and, the news u division presidt noah oppenheimer called it a conspiracy theory.be the most powerful cooperating witness received little attention so far, his name is rich mchugh, a reporter in the investigation unit and he was ronan farrell's producer. he spent eight months of his life reporting on the weinstein investigation, ten days ago he "vanity fair" about it. if his peace amounts to one of the most devastating accounts of malfeasance by a television a network ever published, get yourself a copy of this story,le it is jaw-dropping. and the lack writes " not only personally intervened to shut down the investigation, they refused to allow me to follow-up after his history of sexual assault became front page news." the records show they behaved more like numbers weinstein's pr team than the of journalists they claim to be." it sounds like an overstatement, but it isn't at all. they did act as p.r. agents ford harvey weinstein, the story is crammed with details. the cumulative effect is so overwhelming and so clearly true that nbc hasn't responded to the story,

and the lack and noah oppenheimer not only personally intervened to shut down the investigation, theyused to allow me to follow-up after his history of sexual assault became front page news. if they more like members of weinstein's pr team than the journalists they behaved to be. they did act as p.r. agents for harvey weinstein, the story is crammed with details. the cumulative effect is so overwhelming and so clearly true that nbc hasn't responded to the story, instead have ignored it hoping it will go away. just today, "the wall street journal" reported that nbc has -- and this was a remarkable even by their standards -- renewed noah oppenheimer's contract and its expected he will take control of the entire company soon. before that happens we want to speak to rich mccue directly and we are happy to have us join us tonight. one year ago, i resigned from nbc news because they ordered me to stop reporting on harvey weinstein which they clearly did. in the piece, you unearth evidence that weinstein lawyers, david boys had been assured that you would not do reporting on harvey weinstein

mchugh says he never got clear answers from nbc news president noah oppenheim about why the story waswn but has learned of the networks top brass cave in to pressure from weinstein who was threatening to reveal details about former today show anchor matt lauer. >> it's clear to me we were lied to over and over and it's just not right, especially coming from the news organization. it's the very crux of what they do, to tell the truth and they not only lost sight of it but they didn't adhere to their basic principles. >> despite the lower end weinstein controversies, and be to nbc quietly renewed noah oppenheim's contract and he is expected to take over as the chairman's network after the 2020 election. mchugh cannot understand how noah oppenheim still has a job much less a promotion and other folks at nbc aren't happy about it either. >> i know employees at nbc are upset about it, i've spoken too many of them. i feel it's rather tone-deaf. it's going to be hard for employees, journalists going forward to report on corporate malfeasance elsewhere. >> weinstein didn't only pressure nbc e

what happened here is you've got noah oppenheimer who, now they are pulling his college writings whereid women love to be preyed on. apparently he thinks women love to be preyed upon. noah has said that i deeply regret it. people do write dumb things in college. and they say dumb things. trust me. but that's the person who is investigating. andy lack -- i'm sorry, the reporting that ronan has put out is that there is an accuser, ady woman named jane wallace who said she was bullied out of a job and working for andy years ago.sa she had a consensual affair with him but then she says she was retaliated against. she says he relentlessly preyed on female underlings. if these are the people overseeing the investigation into nbc. they have the general counsel tl the investigation. how are people supposed to trust it? that's why you've got to get some at any outside.om >> tucker: there's a striking irony. even as the management of nbc clearly ignored sexual misconduct and abuse within their own building, they seemed to pump up and abet wild and unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct

and that is a direct result of that kind of attitude that noah oppenheim voiced of people in leadership rules passing the buck. he says over and over again, these people don't work for me. my bosses are making decisions. when he says i'm not the villain, that is true in a particularly sinister sense. nobody thinks they're the villain and everybody thinks it's not their responsibility to do the right thing. and i would just quickly point out, on the other hand, this book is full of characters who do stand up and do the right thing. my working producer refuses to shut it down, refuses to cancel introduce, loses his job after all of this. there are brave people in these pages too. so i hope you see both the cautionary tale and the inspiring one. >> all right. ronan farrow will be at calvary presbyterian church at 7:00 to talk more about his book. >> at 5:00, what ronan frrow said after that interview today to abs reporter liz kreutz. >>> supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg is in the bay area, talking to uc berkeley law students. this is a live picture of the event, which is being liv

reporting rhone sxn rich were comfortable they had enough to show the head of the news division noah oppenheimarmed with a draft script and a plan for more reporting, they played him the recording from ambra. >> his reaction was incredibly jarring to me. it was almost like a deadpan reaction. it was other kind of people i've worked with in the news business who would have been practically ripping that audiotape out of my hands, or our hands, to air it that night. >> reporter: in the book oppenheim is quoted saying "i don't know what that proves. he's trying to get rid of her. people say a lot of things when they're trying to get rid of a girl like that. i'm not saying it's not gross but i'm still not sure it's news." >> when we left the meeting, ronan and i were in the elevator and i turned to him and i was like something's up. that's not right. >> reporter: by august 2017, in addition to ambra, ronan says they had an accuser in shadow, anonymous corroborating witnesses, and they believed they could convince some accusers to agree to be named. but they say nbc executives told them to stand dow

