The Daily Nightly began on May 31, 2005. As Brian wrote in his first post it aims to provide a narrative of the broadcast day and a window into the editorial process at NBC Nightly News. Brian weighs in every weekday and NBC News correspondents and producers post regularly.
Brian Williams became the seventh anchor and managing editor in the history of NBC Nightly News on December 2, 2004. Read his full biography.
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Good afternoon from New York, where we are busy preparing tonight's NBC Nightly News.
Here in the newsroom we just heard from NBC's Jim Maceda in Baghdad who just returned to our bureau after being given rare access to tour the battlefield with America's top commander in Iraq. He spent the day with Lt. General David Patraeus flying over, and landing in the infamous 'triangle of death" to get a handle on how the troop surge is working. The video he described to us over the phone sounds amazing, and we look forward to airing Jim's report tonight, and hearing what General Patraeus has to say about where things stand.
Tonight we will also look ahead to an in-depth series our partner the Washington Post is beginning tomorrow on Vice-President Dick Cheney, and in particular his influence in defining the administration's policy on the war on terror. Our John Yang will look at that, and also at questions being raised about how the VP handles classified documents.
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Link to thisHello from New York. Brian is off this evening so I'll be anchoring the newscast.
All of us in the newsroom have been terribly moved by the pictures from Charleston, S.C., where tens of thousands turned out to honor nine firefighters who lost their lives fighting a furniture store blaze earlier this week. The image of nine flag-draped coffins at the front of a coliseum, with thousands of fellow firefighters from across North America in attendance, was a vivid reminder of the shared sense of duty and danger that cements the bond between those who answer the fire bell in cities large and small. Martin Savage is covering that story for us.
Discuss (10 comments) Email this | Link to thisThe distant thunder of Vietnam, a hazy, hurtful memory for most Americans, came roaring to the White House today in a large scale protest. But the object of scorn was Vietnamese President and Communist Chairman Nguyen Minh Triet meeting with President Bush to sign a trade agreement. Several thousand Vietnamese Americans from across the country milled at the edge of Lafayette Park penned behind waist-high barriers, shouting across Pennsylvania Avenue facing the White House:
"Free All Political Prisoners"
"Down with the Communists"
"Democracy"
"Murderer"
I waded through the orderly, noisy protesters, noting they were all ages: older men, some in their Vietnam War uniforms; younger men, one wearing an AC/DC rocker T-shirt, many wearing printed T-shirts, "Stop Kangeroo Court in Vietnam...Human Rights for Vietnam." Women were as boisterous as men, taking up the cadence of the increasingly incendiary chants:
"VC (Vietcong)" the leader would yell into a bullhorn...
"Liar" the crowd would yell back
"VC...Terrorists"
"VC...Mafia"
"VC...Go to Hell"
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Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
DUANE E. DEWEY
Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps Company E, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division
When 19-year-old Duane Dewey joined the Marines soon after North Korean forces rolled into the South, it was an “indefinite” enlistment—the duration of the war plus six months. Dewey was part of the 1st Marine Division, which was near Panmunjom in the spring of 1952. The command had established a series of outposts beyond the main American force. Corporal Dewey was the leader of a machine-gun squad in a reinforced platoon dug in at one of these positions when it was attacked by a battalion-size Chinese force around midnight on April 16.
Discuss (2 comments) Email this | Link to thisJuarez, Mexico, is a place that stays in your mind long after you’ve left it. This week I wandered that city’s dusty streets carrying a hidden camera for Lisa Myers' investigative report on fraudulent documents. The goal was to capture people on tape who rent and sell American documents that allow people to cross the border without being caught.
El Paso means "the crossing" in Spanish and crossing to the U.S. is an obsession in Juarez. I would say hello in Spanish and shortly after people would offer to help me get to Texas. Several men tried to rent or sell me passports and visas, all American, they said, all authentic, all documents that could help me cross the "El Paso del Norte" bridge just steps away, or any of the four bridges which join Juarez and El Paso. My concealed camera rolled on the document dealers, some holding bundles of dollars, fresh from their latest visa deal. A few hundred can get you almost anything in Juarez -- an American passport, a social security card, even a birth certificate. For $1,200, one man offered to sell me the passport of someone who resembled me, complete with a Social Security card and work permit to match my new identity. Another man would give me the same three documents for just $900, but I would have to return the passport to his partner once I made it to the U.S, so he could bring it back to Mexico and “rent it” to someone else to cross, he explained.
