Meredith Vieira Needed to Get Creative Regarding Donald Trump’s Lie for the Sake of America and She Did Nothing
American Eclectic
August 15, 2022
Meredith Viera had an interview with Donald Trump (NBC, Today, April 7, 2011) and part of the exchange went:
DONALD TRUMP: His grandmother in Kenya said he was born in Kenya and she was there an witnessed the birth. OK. He doesn’t have a birth certificate or he hasn’t shown it. He has what’s call a Certificate of Live Birth that is something that is easy to get. When you want a birth certificate [that is] very hard to get [NBC flashed a picture of Obama’s “Certificate of Live Birth”]
MEREDITH VIERA: In the state of Hawaii they said they have this document it[has] he was born in the United States. That’s good enough for them.
DONALD TRUMP: A birth certificate is not even close. A certificate of live birth is not even signed by anybody. I saw his. I read it carefully. It doesn’t have a serial number. [It] doesn’t have a signature. There’s not even a signature you believe. Here I’m starting to think that he was not born here. …Well, I have people that actually have been studying it and they cannot believe what they’re talking.
MEREDITH VIEIRA: You have people now out there searching– I mean, in Hawaii?
DONALD TRUMP: Absolutely. And they cannot believe what they’re finding. And I’m serious–
In this same interview Trump addressed his intelligence:
MEREDITH VIERA: Why do you think you are connecting with voters.
DONALD TRUMP: I think that I connect with people because I happen to be smart I happen to have a lot of common sense I happen to know what I’m doing.
Put aside his pat-on-the-back about himself and the issue is his claim that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. In March of that year, prior to the Vieira interview, Trump stated:
He doesn’t have a birth certificate, or if he does, there’s something on that certificate that is very bad for him. Now somebody told me-and I have no idea if this is bad for him or not, but perhaps it would be-that where it says ‘religion,’ it might have ‘Muslim.’ And if you’re a Muslim, you don’t change your religion, by the way.
Viera had to know that in an interview with Trump the issue of Obama’s birth would come up and she was not prepared. Maybe she needed to know a quote from Leona Helmsley, a businesswoman known as the “Queen of Mean,” who owned the Helmsley Palace Hotel, a well-known New York City hotel, as well as more than twenty other hotels when she said, “I wouldn’t believe Donald Trump if his tongue were notarized.”
Furthermore, Viera should have been prepared regarding Trump saying that Obama’s grandmother said he was born in Kenya—she did not say that. A foolish organization, Young America’s Foundation, showed its irresponsibility by stating on its website, “Donald Trump is bringing attention to the fact that Obama’s grandmother said he was born in Kenya.” There was a telephone call (October 16, 2008) between Presiding Bishop Ron McRae, Anabaptists Churches Worldwide, and Sarah Obama, who was Obama’s 86-year-old step-grandmother. The Young America’s Foundation could show it only listened (or only cared) to part of the conversation and drew its conclusion. The rest of the conversation with the step-grandmother included the following, which was from a translator since Sarah Obama spoke Swahili, “No. Obama was not born in Mombasa [Kenya]. He was born in America.” In reading the McRae interview it certainly appears he did his best to force the interview in the direction that he wanted: That Obama was born in Kenya. In a subsequent letter, McRae wrote, “He is openly a better [M]uslim than he is a Christian, and I would expound upon those testaments if you would like.” McRae then added:
I am a Christian and a preacher. I do not involve myself into politics, and could care less about the corruption or lack of it that promotes any citizen to the office of President of these United States. It is of no concern of mine that Congress, the Supreme Court or this entire nation ignores the Constitutional requirement to be a natural born citizen in order to be President. But I cannot tolerate a liar and a fraud, especially one so low as to dishonor his grandmother, or his father in denying the truth about his actual place of birth. That is the only issue this preacher has involved himself with in regards to Barack Obama.
One gets the impression McRae made up his mind where Obama was born, with or without his interview.
