Brian Williams controversy 'will be hard to ride out' — Transcript

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1. 0:00I'm not sure uh that if uh I had been
2. 0:03shot down in a helicopter I would not be
3. 0:05able to remember
4. 0:07that I made a mistake in recalling the
5. 0:10events of 12 years ago I want to
6. 0:13apologize I said I was traveling in an
7. 0:15aircraft that was hit by RPG fire I was
8. 0:18instead in a following aircraft we all
9. 0:22landed after the ground fire incident
10. 0:24and spent two harrowing nights in a
11. 0:27sandstorm in the Iraq desert this this
12. 0:30was a bungled attempt by me to thank one
13. 0:33special veteran and by extension our
14. 0:35brave military men and women veterans
15. 0:37everywhere those who have served while I
16. 0:39did not I hope they know they have my
17. 0:42greatest respect and also now my apology
18. 0:45I think it hurts Brian's credibility
19. 0:47he's had a pretty good record um uh of
20. 0:50being a stand-up journalist and so this
21. 0:51is a definitely a blemish on his record
22. 0:54remains to be seen uh whether uh this
23. 0:57affects his career uh NBC is not saying
24. 1:00anything currently his um and and he has
25. 1:03apologized of course but I think some
26. 1:05people believe that the apology actually
27. 1:08uh um made things rather worse because
28. 1:10he he seemed to minimize the import of
29. 1:12it it's a strange situation because uh
30. 1:14he he says the fog of memory uh led him
31. 1:18to to to misremember the fact that he
32. 1:20wasn't in that helicopter that was shot
33. 1:22down he's talked about this in different
34. 1:24ways over the years the early shortly
35. 1:26after it happened um he seemed to
36. 1:28remember it correctly suddenly without
37. 1:30knowing why we learn we've been ordered
38. 1:33to land in the desert on the ground we
39. 1:35learned the shinook ahead of us was
40. 1:37almost blown out of the sky that and
41. 1:40then um began sort of changing changing
42. 1:43his tune uh later in blog posts and then
43. 1:46on David Letterman show in
44. 1:482013 uh two of our four helicopters were
45. 1:51hit by ground fire including the one I
46. 1:54was in credibility is so key and his
47. 1:57explanations have even deepened his
48. 1:59problem S I think uh I think this will
49. 2:01Mount I he has a lot of veterans that
50. 2:03are very upset with him which is the
51. 2:05reason the story came out and uh and I I
52. 2:09think this will be very difficult for
53. 2:10him to ride
54. 2:12out it's interesting because he more
55. 2:14than other news anchors has tried to
56. 2:16display his comedic side he goes on The
57. 2:19Daily Show and Jimmy Fallon and and and
58. 2:22sort of jokes around my pres Obama don't
59. 2:25want none until you pass bills hun I
60. 2:28don't know that that will directly
61. 2:30affect his uh uh what his culpability
62. 2:34for this kind of incident but I think
63. 2:35he's maybe more broadly known to uh to
64. 2:38viewers than just as a news anchor and
65. 2:41and to what degree that influences
66. 2:43reaction to this I don't know