noah oppenheimer who was the president of nbc also a screenwriter, ronan farrow this is what he claimswhat nbc did not want to upset harvey weinstein. he goes further to say it's all full circle intertwined with matt lauer. he said this morning on "good morning america," he says he carefully weighs us out in the book but all signs point to it was a tangled web that was all woven together that harvey weinstein basically threatened that he would spill the beans about matt lauer if they spilled the beans about his sexual harassment. >> martha: ugly all around. when we come back, jonathan morris and guy benson on a new push by some democratic presidential candidates to revoke churches' tax-exempt status if they refused to perform same-sex marriages. against whooping cough. ♪ against whooping cough. ♪ head in now for applebee's new pasta & grill combos starting at $9.99. they give us excellent customer otservice, every time.e. our 18 year old was in an accident. usaa took care of her car rental, and getting her car towed. all i had to take care of was making sure that my daughter was ok. if

ultimately taking his reporter to "the new yorker" magazine and farrow says he was told by noah oppenheimow we can't run with it. go with god. his story won a pulitzer prize. in a memo, chairman andy lack maintained when he presented his reporting he didn't have one victim or witness on the record saying farrow simply didn't have a story that met our standard for broadcast. then with the me too movement in full swing, another stunning fall. >> good morning, breaking news overnight. >> reporter: matt lauer fired for what nbc said was sexual misconduct. the former nbc employee behind the complaint, brooke nevils spoke out to farrow for the first time accusing lauer in graphic detail of raping her in a hotel room while at the 2014 sochi olympics on assignment as meredith vieira's producer. in an open letter, lauer adamantly denies the allegation saying it was mutual and completely consensual and calling nevils a fully enthusiastic and willing partner going on to have several more consensual sexual encounters at his new york city apartment and his offi at 30 rock until ending what he called a

nbc news president noah oppenheim says your book is, quote, built on a series of distortions, confused>> look, this book is an extraordinarily meticulously fact-checked work of investigative journalism. it's two years of reporting. one of the senior fact-checkers did it and i think people have seen it for what it is. >> what have you heard from people inside nbc? >> there's been an outpouring of support from journalists and sources saying they, too, have stories. that's very common. all of this is honestly very common with these kind of investigative stories. when i reported those stories about cbs that you mentioned, similar campaign to undercut the reporting that revved up, and similar support that ultimately carried the day. >> there was always two sides to every story. i'm curious because matt lauer came out with guns blazing responding to you. >> he did. >> made it clear from his point of view that it was certainly consensual and she was very willing. this really is a he said/she said story at the end of the day. the allegations about matt lauer. how do you sdpied wdecide who i te

. >> tucker: it's not a mystery as to how this happened or who did it, noah oppenheim did it, andy lackid it, you've got noncrazy people at the helm higher up, you got steve burke who is the ceo of nbc universal. why has no one asked them what they think of this and why they are continuing to employ these guys? >> comcast have stood by noaa, they stood by andy lack, when i broke the story of the matt lauer allegations in 2017, they released a statement that we knew nothing about lauer, the woman came to hr, they've been singing the same tune for two years. it's hard now to backtrack and say, just kidding, what we set for two years actually is in the truth. >> tucker: how about oppenheim shielding products on the air and selling screenplays to hollywood while he supposed to be -- >> that's been a complaint that people have pointed out, that he was a screenwriter of "jackie," and there's been a rumor that rowan farrow has alluded to this, is that why he was in bed with harvey weinstein? that has been denied. comcast has released comcast down my comments in support of that. i think chris h

. >> at one point you say, noah oppenheimer was exchanging texts and gifs with harvey weinstein after your investigation into him. how do you feel about that? >> i was pretty upset to learn a lot of that stuff to be honest. i have no animosity against these people, but that's clear to me that we were lied to you over and over again. it's not right coming from a news organization. >> despite the growing pile of evidence, they still have their jobs. tammy bruce hosts every weeknight on fox nation.n. we wish it was every week on fox nation. tammy, what you make of this? you are always able to connect the macro themes to today's news. the story seems redolent. >> "the daily beast" i think i is very good because it touches on a lot of issues. your interview last night also was very valuable. after everything with what this network has gone through and other networks, the education everybody has had with the nature of the workplace, but also the education of the importance, if you have the power of the security to stand up against an abusive environment. that's one thing to have an abuser,

howard: well, that leads to my next question which is nbc news president noah oppenheim insists he andge of allegations against matt lauer, but ronan comes back and says, well, there were secret settlements, some of them with lauer accusers, and they're vague we don't know how much money was paid out to these women. and unlike when fox news and cbs and other media analysts grappled with similar problems of misconduct by executives and others here and there, there's been no outside investigation by nbc. >> right, absolutely. and so we're supposed to trust nbc saying that nbc didn't do anything wrong. i don't think that that applies in any situation. i mean, when people do things that are wrong often times they'll say, not me, i didn't do that. and that's why you do need an outside investigation. i think that if nbc really didn't know, then why not vindicate itself with that outside investigation? but the fact that there's never been one speaks volumes. howard: can kat, just a quick answer on this. does the criticism of the network sting because the network has never been able to convinc

