Fox News Channel’s Chris Wallace called out the White House this morning over David Gregory’s exclusive interview with National Security Advisor Susan Rice on “Meet the Press.” This was Rice’s first appearance on one of the Sunday public affairs shows since being named the president’s National Security Advisor.
“I wanted to ask the Obama Administration about the crisis in Ukraine, but they decided to put National Security Advisor Susan Rice on only one show today in her first Sunday appearance since 2012 when she blamed the Benghazi terror attack on reaction to an anti-Islam video,” Wallace said. “Of course FOX has led the way in questioning how the administration handled Benghazi. Perhaps Susan Rice didn’t want to answer the tough questions we would have asked.”
For his part, Gregory did ask Rice about those Sunday show appearances back in September of 2012. “When you were last here, Ambassador Rice, it was an eventful morning on the story of Benghazi and the horrible attack on our compound there,” said Gregory. “We haven’t seen you in a while. As you look back at your involvement in all of that, do you have any regrets?”
David, no. Because what I said to you that morning, and what I did every day since, was to share the best information that we had at the time. The information I provided, which I explained to you, was what we had at the moment. It could change. I commented that this was based on what we knew on that morning, was provided to me and my colleagues, and indeed, to Congress, by the intelligence community. And that’s been well validated in many different ways since.
And that information turned out, in some respects, not to be 100% correct. But the notion that somehow I or anybody else in the administration misled the American people is patently false. And I think that that’s been amply demonstrated.
And while this is Rice’s first broadcast Sunday show appearance since being named National Security Advisor, she was on Fareed Zakaria’s CNN show in September. Benghazi was not discussed in Zakaria’s interview.