The latest - and biggest - casualty from the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal was revealed moments ago, when NBC announced it fired its leading morning news anchor Matt Lauer over sexual harassment allegations, the network’s president for news said in a memo to staff on Wednesday.
"Today" star Matt Lauer, the highest paid personality in TV news, was fired following "a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace," NBC News Chairman Andy Lack said in an email to NBC News staff. Lauer, 59, was named a co-anchor of "Today" in January 1997 after three years as the newsreader.
The full email is below:
Dear Colleagues,
On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer. It represented, after serious review, a clear violation of our company's standards. As a result, we've decided to terminate his employment. While it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over twenty years he's been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.
Our highest priority is to create a workplace environment where everyone feels safe and protected, and to ensure that any actions that run counter to our core values are met with consequences, no matter who the offender.
We are deeply saddened by this turn of events. But we will face it together as a news organization – and do it in as transparent a manner as we can. To that end, Noah and I will be meeting with as many of you as possible throughout the day today to answer your questions.
CNN said that reporters for The New York Times had been investigating Lauer for several weeks, according to sources who had been contacted by the Times. The firing removes one of the most recognizable personalities on television, and at aa time when morning news programs are increasingly important to network news divisions.
The NY Post reports that Lauer allegedly sexually assaulted a female NBC staffer during the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014.
An NBC insider said Lauer’s alleged victim complained to HR on Monday: “This happened so quickly. She didn’t go to the media, she made a complaint to NBC’s human resources, and her evidence was so compelling that Matt was fired on Tuesday night. The victim says she has evidence that this has also happened to other women, but so far we don’t have evidence of that.”
Another source told Page Six that the decision to fire Lauer was made late Tuesday night by NBC News chairman Andy Lack.
* * *
The memo announcing the termination of Lauer was read on air during the Today show this morning. Lauer’s co-host, Savannah Guthrie, announced the news on live TV. Appearing on the verge of tears, Guthrie said,
"This is a sad morning at 'Today' and NBC News," she said. "As I'm sure you can understand, we are devastated. All we can say is we are heartbroken; I’m heartbroken for Matt. He is my dear, dear colleague."
She described Lauer as “a dear, dear friend,” and said she was “heartbroken for the brave colleague who came forward to tell her story." Calling Lauer’s termination part of a national reckoning, she asked “How do you reconcile your love for someone with the revelation that they have behaved badly?”
Hoda Kotb, on the set with Guthrie, said she has known Lauer for years and "loved him as a friend and a colleague." "It's hard to reconcile the man who walks in every day" with the person who was identified in the complaint, she said.
Matt Lauer has been terminated from NBC News. On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer. As a result, we’ve decided to terminate his employment. pic.twitter.com/1A3UAZpvPb
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) November 29, 2017
Ironically, it was none other than Matt Lauer grilling Bill O'Reilly over sexual harassment:
This didn't age well. Matt Lauer grills Bill O'reilly over sexual harassment pic.twitter.com/jWMHt2LORe
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) November 29, 2017
Moments after the news, a gloating President Trump seized on Lauer's termination, going on to ask in a tweet when executives at NBC and Comcast, the network’s parent company, would “be fired for putting out so much fake news.”
"Wow, Matt Lauer was just fired from NBC for “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” But when will the top executives at NBC & Comcast be fired for putting out so much Fake News. Check out Andy Lack’s past!"
Wow, Matt Lauer was just fired from NBC for “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” But when will the top executives at NBC & Comcast be fired for putting out so much Fake News. Check out Andy Lack’s past!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2017
He then followed up with the following: "So now that Matt Lauer is gone when will the Fake News practitioners at NBC be terminating the contract of Phil Griffin? And will they terminate low ratings Joe Scarborough based on the “unsolved mystery” that took place in Florida years ago? Investigate!"
So now that Matt Lauer is gone when will the Fake News practitioners at NBC be terminating the contract of Phil Griffin? And will they terminate low ratings Joe Scarborough based on the “unsolved mystery” that took place in Florida years ago? Investigate!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2017
Ba Bye
Fucking WEW.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trFxNHjTLWU
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2616945/She-owes-liver-Matt-La...
Will Savannah speak out in support her co-host?
Asked Hillary some tough questions during the campaign.
Payback.
They're replacing him because he just wasn't liberal enough.
