Savannah Guthrie delivered the Trump interview we've been wanting for years

[babylonsister]

Savannah Guthrie delivered the Trump interview we’ve been wanting for years
“I just told you”: Savannah Guthrie showed how to interrogate President Trump.
By Emily [e-mail] Oct 15, 2020, 10:10pm EDT


Savannah Guthrie is very good at interviewing Donald Trump.

The Today show co-anchor tapped to moderate the president’s town hall on NBC Thursday faced an uphill climb going in — a lot of observers were upset the event was happening at all. After all, it was the president who pulled out of the originally scheduled debate in the first place. Guthrie reminded viewers of the context at the outset of the night — the president got Covid-19, the debate was changed to virtual, and then he withdrew — and then got to questioning. And she was relentless. No line of inquiry came without multiple follow-ups, no unfounded assertion was made without a pushback.

She asked the president about a White House reception for Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the event that seems to have sparked a coronavirus outbreak among more than 20 people in the president’s close orbit and countless others.

“At this point in the pandemic, knowing what we know, shouldn’t you have known better? Shouldn’t the White House know better than to hold an event like that?” she asked.

Trump responded that there’s a lot of testing in the White House, he’s fine with masks (he didn’t wear one at the event in question), and a lot of people who wear masks get Covid-19 anyway. “Hey, I’m president, I have to see people,” Trump said.

Guthrie shot back: “You can see people with a mask though, right?”

Guthrie came in quick, she came in informed, and she came in ready. She didn’t let Trump just drone on in silence, but she also didn’t come back at him with a list of facts. She just asked him to explain himself, to really answer her question, to just say the thing that is true.

more...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/10/15/21518763/savannah-guthrie-trump-town-hall-nbc-miami

[Hugin]

1. "...he's fine with masks..."

Not exactly, wearing one allegedly can result in a negative appraisal.

I imagine that comes from the very top.

On edit: Damn, there's three piles of BS in this reply alone.

"a lot of testing in the White House" - No evidence has been issued to show this is the case.

"a lot of people who wear masks get Covid-19 anyway" - While this may be partially true (It's still an open question and this assertion is based on notoriously unreliable self-reports. I haven't seen any objective controlled scientific studies which support this to any extent.), there are numerous studies out now which indicate that wearing a mask may reduce the severity of a COVID virus infection.

[Whiskeytide]

17. Healthcare workers have been hit hardest ...

... by the virus, especially early in the pandemic. They ALL wear masks. I would think that likely skews the findings on this study Tя☭mp is citing.

[Hugin]

18. Good point!

Also, early in the pandemic adequate masks and other PPE for healthcare workers were (and are) in short supply.

Plus, they have so many alternate routes of transmission other than purely respiratory such as hand-to-face. It's a definite confounding factor to include those numbers.

[ProfessorGAC]

33. It's Still Nonsense

Just because of the group you mentioned.
If 85% of mask wearers got COVID anyway, there would be 5% workers infected nearly every week and the death rate of medical professionals would be far higher.
The masks obviously are protecting those people to a significant degree.
Also, that study showed over 74% of mask wearers infected wore the mask "all the time". Only 14% wore them " often".
Those values are counterintuitive. There is >5x the infection rate for "always" than for "often"? In a country where 30% of the people don't wear masks.
The numbers don't make sense.

[pwb]

2. Masks smudge his man makeup.

That is why.

[Wicked Blue]

12. He could wear a matching orange mask

if he wasn't such a total jerk

[JI7]

3. I didn't watch it but Rachel Maddow and David Plouffe said he seemed small and "low energy"

and just looked bad overall.

[USALiberal]

5. How many here said she would be terrible???

[BKDem]

8. I admit I thought she would be bad.

I haven't taken the Today Show seriously for years, and I assumed she was just one of the smiling airheads.