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Arm-in-arm with a military escort, Joanne Sutton led the procession of mourners to the graveside service for her husband, Army Sgt. 1st Class Greg Sutton, who was killed June 6 by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.
Mrs. Sutton, 3-year-old daughter Cailee, and 2-year-old son Greg Jr., were among family and friends gathered Wednesday at Arlington National Cemetery for Sgt. Sutton's burial.
For Greg Lamonte Sutton, 38, of Spring Lake, N.C., the Army was a way of life. His father, Sgt. 1st Class Claude Sutton, served in the Army for more than 20 years, mostly with the 82nd Airborne Division. Greg Sutton followed his father into the Army but not into the 82nd Airborne.
Discuss (6 comments) Email this | Link to thisNew York Police Department officials are dismissing video of a “Taliban suicide-bomber graduation” as “part of a media blitz intended to spread Taliban propaganda and raise the profile of the organization” rather than a real threat.
In a special analysis distributed this week to NYPD commanders, the department’s counter-terrorism division also downplays the Taliban’s capability of carrying out suicide attacks in the U.S. and Europe, as the Taliban commander suggested, saying they do not have the needed networks in the West and have no experience carrying out such attacks.
Discuss (3 comments) Email this | Link to thisWe arrived in Dallas on an uneventful (for once) and completely food-free (so what else is new?) American Airlines flight from El Paso this morning, and we'll originate the broadcast tonight from nearby Fort Worth, where I'm typing this in a borrowed office at our station here, KXAS-TV, which also houses our NBC News Dallas Bureau.
An early heads-up: we have an extraordinary interview with an Army widow from Texas tonight -- a woman who came to our attention when she mentioned us in her local paper [Read the Killeen Daily Herald stories: Her love of a lifetime | Widow vocal about opinon on war ]. It was such a kind mention that I asked her to meet with us when we arrived here. She's an extraordinary person with some interesting views on the management of the Iraq war, having lost the man she loved to a sniper.
Brian Williams and Donna Kiernan pause for the camera at Donna's house in Killeen, Texas.
Photo by Subrata De
Discuss (51 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
JEFFERSON J. DeBLANC
Captain, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Marine Fighter Squadron 112
In 1938 Jefferson DeBlanc was working as a bench chemist in the sugarcane industry to earn enough money to attend college. The Civilian Pilot Training program, which the federal government had initiated in universities, seemed perfect for him—he had been fascinated by aviation ever since a U.S. Mail pilot had made a forced landing near his home and allowed him to get into the cockpit. He signed up for the program and learned to fly in Piper Cubs, then entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Reserve program and became a Marine fighter pilot. At the time he was sent to the Pacific in the fall of 1942, he had only ten hours in a Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat fighter.
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Brian is traveling from El Paso to Fort Worth, Texas, so NBC's Don Teague takes on today's vlog duties, previewing some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast.
Click here or on the image to watch.
Discuss (0 comments) Email this | Link to thisHi. Lots of stuff on the 'net and in the papers today about the Bloomberg boomlet of the past 48 hours, plus a blogger unveils her identity and surprises some readers -- and more on videos by, and about, the presidential candidates.
Allahpundit at HotAir had some of the most pungent commentary on a possible Bloomberg bid.
And Salon's Tim Grieve points out that some recent polling among voters who know Bloomberg, Clinton and Giuliani might actually give the Bloomberg folks some pause.
Pollster John Zogby begs to differ.
Discuss (1 comments) Email this | Link to thisI've said in this space before that I have unending respect for the road warriors I see in airports -- the men and women with the roll-on suitcases and the thousand-yard stare. I fly a lot, but not as much as they do. Today we lived their life and learned their credo, having to do with the tragic state of commercial aviation: you can't get there from here. After a harrowing morning, starting in Newark, N.J., and a macabre series of unfortunate events, a combination of aircraft got us to El Paso, Texas -- where we will originate the broadcast tonight. My thanks to Steven, with Continental Airlines in Houston, for his extraordinary help today. He should run his own airline.
During the course of the half-hour tonight, we will walk from the United States into Mexico, and through our correspondents on the ground, we'll cover the immigration issue as best we can.
