Talking to NBC's chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd on Sunday's Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory noted "Benghazi back as a political focus this week" following the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attack, prompting Todd to observe: "It is. The House Republicans have not dropped this as an issue." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Todd continued: "They didn't talk about it last week during the one-year anniversary of the Benghazi attack. But this week, on Thursday alone, three different hearings are going to be taking place on the same day on Capitol Hill. House Republicans, they don't want to drop this."
As a recent Media Research Center study detailed, NBC – along with the rest of the media – has been happy to "drop" the Benghazi story.
Despite all the unanswered questions that remain about the attack and the fact that no suspects have been apprehended, on Wednesday's September 11 anniversary, NBC only devoted 21 seconds of airtime to the story. Between Today and Nightly News, a total of three sentences were given to mark 12 months since the attack.
In a 24-hour period on Tuesday and Wednesday, NBC spent more time – a total of 36 seconds – on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton being awarded the National Constitution Center's Liberty Medal.
Here is a full transcript of the September 15 Meet the Press exchange:
11:16AM ET
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DAVID GREGORY: Meanwhile, we're talking about not only 12 years after 9/11 and the Middle East, Benghazi back as a political focus this week.
CHUCK TODD: It is. The House Republicans have not dropped this as an issue. They didn't talk about it last week during the one-year anniversary of the Benghazi attack. But this week, on Thursday alone, three different hearings are going to be taking place on the same day on Capitol Hill. House Republicans, they don't want to drop this.
And by the way, what happened in Benghazi, this is the larger context in the Syria debate, where some people think if we'd gotten involved in Syria, it could look like what Libya looks like today.
GREGORY: My sense is that the President doesn't go back to Congress on Syria at this point.
TODD: He is – there's no interest, no – in doing that unless Assad does something else.
GREGORY: Alright. Chuck Todd, thanks very much.
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