[madaboutharry]

11. Guthrie is an attorney.

She has her degree from Georgetown Law School, which is rather difficult for the ordinary person to get into. I would say she isn’t an airhead.

[lastlib]

29. Years ago, I applied to Georgetown.....

had a pretty good academic record (summa cum laude with honors) at a recognized private college, and top-5% admission test scores. Waiting list. Yeah, a tough school to crack.

[panader0]

6. I didn't watch live, but from the clips I've seen, she was very good.

She made trump look like the fool that he is. I hope that some R's who haven't voted yet
watched and were swayed by what they saw. Thank you Savannah.
P.S.-- I'm glad it wasn't Chuck Todd in her place.

[MFM008]

7. Had tv off

Missed it all.

[oasis]

9. Took him apart.

[Baitball Blogger]

10. I have to begrudingly agree. NBC's townhall did have merit because Guthrie

did what all of their moderators should do.

[Gothmog]

13. From what I saw Guthrie is a very good lawyer

Her legal training was clear from what I saw

[people]

27. Savannah Guthrie questioned him like . . .

a lawyer (which she is) who has deposed a lot of male CEO's who are complete assholes. Loved it.

[ProfessorGAC]

34. Didn't Watch, But...

...saw some clips & read some transcriptions. Having been through depositions as an expert witness (plaintiff & defense) a good lawyer can easily make a fraud squirm.
I think your description is spot on!

[exboyfil]

14. If only Matt Lauer had done this at the so called Forum

had done something similar.


Nice to see that an hour of free air time would be so expensive for Trump. I guess he was expecting a Morning Joe lovefest.

[Paladin]

15. This sort of expertly-delivered media pressure on trump is way, way, WAY overdue.

Keep up the good work, Ms. Guthrie. Other media types: Take notice, at this late date.

[gristy]

16. This was a great exchange

Guthrie asked the president about QAnon. In asking her question, she reminded him what it was — the dangerous conspiracy theory spreading across the internet, that sees Trump as a savior and says Democrats are behind a pedophilia ring.

“Can you just once and for all state that this is completely not true and disavow QAnon in its entirety?” she asked. “I know nothing about QAnon,” he said.

“I just told you,” she responded.

As an attorney, I suspect she's used that retort before. Mic drop moment.

[DinahMoeHum]

19. Tee hee. Seems the Trump team didn't look closer. . .

. . .at Savannah Guthrie's background. Degrees in both journalism and law. And a practicing lawyer at that.

They must've figured that since she's a co-host of the Today show, she'd be just another morning show airhead and what I call "easy meat" for Trump's shenanigans.

Boy, did they guess wrong.

[gristy]

21. It's possible that the Trump team DID know.

And the only one who did not was Trump himself.

[DinahMoeHum]

25. And of course, NOBODY tells Trump what to do. . .

. . .He knows EVERYTHING, amirite?

[lastlib]

30. He's a very staybull jeenyus......

He knows more than everyone else. Just ask him.

[AllyCat]

20. People with masks are getting sick because of the idiots without masjs

Why can these people not understand this important point???

[oregonjen]

24. Exactly!

[jayfish]

22. She Failed on the Most Important Point About Masks.

They are not to protect the wearer. She was, relatively, fine but let's not get crazy.

[mahannah]

23. If NBC has any clue, it will give her more airtime.

[yaesu]

26. tRump doesn't play to normal people, his rabid lie fest played well to his brain dead followers

that is what he wanted to accomplish. It doesn't matter what we see, his nazi base see heir hitler on national prime time TV spewing the hate they thrive on.

[Turin_C3PO]

31. His base is irrelevant.

He didn't gain any swing voters and that's what matters.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

28. In otherwords, she gave him enough rope to hang himself with...

... and he did. One of my own favorite sayings and tactics when dealing with an uncouth buffoon. Be polite but leave the door wide open for them to make a fool of themselves in front of the crowd.

[Cha]

32. KR for later.. TY Samantha Guthrie!