The intensity with which the blind(ed) look here, there and everywhere is in direct proportion to the intensity of their wish not to look within.
Oh nooes! Do not look within. You might find a lie (or a trillion of them).
http://lyingsweetly.blogspot.com/2017/05/lying-sweetly-i-am-going-to-tel...
Got caught blowing Tom Cruise back stage....
Someone needs to go back and find video of all these sanctimonious asshats preaching about pussy grabbing from last year and compile them into a montage
Andy Lack going down next ;-)
this is what he gets for switching the questions on shill
So Rose and Laurer get fired, but Franken "goes back to work";
Gee I guess I know which job I want when I fuck up......
Seems to me that some folks are going to learn a hard lesson on the value of due process. Accusation? YOU'RE FIRED! They made their beds, now they get to sleep in them.
Epstein, Franken, Lauer, Weiner, Weinstein. Jews, jews, jews in the news.
Jewish ethics regarding sexual assault, per jewschool.com
https://jewschool.com/2017/10/80440/jewish-ethics-around-sexual-assault/
So fitting for a lib isn’t it? They can’t stand due process. You are guilty because I say so because I am a liberal!!
Haha!! I couldn’t possibly get tired of watching these people suffer. Hopefully, they will reap everything they have sown.
And what about Conyers?
Lets get to the bigger fish please. Podesta and Biden.
Trump did not gloat. He madea valid point. When will NBC be called on being a front for CIA news?
I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention I guess.
Matt who?
Do as I say not as I do, Bichez
The hypocrisy of the left is breathtaking.
Liars, devoid of morals and ethics
Welcome to Utopia
" "It's hard to reconcile the man who walks in every day" with the person who was identified in the complaint, she said."
I don't know the story...and I'll spend zero time trying to find it. But this sounds like a bitter woman playing the abuse card. Oh, yah, for two years she didn't mind the nooners with Matt, but now that she figured out she was a lunch dessert, she's coming out of the closet.
Usually the extent they spout support for the feminists, is the extent they don't really mean it for themselves. It's a form of compensation for their cognitive dissonance of holding two incompatible beliefs in their head.
So who was grabbing who by the pussy?
Obviously not famous enough. Otherwise they let you do that.*
*Disclaimer: In the same conversation where Trump said they let you do that, he also told the story of the lady that turned him down. Which just goes to show that even then, Trump knew his limits. How did he say it again? "I came onto her like a bitch but she wasn't interested"? Something like that.
"Grab them by the pussy. When they're famous, they let you do that." Obviously you needed to be more famous than Trump was back then. (And / Or "They" refers to a subset of women, not the whole set of women.)
Perhaps this is why Matt had to go:
"Today Show host Matt Lauer faced a wave of criticism Wednesday night following NBC’s Commander-In-Chief Forum. By and large, the reaction was that Lauer, who moderated the forum, took a much more aggressive approach with Hillary Clinton than he did with Donald Trump. Many critics felt Lauer spent too much time addressing Clinton’s email scandal, while he failed to fact-check Trump on several statements.
During the one-hour forum, Clinton and Trump appeared back-to-back as they separately addressed an audience of veterans and active military members.
During and after the forum, Twitter was flooded by people who said they felt Lauer “grilled” Clinton with tough follow-up questions, but did not hold Trump to the same standards, who was asked more open-ended questions that he often evaded. At one point #LaueringTheBar was even trending on Twitter. The rough reviews weren’t only limited to social media, Lauer also received his share of criticism from the press."
I knew he would get the ax just like Cokie did since they 1) did not praise Soweeto Obama and BLM enough and 2) they did not adore crooked Hillary. Cokie was essentially replaced by far left raycist Dona Brazille on Sunday talk shows. Even george Will, another Sunday staple, was aghast at some of the ridiculous things Brazille said.
"As you can imagine, we are devastated.", cringes the hypocritical anchorwoman. So, you're devastated that a domineering jew pervert is no longer there to grope you, eh? The Left is entirely vapid and devoid of any respect. They deserve nothing more than to be completely ignored. Had the firee been a Trump supporter, the look of gleeful revenge would have been glaring out from the bitch's face.
how short the public memory is.
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/rigged-system-wikileaks-full-list-38-reporters-journalists-bag-hillary-clinton/
Lauer asked her some "tough questions"?
You mean like committing hundreds or thousands of felonies as Sect. of State? What a fucking joke.
