This morning was a roller-coaster ride of bombshell news stories. If you slept in or you missed out, here are the top headlines you need to catch up on.
President Donald Trump has been busy tweeting all-day Wednesday. The commander-in-chief started by retweeting three videos from a far-right British nationalist leader, which depict inflammatory scenes featuring individuals who may or may not be Muslim. Two of the videos show graphic, violent assaults while the third shows a man smashing a statue of The Virgin Mary. The latter video is below, but please be advised — it may be offensive to some viewers.
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VIDEO: Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary! pic.twitter.com/qhkrfQrtjV
— Jayda Fransen (@JaydaBF) November 29, 2017
Press Secretary Sarah Sanders defended the president’s Twitter use, saying he retweeted the videos to “promote strong borders and strong national security.” The legitimacy of at least one of the videos has already been called into question — with a Dutch Attorney General casting doubt as to whether or not the boy pictured is an immigrant or a practicing Muslim. British officials were quick to condemn Trump’s endorsement of the extremist account.
The dust had barely settled from that story when the president used Twitter as a platform to weigh in on another big headline of the day: NBC’s firing of long-time Today anchor Matt Lauer.
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
The announcement came early this morning that Lauer had been let go from his job of more than 20 years due to allegations of sexual misconduct. The show opened this morning with a statement from NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack, read by anchors Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb. Lauer was conspicuously absent.
“On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer,” the statement said. “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.”
The details about Lauer’s misconduct have been the topic of a lot of discussion this morning.
Meanwhile, ESPN also made some big waves in the news today — announcing that they’d be laying off 150 employees. This makes is the third time in two years the sports media giant has laid of a large group of people. ESPN president, John Skipper, released a statement through Twitter.
ESPN President John Skipper’s message to employees: https://t.co/bLxKoAHmIc
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) November 29, 2017
Finally, NPR fired their Chief News Editor, David Sweeney, in response to multiple sexual harassment charges filed against him. NPR reported last night that no less than three women had come forward to report on Sweeney’s inappropriate behavior. Sweeney’s duties are being temporarily handed over to Senior Managing Editor Edith Chapin.
And Garrison Keillor also said he had been fired by NPR over allegations of inappropriate behavior.