In 2020, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer said regarding the issue of Trump sending investigators to Hawaii:
He never sent anybody anywhere, he just said it and everybody sort of bought into it. …Well, Donald Trump didn't do it because he didn't want to spend the money and he didn't believe it. His hatred for Barack Obama is plain and simple: He's Black, he went to Harvard Law, he graduated the top of his class, he's incredibly articulate, and he's all the things that Donald Trump wants to be, and he just can't handle it
The issue here is not Trump but Vieira and what she has never done and needed to do. It doesn’t matter whenever or wherever she appeared on TV she needed to briefly say something to the effect, “I asked Donald Trump for the information on who he hired and sent to Hawaii. Who are they? What did they tell him?” Then she adds, “This is Day One, or Day Seven, or Day Forty, or Day Ninety-Nine of me waiting for this information from Donald Trump.” The relentlessness was needed, not because it would suddenly teach Donald Trump a lesson on lying, but because it might have, just maybe, have had an impact on people who have listened to him and believed virtually anything he has to say. Those are the people who might have been positively affected by such a relentlessness.
The Hawaii vital records office has a record of Barack Obama being born in Hawaii. A department spokeswoman stated, “Nobody has come in and said they’re investigating for Donald Trump.” In both 2008 and 2009, the state’s health director at the time stated, “It is absolutely clear to me that he was born here in Hawaii.” Furthermore, Obama’s birth was announced in two Hawaiian newspapers, The Sunday Advertiser listed it in their August 13, 1961, edition. The paper stated, “Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Hwy., son, Aug. 4.” Put aside anything about a birth certificate versus a certificate of live birth, the newspaper notice, should, for most reasonable people, have been enough.
Of course, none of that has mattered to conspiracy believers. In other words, these are the same people still looking, or believing they have found, proof that the 2020 election was stolen. They are all the same people whether it’s Obama’s birth or a stolen election, it all runs together. One conspiracy-believing site, two years after the foolish Viera interview tried to create the impression of intelligent thought:
No Hawaiian official has released a statement that wasn’t couched in carefully written, legally ambiguous language. No statement made by any Hawaiian official can be taken as true because of a state and party and ideological bias toward supporting their favorite Hawaiian son, -son of one of the most socialistic, welfare-dependent states of all.
… What naïve fool would assume that the revelations of Edward Snowden do not reveal anything about how secrets are uncovered and covered-up by government? What naïve fool would assume that key Obama supporters in the Hawaiian government wouldn’t justify “the means” used to provide him a way to present the appearance of having a Hawaiian birth certificate by “the ends” of not seeing his presidential legitimacy crack apart and crumble?
There was a 90-page (self-published) book that built on the nonsense from the above conspiracy site. The book (The Obama Birth Certificate Conspiracy: Here is proof Barack Obama is lying about being born in the United States of America) stated, “his alleged Hawaii birth certificate is clearly a forged document.”
A quote attributed in some fashion to David Gergen, a well-known political analyst and adviser to several Presidents, although apparently paraphrased goes:
If you want to get your point across, especially to a broader audience, you need to repeat yourself so often, you get sick of hearing yourself say it. And only then will people begin to internalize what you’re saying.
Vieira should have done repeated follow-ups to help our Democracy, it would have been a way to confront the lie that voter fraud made Joe Biden President. There is a link between the Obama birther lie and the 2020 election lie. The question is sometimes asked: Why do so many people believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump? They believe it because there was not a forceful challenge to his previous big lie, the Obama birther lie.
This is not an issue of playing Monday Morning Quarterback, where in 2011 Vieira needed to “anticipate” what would happen on January 6, 2021. The birther lie was, by itself, something that needed a unique response—the constant repetition that a President was not entitled to be in the White House because he was not born in the United States—required an almost theatrical response because it was so outrageous. It may also seem that picking on Vieira is unfair, that others on television news could have done the same theatrical stunt, but it was in Trump’s interview with her that he said his “people” were in Hawaii.