Well, They do have a list of "enemies" and its really long.....
Like somebody said above: He just wasn’t liberal enough. Look at how these people destroy someone’s life in a second when they are either no longer useful or become even a minimal threat.
... so it's possible that the current occupant of the WH wasn't born in America ?
Trump was not born, he was hatched......by the Russians of course.
/sarc
Can we run a harassment scorecard here?
Stack up the Pro-Trump v Anti-Trump offenders?
Or would it look a teensie bit lopsided?
Trump talked the talk with "grab em by the pussy", but Jesus wept, his accusers are the ones who have been walking the walk. Bigly.
Fucking vermin the lot of 'em.
Pray for Stephanopolis. Please. Be fired.
Stephanopoulis is another far left, self-righteous creep.
That piece of shit couldn't even get a security clearance to stay in the white house during the Clinton years and that says alot! So his background should be haunting him in 3...2...1..!
That would be interesting. This whole culture war thing seems pretty remote from Arizona. Still this sudden wave of accusations that ended careers simply by virtue of the accusation itself...is curious. If this thing has legs beyond the new standard MSM attention span (precisely 2 weeks) it will be more curious.
The whole thing dumbfounds me. Right from the get-go it seems all these accusers had one thing in common: their own motives for literally getting screwed (or groped, fondled, grabbed, etc.) and they all, every single one of them, kept their mouths shut for personal gain. Until now. All the sudden. And I won't believe this culture is limited to the few we see exposed now. Heck man, I just kinda assumed that the rich and powerful routinely use their underlings as toys. It's what they have done pretty much from inception. We're talking within the first few generations of men after Adam. In evolutionary terms, 'homus politicus'. Politicians are descended from authoritarian apes. Very sneaky authoritarian apes.
I think it was Eustace Mullens that said don't ask if what you are hearing is true or false, ask why you are hearing it now. And guys like us (also the few gals on this site) are trained to look for patterns. And I'm out of my realm on this one. I could give a f*ck what these people do to each other or themselves.
the fog of war .... swamp is being drained by alternative canals and culverts that is not apparent to the average person .... MAGA!
Yes, Cog, And the more self righteous they come off when accusing others, the guiltier they are themselves.
It is a sincere pleasure to watch these sanctimonious liberals get what they deserve.
They've wanted to dump him since his hair started falling out. When will we find out just whose pussies he's been grabbing. Remember when Matt got Ann Curry fired? Wonder what really happened there.
"In 2006, Annette filed for divorce from Lauer, but weeks later she withdrew the papers. At the time, Annette was pregnant with their third child. InTouch Weekly reported that the legal documents included claims that Annette experienced “cruel and inhumane” treatment from her husband, who demonstrated “extreme anger and hostility.”
“The conduct of defendant [Matt] so endangers the physical and mental well-being of the plaintiff [Annette] so as to render it unsafe and improper for plaintiff to cohabit with defendant,” Nancy Chemtob, the attorney for Annette, reportedly said in the legal documents."
“extreme anger and hostility”
Why they hired him.
Typical divorce complaint. Very much so.
In certain states, all she had to do was make a phone call to police and she is an automatic "victim", he would have spent the night in jail and be tagged with a "domestic" and if found guilty (difficult with a jury) be sent for "reconditioning" by the "court system".
But once the "victim" plays that card, there is no going back. Most "victims" are well coached by attorneys who make a fortune in this "industry".
"As a result, we've decided to terminate his employment."
The progressive stupid, it burns.
Grimaldus
A sacrificial ass he was.
All I can say is, he isn't quite the rock star he thought he was.
AMF creepo. Others to follow.
This is nothing. When I worked as a Key Grip at NBC, I totally got Harvey Weinsteined by Matt Lauer after he Bill Cosby'd my Cherry Coke one night. He stuck his Jerry Sandusky right up my Kevin Spacey, then pulled out and shot his Corey Feldman all over my Al Franken. But he made it up to me by sending me on a working vacation to Jeffrey Epstein's private island...
Nah... they sacked him 'cos he was Lauering the tone of the place....
White male
"Asked Hillary some tough questions during the campaign.
Payback."
Exactly, Pinto Currency. Comcast wanted to break Lauer's contract in the worst way. Mission accomplished!
He's smart so I am sure he'll find a good job somewhere...maybe at the PornHub store in NYC?