. >> here is what nbc news president noah oppenheim said to his staff, put out in a statement yesterdayof your book he put out this staffwide memo. it reads in part, farrow's effort to defame nbc news is clearly motivated not by a pursuit of truth but an ax to grind. it's built on a series of distortions, confused timelines and outright inaccuracies. >> the reporting in the book speaks for itself. it's meticulously fact checked including with nbc executives. their responses are in the book. it's fair they had an opportunity to respond. what the book lays out in an undisputable way, and we're confident in this reporting, is that there was, indeed, a paper trail of settlements at this company. they say it's coincidental they continued to pay out women large sums. >> quince dental? >> they use euphemisms. these were enhanced severance packages. they have ways of hiding this. this is how these look in a corporate context. they are concealed. but executives involved in brokering those settlements and the women involved all were under the impression that this was to shut them up about complai

people like noah oppenheim and andy lack at nbc news assiduously protected harvey weinstein, if you can protecting harvey weinstein. it apparently wasn't limited to them. an article for "the daily beast," sil lai abrams says even after the weinstein story broke, nbc suppressed her own allegations of sexual assault erielle davidson is a writer at "the federalist" and she joins us tonight. w thanks for coming on. outline what these allegations are. i should say they are allegations. i don't know the truth but i'm interested. >> there's definitely allegations and we have to be careful when we talk about sexual assault in general, but what i will say is that this is really catching on the momentum of ronan farrow's book "catch and kill." an entirely brand-new story that nbc essentially buried sexual assault allegations. they learned of them and did not pursue them. they did not expose them. there was actually a point in which they had an opportunity to air an interview with the new accuser and they opted not to. >> tucker: that would be on joy reid's show on msnbc. the accuser said she was

reporting we laid out here, there is a paper trail of the shutting down of the story, including noah oppenheimt of nbc news, on six occasions ordering us to stop reporting. the head of the investigative unit underneath him eight times to stop reporting that eventually escalated to ordering us to cancel interviews. you can judge for yourself it's laid out in the book whether what we had was enough. we had a tape of weinstein admitting to sexual assault and multiple named women in every version of the story but that's actually not the point. the order to stop was unjournalistic and that's not just my account but working level producer's count. he recently wrote a piece for "vanity fair" saying it was an inappropriate shutdown of explosive reporting we had, and we were concerned that people were going to continue to get hurt. what the book lays out is that this was a set of executives making these decisions all the way up to our parent company who were cornered on some very difficult issues within the company. and if, indeed, they are moving towards more transparency, releasing women from nda's,

noah oppenheim also held what was characterized as a tense staff meeting yesterday.affers asking what executives knew and when they knew it. brass also facing allegations about why they killed ronan farrow farrow's reporting about harvey weinstein. watch. >> we did indeed have multiple named women in every draft of the story. we had a taped confession from harvey weinstein. point is the ordered a hard stop to reporting. they told me and a producer working on this theft we should not take a single call. they told us to cancel interviews. the question for years has been, why? every journalist at that institution didn't understand why. >> harris: in the motor colleagues, nbc news chairman lack says it paints a fundamentally untrue picture of the handling of the weinstein story. james freeman's assistant editorial page editor of "the wall street journal," a fox news contributor. james, what do you make all thi this? >> they've got two >> i think nbc has to knock down the ronan farrow story, or knock it down. when it comes out, he says he has a lot of documents to show wh

according to nevils, after lauer was fired, she learned that nbc news president noah oppenheim and chairmanrew lack were, quote, emphasizing that the incident had not been criminal or an assault. >> he really used his power in these situations. >> reporter: "variety's" elizabeth wagmeister originally broke the story on the wave of sexual assault allegations against lawyer in 2017. at the time, they say nbc news executives knew about lawyer's alleged predatory behavior. >> it wasn't just low-level employees that had knowledge of matt lauer's inappropriate conduct with women. there were also higher-level employees that were aware and openly speaking about matt lauer's conduct with other women at the "today" show. >> according to "variety," farrow writes, nevils left nbc in 2018. the network suggested she tell people she left to pursue other endeavors. in a statement this morning, nbc news tells cbs that they find lauer's conduct appalling, horrific, and reprehensible. they say "that's why he was fired within 24 hours of us first learning of the complaint. our hearts break again for our collea