NBC's Gregory repeated Coulter falsehood on Today

On the June 28 edition of NBC's Today, guest host and NBC News chief White House correspondent David Gregory uncritically repeated the false claim made by right-wing pundit Ann Coulter on the June 26 edition of MSNBC's Hardball that Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards received "big money to speak in front of a poverty group." Gregory used the claim during an interview with Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, to argue: "If you strip away some of the inflammatory rhetoric [by Coulter] against your husband and other Democrats, the point she's trying to make about your husband ... is in effect that he's disingenuous, especially on the signature issue of poverty, whether it's a $400 haircut or taking big money to speak in front of a poverty group." Gregory asked, "[I]s that a real point of vulnerability that you have to deal with in this campaign?"

However, as Media Matters for America noted, in claiming that Edwards "charge[d] a poverty group $50,000 for a speech," Coulter appeared to be distorting the earlier disclosure that Edwards received $55,000 for a January 2006 speech at the University of California-Davis. While Edwards reportedly "chose to speak on 'Poverty, the great moral issue facing America,' " there is no evidence that he was speaking to a "poverty group" at the university. Furthermore, as Media Matters documented at the time, the widely repeated claim that Edwards "charged" UC-Davis for the speech ignored the fact that there was an admission fee to the event, which, combined with sponsorships, offset Edwards' speaking fee, according to his campaign.

From the June 28 edition of NBC's Today:

GREGORY: You said rather pointedly that you think Ann Coulter is guilty of hate speech against your husband and others as well. If you strip away some of the inflammatory rhetoric against your husband and other Democrats, the point she's trying to make about your husband, Senator Edwards, running for the White House is in effect that he's disingenuous, especially on the signature issue of poverty, whether it's a $400 haircut or taking big money to speak in front of a poverty group. If you, again, strip away the inflammatory rhetoric, is that a real point of vulnerability that you have to deal with in this campaign?

EDWARDS: David, that is not -- that has absolutely nothing to do with what she was saying whatsoever. I have a response for that, and if you -- people -- John has a lifetime of dedication to poverty issues. And if you don't trust him on that because he once got a haircut that was too expensive, don't vote for him and don't support him. But if you believe that lifetime as opposed to the price of a single haircut, then do support him.

—R.C.