both President Biden and Vice President Harris attended the dignified transfer of 13 American service members killed during the Afghanistan withdrawal. Biden was in attendance but Harris was not.
User on social media reacted to the admission, with one person commenting, “Millions of people saw the fake claim but nobody saw the retraction. NBC knew what they were doing.” Another said, “I saw neither. I don’t watch the corporate news any more. Let them try to lie to me via another avenue. I still go out to sites that I’ve learned to trust by vetting their reports against primary source documents.”
Watch the discussion between host Kristin Welker and Sen. Tom Cotton below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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