NBC's Williams to Rice: 'Were You Set Up? Were You a Victim of Circumstance?'
In an exclusive interview on Thursday's NBC Rock Center with
U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice following her withdrawal of her name to be
secretary of state, host Brian Williams worked to portray her as a
victim of unwarranted political attacks: "She's been under
withering attack for weeks....Were you set up? Were you a victim of
circumstance? Bad data? Bad information?...Are you blameless in all
this?" [Listen to the audio]
Referring to her Sunday show statements on the Benghazi attack, Rice
responded: "I'm not a victim. I wasn't set up....I don't think anybody
is ever wholly blameless, but I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't
mislead. I didn't misrepresent. I did the best with the information the
United States government had at the time."
The desire by Williams to label Rice a victim mimicked chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd appearing on MSNBC on Thursday,
moments after the news broke, to proclaim: "It was all driven, in many
cases, by some conservative outlets....she sort of became a victim of
this."
After Rice claimed she did nothing wrong, Williams actually did have a
challenging follow up: "So was it, if you'll excuse the barnyard phrase,
garbage in, garbage out that morning?" Rice asserted: "It wasn't
garbage, in retrospect. I mean there was one piece of what I said that
turned out to be wrong. There was not a demonstration....I indicated,
and this still remains our assessment, that this arose on short notice,
it wasn't something that had been pre-planned for many weeks or many
months."
Williams declared: "Rice became a political target for Republicans
during and after the presidential campaign, especially for Senators John
McCain and Lindsey Graham....the President pushed back at them and said
they were going after the wrong person."
In the midst of the interview, Williams injected biographical fluff
about Rice: "Rice was a super-achiever from a young age, a star
basketball player, high school valedictorian, then a Truman Scholar at
Stanford, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. At 33, she was the youngest ever
assistant secretary of state."
Wrapping up the segment, Williams made a point to tout President
Obama's continued support of Rice: "...in an interview with our NBC
station in Sacramento, President Obama said he could not be prouder of
her and said Susan Rice will indeed continue to be a member of his
national security team."
Here is a full transcript of the December 13 interview:
10:16PM ET
BRIAN
WILLIAMS: Until she walked into this studio late this afternoon
prepared to tell her story, Susan Rice, our U.S. ambassador to the U.N.,
was widely considered to be among those under foremost consideration as
the next secretary of state. Today, she wrote the President, then they
talked by phone, she told him to withdraw her name from consideration.
She's been under withering attack for weeks. It was something of a
showdown for the President. Here now, part of our conversation after she
decided to stay in her current job.
SUSAN RICE: Today I made the decision that it was the best thing for
our country, for the American people, that I not continue to be
considered by the President for nomination as secretary of state.
Because I didn't want to see a confirmation process that was very
prolonged, very politicized, very distracting, and very disruptive.
Because there are so many things we need to get done as a country.
WILLIAMS: She is 48, a mother of two, stationed in New York while her
family stays in Washington. She's already been an undersecretary of
state, she is now U.N. ambassador, and she just came very close to
becoming the next secretary of state. What evidence do you have of how
seriously you were under consideration? Were you it?
RICE: I think I was under serious consideration. I can't obviously know
what the President was thinking each step of the way. But I am – I am
very grateful that he would consider me for this. That is an honor of
tremendous proportions.
WILLIAMS: Did you want the job?
RICE: I would have been very honored to serve in that job, just as I'm
delighted to do what I'm doing. But yeah, sure. How can you not want to,
in my field, serve at the highest possible level?
WILLIAMS: Susan Rice was a super-achiever from a young age, a star
basketball player, high school valedictorian, then a Truman Scholar at
Stanford, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. At 33, she was the youngest ever
assistant secretary of state. It was something that happened this past
September 11th in Benghazi, Libya that changed her trajectory and a lot
more. The attack that killed four Americans, including our ambassador.
And that weekend, when Susan Rice represented the administration on the
Sunday morning talk shows, she gave the very same talking points she'd
been given by the White House, and they were almost instantly disputed.
RICE: Putting together the best information that we have available to
us today, our current assessment is that, what happened in Benghazi, was
in fact, initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired
hours before in Cairo.
WILLIAMS: When they write the book on this, what do you think went wrong?
RICE: Well, Brian, it's hard to say what went wrong. I have tried all
of my life as a public servant to do the utmost for our country and for
our people. When I went on the Sunday shows on September 16th, I was
doing just as I have always done, providing the best information
available to me and available to our government at the time. I was very
careful to explain that the information was preliminary, and it could
change. And yet I think it was misconstrued and contorted into something
much more nefarious, it was never indeed the case nor my intention.
WILLIAMS: Were you – were you set up? Were you a victim of circumstance? Bad data? Bad information?
RICE: I'm not a victim. I wasn't set up. You know, Brian, I think it's
best, you know, when you live through something like this, from my point
of view, it's almost an out-of-body experience. You know, I know who I
am. I see myself on the television screen in all my different outfits.
And I hear things said about me that I know don't bear any relation to
who I am or what, or the people who know me, know me to be. So, it's –
it's a bit strange. We are in a sad place, frankly, when national
security, national security officials, who are sitting in their jobs,
serving the American people every day, and potential candidates for
secretary of state, get caught up in a political vortex. And my greatest
regret, to be honest, is that Ambassador Chris Stevens, who is a valued
colleague of mine, and our three other colleagues, what happened to
them and why, has been lost in all of this debate over talking points
and over me.
WILLIAMS: Are you blameless in all this?
RICE: Brian, I don't think anybody is ever wholly blameless, but I
didn't do anything wrong. I didn't mislead. I didn't misrepresent. I did
the best with the information the United States government had at the
time.
WILLIAMS: So was it, if you'll excuse the barnyard phrase, garbage in, garbage out that morning?
RICE: It wasn't garbage, in retrospect. I mean there was one piece of
what I said that turned out to be wrong. There was not a demonstration.
But what I said was that there were extremists who came to our facility,
with heavy weapons. I indicated, when asked, that they could be Al
Qaeda or Al Qaeda affiliates or Libyan-based extremists, and that they
then attacked the embassy in a very violent fashion. I indicated, and
this still remains our assessment, that this arose on short notice, it
wasn't something that had been pre-planned for many weeks or many
months.
WILLIAMS: Susan Rice became a political target for Republicans during
and after the presidential campaign, especially for Senators John McCain
and Lindsey Graham.
LINDSEY GRAHAM: And if you don't know what happened, just say you don't know what happened.
WILLIAMS: But then at a news conference last month, the President
pushed back at them and said they were going after the wrong person.
RICE: If Senator McCain, and Senator Graham, and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me.
WILLIAMS: You called the boss today with your decision, what was that phone call with the President like?
RICE: It was very warm. It was very relaxed. I think he understood and
appreciated the reasons that I made this decision. I think, you know, we
reaffirmed that we are going to keep doing our best together and I look
forward to being a key member, as I have been, of his national security
team.
WILLIAMS: And just tonight, in an interview with our NBC station in
Sacramento, President Obama said he could not be prouder of her and said
Susan Rice will indeed continue to be a member of his national security
team.
