Longtime Today host Matt Lauer was fired Wednesday morning after a complaint of sexual misconduct, the latest public figure to fall from grace during a remarkable moment of cultural reckoning. As NBC is one of President Donald Trump’s favorite punching bags, he wasted no time crowing about it.
Wow, Matt Lauer was just fired from NBC for “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” But when will the top executives at NBC & Comcast be fired for putting out so much Fake News. Check out Andy Lack’s past!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2017
So now that Matt Lauer is gone when will the Fake News practitioners at NBC be terminating the contract of Phil Griffin? And will they terminate low ratings Joe Scarborough based on the “unsolved mystery” that took place in Florida years ago? Investigate!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2017
Trump’s “unsolved mystery” reference apparently referred to the death of one of Scarborough’s interns when he was a congressman for Florida, who was found dead in Scarborough’s district office in July 2001. A medical examiner found that Lori Klausutis had fallen unconscious due to a heart problem, falling on her desk and hitting her head. There is no evidence to suggest any foul play, much less that Scarborough had anything to do with her death.
Trump has frequently attacked Scarborough and Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski since his presidential campaign began, calling him “Psycho Joe” in June.
In October, Trump said that NBC was “run by morons” after the network, and others, reported that Rex Tillerson had called Trump a “moron.” A few days later, he threatened to pull NBC off the air after it ran a story saying he wanted a “tenfold” increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Under ordinary circumstances, one might assume the president of the United States threatening a network’s broadcast license or baselessly accusing a personal enemy of murder would dominate coverage for days. But things are different now, and we’ll likely have forgotten this latest outburst by the end of the week.
