NBC Is Really Desperate For Ratings

I know you are all thinking that I’m obsessed with Donald Trump but I’m not. I am mortified that he’s getting so much news attention and he’s been spreading birther nonsense all over the place. Of course this will ultimately bite him in the rear but it gets eyeballs. Yesterday on the Today Show, Meredith Viera “interviewed” Donald Trump.

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Donald Trump’s appearance on the Today Show this morning was a trifecta of self-promotion for NBC Universal. It gave a platform to the star of Celebrity Apprentice, one of NBC’s few minor hits. It gave Today a buzzed-about interview (MSNBC’s Morning Joe also had The Donald on this morning). And it helped publicize an new NBC / Wall Street Journal poll that shows Trump tied for second as a hypothetical GOP presidential candidate.

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In an interview with Meredith Vieira that also touched on foreign policy and the economy, Trump showed that he has decided to double, if not triple, down on his embrace of the birther movement, which believes that President Obama is constitutionally unqualified to serve as President. And not for Donald the squeamish “Well, there are a lot of questions out there” answers of other politicians gingerly handling the birther dynamite: Trump says he is increasingly suspicious that Obama has “conned the world.”

Vieira did not exactly roll over for her fellow NBC employee, but she didn’t exactly seem well-prepped, either. In part, Trump simply steamrolled over her challenges, for instance, on Hawaii’s policy as to what birth documents it makes available. But she also let him make the claim that Obama’s grandmother said she saw him born in Kenya—an old, and long-debunked, chestnut of birthers that ranks up there with the fake Mombassa birth certificate—without questioning it. So now millions of Today viewers are invited to take it as fact. And while Trump made the juicy-sounding claim that he’s sent investigators to Hawaii and “can’t believe” what he’s hearing from them, if Vieira asked him to back it up with a single example of their findings, that ended up on the cutting room floor.

There’s no way Viera could have been well-prepped. It’s not like Trump has been saying goofy birther stuff for weeks… After the segment with Trump, Bill Cosby was on to talk about an education initiative he is involved in. That led to this awkward exchange between Viera and Cosby:

He calls Trump a fool and says he doesn’t care if Trump is running for president. You tell ’em Bill! Viera seems shocked that Cosby doesn’t take Trump’s silliness seriously. If only Viera had reacted the way Cosby did when Trump was talking maybe people would take her seriously.