Newsweek suggested Friday that Matt Lauer’s sexism prompted him to ask Hillary Clinton so many tough questions when he was moderating the Commander in Chief Forum.
Establishment media outlets accused Lauer at the time of being too tough on Clinton and soft on Donald Trump. An NBC executive rated his performance as a “disaster.”
“People who are shocked by the allegations of sexual harassment by Matt Lauer are now saying evidence of his poor treatment of women was hiding in plain sight: his widely criticized performance during a presidential forum last September,” writes Summer Meza for Newsweek.
Lauer did surprise a lot of media pundits when he asked Clinton repeated questions about her using a private email account while she was secretary of state to send and receive classified documents. The Newsweek article suggests that “some viewers thought he pressed Clinton too hard on her email scandal rather than overseeing the promised discussion about national security issues.”
But the most “telling moment” that Lauer was motivated by sexism, Newsweek writes, came when he interrupted Clinton as she was claiming to have the right constitution to decide momentous issues when required.
“You’re talking about judgement,” Lauer noted as he again went back to Clinton’s private email server and wondered how she could dismiss that breach of national security as just a “mistake.”
Lauer asked, “Why wasn’t it more than a mistake? Why wasn’t it disqualifying?”
Hillary Clinton had harsh words for Lauer in her latest political memoir “What Happened,” writing that she was “ticked off” at Lauer because the host “had turned what should have been a serious discussion into a pointless ambush.”