MSNBC host Brian Williams decried the spread of fake news Thursday evening, even though the former NBC anchor was suspended in 2015 for lying to the public about details of his own career.
Williams warned about fake news on “The 11th Hour with Brian Williams” while reporting on Ret. Gen. Mike Flynn’s son’s dismissal from the Trump transition team.
WATCH:
“Another former general in the Trump circle is receiving new attention,” Williams began. “His National Security Adviser-designate, Mike Flynn. Flynn’s son was fired by the Trump transition today for passing on fake news story via Twitter. But his dad, the retired Army three-star general has passed on some gems himself,” Williams said.
“Here are a few: ‘Clinton is involved in child sex trafficking and has secretly waged war on the Catholic Church.’ As well as charges that the president is a ‘jihadi’ who ‘laundered’ money for terrorists,” the anchor added.
“As we talked about here last night, fake news played a role in the election and continues to find a wide audience. A BuzzFeed news study of Donald Trump’s own tweets where they followed back news stories to their root source found more of them came from Breitbart originally than any other single source.”
NBC News suspended Williams for six months without pay after the news network acknowledged Williams had a history of sharing fake stories about his reporting history. In particular, he claimed he was shot down during a helicopter flight by an RPG during the early days of the Iraq war.
Dantheman