This week, Today host Savannah Guthrie won an Emmy for an ambush town hall in which she relentlessly hit Donald Trump from the left. On Wednesday, Hoda Kotb gushed, “We have in our presence an Emmy and an Emmy award winner. That Emmy, that was awarded last night to NBC News and Savannah.”
Hyping it as instrumental in Trump’s loss, she reminded, “It was less than a month before the 2020 presidential election.” What exactly happened on the October 15, 2020 town hall? Guthrie demanded the then-President denounce white supremacy. He did. She did it again. He did.
Here’s that exchange:
DONALD TRUMP: I denounced white supremacy for years. But you always do it. You always start off with the question. You didn't ask Joe Biden whether or not he denounces Antifa. I washed him on the same basic show with Lester Holt and he was asking questions like Biden was a child.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Well, this is a little bit of a dodge.
TRUMP: Are you listening? I denounce white supremacy. What's your next question?
GUTHRIE: Do you feel— It feels sometimes you're hesitant to do so. Like you wait a beat.
TRUMP: Here we go again. Every time. In fact, my people came, I'm sure they'll ask you the white supremacy question. I denounce white supremacy.
Here’s what Deputy Managing Editor of NewsBusters Nick Fondacaro wrote at the time:
After duking it out with Trump for almost 20 minutes (and something the rest of the liberal media demanded of her), Guthrie finally got to the first audience question. And, of course, it was hostile.
...One of the only two right-leaning questions came from a former Hillary Clinton voter who had recently fled the Democratic Party. “What do you say to those Americans to maybe tell them why you want the corporate tax rate lower and why that helps them,” she asked the President to explain.
For more examples from our FLASHBACK series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.
