Tonight NBC airs its
"
Matt Lauer Reports
" featuring the "Today" Show host's exclusive interview with
Senator Larry Craig
, the embattled toe-tapping Senator from Idaho (and we do hope there's an "Idaho? You da ho!" joke in there, but we sorta doubt it). NBC has been
on
it from a syergy standpoint, teasing it with excerpts on
"Nightly News,"
on "Today" (see HuffPo's excerpt
) and like clockwork on MSNBC, beginning with an excerpt on "Morning Joe" and continuing on throughout the day with multiple excerpts. Some takeaways:
- Lauer: "It may have been the most famous bathroom stop of the last ten years." Both Craigs laughed, and agreed.
- Craig on his intentions in that bathroom: "I walked into a bathroom, I walked into an entrapment and a sting that was going on....I got to bathrooms to use bathrooms."
- On Mitt Romney, whom he had previously been supporting: "I was very proud of my association with Mitt Romney....he not only threw me under his campaign bus, he backed up and ran over me again."
- On fighting to get his guilty plea for disorderly conduct overturned and keeping his Senate seat: "You know I don't just walk away from a fight..this is the toughest fight of my political life." (See above headline. There are credibility issues here, and it will be interesting to see how Lauer addresses them.)
- On not telling his wife and family: "I didn't want to embarrass my wife, my kids, Idaho, my friends...I sought no counsel. I made a very big mistake." (Well, at least that's not a mistake Romney would ever make.)
- Lauer on how uncomfortable the interview was: "It's a very embarrassing subject, even to ask the questions...I found myself constantly looking at Mrs. Craig and wondering what was going through her mind."
MSNBC's Tamron Hall described the interview as one where Craig "admits exclusively to Today's Matt Lauer that he handled it all wrong." Er, there are no doubt a few exclusives in the interview but that just is not one.
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