At 9:22am ET, NBC News was the first broadcast network to cut in to regular programming for an NBC News Special Report, anchored by Lester Holt and Savannah Guthrie, on Attorney General William Barr’s news conference ahead of the public release of the Mueller report. NBC News stayed on the air until 10:11am ET for the first special report and will go up shortly again this morning for the public release of the report.
Meet the Press moderator and NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd ahead of the news conference:
“Politically, let’s be frank here, the way this has been rolled out has been very helpful to the President. Regardless — we don’t know the tone of the report. We have yet to read a single complete sentence, but in essence he’s [Pres. Trump] got a three-and-half week head start between Barr’s summary of principle conclusions… So politically, you could argue that the president, Bill Barr, have neutered the greatest potential impact of this report.”
“I’m skeptical politically this is going to move the needle, and I’m saddened by the fact I think the country collectively has less faith in our justice institutions right now today than they did before Mueller started. That in itself is a pretty damning assessment, frankly, going into this thing, no matter what we find out.”
TODAY anchor and NBC News Chief Legal Correspondent Savannah Guthrie following the news conference:
“It seems like he [AG William Barr] is really trying to say, this whole question of whether or not a sitting president can be indicted, let’s take that off the table. I thought William Barr went very far in trying to establish the factual innocence under an obstruction statute saying essentially that the President did not possess the requisite mental state and that is why he used the words, in one reporter’s terms, seemed so generous to the president’s frame of mind…it sure comes across as though he’s quite sympathetic to the president.”
NBC News White House Correspondent Hallie Jackson on the President’s reaction to AG William Barr’s news conference:
“The president clearly liked what he saw from the Attorney General. As we were watching it, I couldn’t help but think that the President must be thrilled and it appears he is. He is tweeting now, a riff off of the popular television show Game of Thrones writing simply, ‘game over.’…This is the President’s pre-report release victory lap, if you will. His administration is clearly trying to set what they believe is the narrative for this even before anybody, as you all have noted here, has had the chance to see the content of the report itself.”
Also joining the first Special Report:
- Pete Williams, NBC News justice correspondent, from the Department of Justice.
- Chuck Todd, moderator of Meet the Press and NBC News political director, from Washington, D.C.
- Hallie Jackson, NBC News Chief White House correspondent, from the White House lawn.
- Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, from Washington, D.C.
- Kasie Hunt, NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent, from Capitol Hill.
- Matt Miller, NBC News Justice and Security Analyst
- Danny Cevallos, NBC News legal analyst
- Chuck Rosenberg, NBC News contributor and former U.S. Attorney
The special also streamed live on NBCNews.com and across all NBC News apps and platforms.