A lie left unchallenged becomes believable. Just a constant, pestering about this one issue, might have been enough for some normal elements in our society to hear it and realize that Trump’s lie about Hawaii and his “people” was, just that, a lie. Imagine the constant harangue by Vieira, which, after a period, would have been theatrical. The Obama birther lie helped to set the stage for the 2020 election fraud lie to be believed by, unfortunately too many people—one led to the other.
In the 1976 movie, Network, Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) suddenly and quite unexpectedly flies off the handle and states:
I want you to get up right now. Sit up. Go to your windows. Open them and stick your head out and yell- ‘I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!
With those lines, he suddenly rose to the top of the TV news rating charts. Perhaps in the movie, a sudden and unexpected human emotion helped to crystallize for many viewers what they were feeling. Vieira could have done something like that. Did she have the opportunity? Sure. She could have done something. Sure, but why bother? She had her foolish interview with Donald Trump, he managed to use his television appearance to his advantage, she completely faltered, and, since this is television, well, time to move on.
It may seem like a moot issue, something Trump said in 2011 and which seemed to be later negated by Trump himself saying Barack Obama was born in the United States (which he said in September 2016), but those “people” were still there—at least according to Trump.
How should we understand television journalism as an aid to citizenship, to supporting Democracy? Vieira, essentially, looking in the mirror and perhaps said, “Oh well, he got the best of me that day,” and let it pass, and did nothing but demonstrate a shallowness that TV news is there for the huckster to exploit. Trump got the best of Vieira and Vieira did not care. She did not care for herself; she did not care for the sake of the country. A short segment on a news show and, well, let’s move on.
How does TV news, in general, manage to find a way to put politicians on notice that their actions and their statements might be more than just a five or seven seconds sound bite opportunity for them to win over a few more voters? Beale said, “Things have got to change,” might be a thought that needs a creative response and Vieira needed to do it—she needed to be the one to go to the window and get mad. Donald Trump required and perhaps still requires something beyond the normal in TV news—the theatrical has a way of reaching many people which was needed for the birther lie and which could have helped to combat the 2020 election lie. Don’t hold your breath; however, this is just a typical run-of-the-mill TV personality. After all, Meredith Viera moved on, she is now the host of 25 Words or Less on the Game Show Network. I doubt she will have an opportunity to confront her Donald Trump interview and “people” in Hawaii unless she can work it into 25 words, or less.
Notes
Robert Farley, “Trump said Obama’s grandmother caught on tape saying she witnessed his birth in Kenya,” PolitiFact (April 7, 2011): https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/apr/07/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-president-obamas-grandmother-cau/
Catherine Garcia, “Michael Cohen says Trump lied sending investigators to Hawaii to look into Obama’s birth certificate,” The Week (September 9, 2020): https://theweek.com /speedreads/936488/michael-cohen-says-trump-lied-about-sending-investigators-hawaii-look-into-obamas-birth-certificate
Letter from Bishop Ron McRae, Politfact (no date): https://www.politifact.com/letter-from-bishop-ron-mcrae/
Adrien Nash, “Why Obama’s birth certificate can’t be believed,” Obama Conspiracy Theories (July 23, 2013): https://www.obamaconspiracy.org /2013/07/why-obamas-birth-certificate-cant-be-believed/
Mark Niesse, “Obama’s isle birth is easily verified, but few check,” Star Advertiser (April 23, 2011): https://www.staradvertiser.com /2011/04/23/breaking-news/obamas-isle-birth-is-easily-verified-but-few-check/
Health Bureau Statistics, “Births, Marriages, Deaths,” The Sunday Advertiser (August 13, 1961): https://www.newspapers.com /clip/18503640/barack-obama-birth-announcement/
Interview: Donald Trump Interviewed by Meredith Viera on NBC’s The Today Show-April 7, 2011, YouTube: https:www.youtube.com /watch?v=_QL7G9_GPaE
“Trump Forces Media to Focus Attention on Obama’s Nationality,” Young America’s Foundation (August 4, 2015): https://students.yaf.org/videos/trump-forces-media-to-focus-attention-on-obamas-nationality/.
Underground News Network, The Obama Birth Certificate Conspiracy (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010). This is a self-published book.