Discuss (31 comments) Email this | Link to this Brian anchors tonight's broadcast from El Paso, Texas, where NBC's Don Teague is also stationed, previewing some of the stories we're working on.
Click here or on the image to watch.
Discuss (8 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
GEORGE E. “Bud” DAY
Major, U.S. Air Force Misty Forward Air Controller Squadron
George “Bud” Day was seventeen in late 1942 when he badgered his parents into allowing him to volunteer for the Marine Corps. He spent nearly three years in the South Pacific during World War II, then returned home, went to college, and got a law degree.
In 1950, he joined the Air National Guard. When he was called up for active duty a year later, he applied for pilot training and flew fighter jets during the Korean War. After being promoted to captain in 1955, he decided to become a “lifer” in the Air Force.
Discuss (3 comments) Email this | Link to thisFirefighters all across this country paused today upon hearing that nine firefighters had died in a tragic fire in Charleston, S.C. It's our lead story tonight. It is the largest single loss of firefighters since Sept. 11, and should get the attention of every American. As the local Chief put it today: flames robbed their department of 100 years of firefighting experience.
Jim Maceda will chronicle the good news/bad news of the "surge" in Iraq, Robert Bazell has an excellent follow-up to his own reporting on some of the wounded veterans from this war, and we'll continue our Texas-themed coverage this week with a hugely controversial construction project through that region of the country.
Andrea Mitchell will look at Hillary Clinton's pursuit of the women's vote, and Mark Potter will have our favorite story of the day out of the Vatican.
Discuss (12 comments) Email this | Link to thisI had the opportunity last week to travel to a suburb of Philadelphia with correspondent Andrea Mitchell and producer Doug Adams to find out what some women voters really think of Hillary Clinton and her candidacy for president. You'll see the story on tonight's broadcast.
We sat down at a local restaurant -- the West Avenue Grill in Jenkintown, Pa. -- with four women who differed on everything from their politics to their dinner orders. One thing they could all agree on was that the country is ready for a woman president. But whether or not Hillary Clinton is the woman for the job really depends on who you ask.
Stay-at-home mom Carol Shenk is a lifelong Republican who vote for George Bush in the past two elections. Like the majority of the country, she's unhappy with the war in Iraq and would now consider voting Democratic. But she's still holding out for a mystery candidate to come out of the GOP woodwork. "I don’t think the real candidate is out there yet," she told Andrea, laughing. "I think somebody is going to come forward."
Discuss (4 comments) Email this | Link to thisOn tonight’s broadcast we continue the series called Wounds of War. We are following some of the troops we first saw treated in combat hospitals in Iraq earlier in the year as they undergo treatment in the United States. I want to add a personal note here. The opportunity to cover this story in the detail I’ve been allowed has been, and I look forward to it continuing to be, one of the greatest privileges of my career. The bravery and sense of duty of our troops as well as the dedication and compassion of the doctors, nurses and medics who care for them far exceeds anything I could have imagined before I witnessed it all personally.
Of course know there are problems. In today's dispatch of my regular column appearing on MSNBC'com's health page, I detail the twin curses of the enormous numbers of brain injuries and the lack of preparedness for the long-term care of all sorts of wounds that so many veterans will require. The system is simply overwhelmed. I also point out why former Senator Bob Dole, who is co-chair of the commission set up to address these problems, should have the motivation to make things right. We’ll be watching. I look forward to following these soldier’s and medic’s stories for the duration of the war and long afterward
Discuss (2 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
SAMMY L. DAVIS
Private First Class, U.S. Army Battery C, 2nd
Battalion, 4th Artillery, 9th Infantry Division
Sammy Davis took some ribbing in the Army because he shared a name with the famous entertainer. Much later, long after his military days were over, he would again gain some acclaim among his old comrades, this time as the “real” Forrest Gump.
Davis enlisted in the Army directly out of high school in 1966. Volunteering for the artillery because his father had been an artilleryman in World War II, he was assigned to the 4th Artillery. Soon after completing training, he asked to be sent to Vietnam.
Discuss (1 comments) Email this | Link to this Brian anchors tonight's broadcast from New York, but Pete Williams takes over vlog duty today from Washington, previewing some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast.
Click here or on the image to watch.
Discuss (0 comments) Email this | Link to thisHi. Today's offerings are all about politics.. the politics of the war in Iraq, the politics of U.S. Iran policy, the politics of politics, and at the end, a little political music.
The Democratic presidential candidates appeared at a forum in Washington this morning and Chris Matthews asked them what is their specific exit strategy for Iraq?
Salon's Tim Grieve rounds up the answers.
Discuss (0 comments) Email this | Link to thisKatrina is still a fresh memory -- and so it's difficult to watch some of the scenes from the flooding in Texas without thinking back to the helicopter rescues in Louisiana and Mississippi almost two years ago. Holes cut into rooftops show where the families escaped to the relative safety of the hot shingles, where they now wait and signal for help. One mother used a black plastic tarp in the midday heat to shield her two small children from the sun. Tonight Don Teague will cover the story for us; he's on the ground in Texas.
Discuss (12 comments) Email this | Link to thisSecurity around the White House is always ramped up a notch or two or three whenever the prime minister of Israel comes to town, and such was the case today at the White House. At 2:50 this afternoon a secret service uniformed officer came to our temporary office at 12 Jackson Place and told us we had to evacuate. And, is often the case, they didn't tell us why, except they were examining a suspicious vehicle. So we put everything down, quickly strode down two flights of stairs and out in the 90 degree plus heat. Downtown traffic around the White house ground to a halt, and muttering members of the White House press corps tried to get some information to no avail for more than an hour and 25 minutes. Only then did we got a call back from the Secret Service with an explanation. The suspicious vehicle was a mini-van belonging to none other than the Israeli delegation. As it turned to enter the White House complex a bomb sniffing dog "hit" on it. Nobody is saying why, but the probable explanation is that at one point the van carried something that probably that contained chemical used in explosives. The "incident" was over at 4:15. Traffic returned to normal and we trudged back to our workspace.
Discuss (2 comments) Email this | Link to thisSuppose you're a passenger in a car when the police pull it over to question the driver. Are you, as a passenger, free to go? Or are you seized by the police, just like the driver? The answer to that question determines whether you, the passenger, can challenge the constitutionality of the stop, because the Fourth Amendment bans "unreasonable searches and seizures."
Today, a unanimous Supreme Court said the answer is, yes, passengers are seized when the police pull over a car and driver.
"A traffic stop necessarily curtails the travel a passenger has chosen just as much as it halts the driver," wrote Justice David Souter for the court. "A sensible person would not expect a police officer to allow people to come and go freely from the physical focal point of the investigation into faulty behavior or wrongdoing."
Discuss (3 comments) Email this | Link to thisI had not been to Salt Lake City in many years. The last visit I recall took me right through town on the way to the ski resorts. So I was quite eager to head out there for a story about the Mormon faith and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's run for the white house. And, the fact that polls show a significant number of people say they wouldn't vote for him because of his religion. To be honest, I really didn't know what Mormonism is all about. I'm no theologian, nor expert now. But accept it or reject it, I've come to believe in my travels around the world that it's important and fascinating to learn what people of other cultures and faiths think.
Representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints invited us to meet Jorge Becerra and his family who live in Sandy, Utah. It's a pristine looking, suburban place, with clean streets, shiny cars, framed as you would a scene on a postcard by Utah's still slightly snow-capped mountains. Everything seemed so nice, orderly, spartan. I was envious of the lush lawns and well manicured gardens. We're having trouble getting our grass to grow.
Discuss (25 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
MICHAEL J. DALY
First Lieutenant, U.S. Army Company A, 15th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division
Michael Daly entered West Point in 1942, buthe left after one year to enlist as a private in the infantry. He trained in England and waded ashore on Omaha Beach on D-Day with the 1st Infantry Division, known as “the Big Red One.” After moving through France and into Germany, Daly was wounded near Aachen; he recuperated in England, then returned to action assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division and was given a battlefield commission as a second lieutenant.
Discuss (1 comments) Email this | Link to thisTo all the dads out there I hope you are having a good father's day. I got a few hours off after the TODAY show this morning and was able to go out to brunch with my wife and 17-year-old son. The older one, studying in Europe this summer gave me a call this afternoon to wish me a happy father's day. He's been away at college now for two-years but I'm still not quite used to having him away. It's nice we take this special day to show gratitude to our dads, but I owe a debt of thanks to my two sons for continuing to allow me to be a big part of their lives. As I noted earlier in allDay, the todayshow.com blog, as far as I'm concerned, any day I'm with them or sharing a moment with them is father's day.
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