White House complains about Bush interview

updated 9:21 p.m. ET May 19, 2008

NEW YORK - The White House on Monday called on NBC News to set the record straight on "deceitful" editing of an interview with President Bush, in which correspondent Richard Engel asks whether comments about the president of Iran were directed at Barack Obama.

Bush aides were angered by how the president's answer was portrayed when Engel questioned him about his condemnation of "the false comfort of appeasement" in an address last week to the Israeli Knesset. NBC stood by its treatment of the interview Monday.

Bush had mentioned the president of Iran in his speech and said: "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along."

Obama's campaign considered that statement an attack on him, which the White House has denied.

Engel asked Bush if he was referring to Obama in his speech.

As it appeared on "Nightly News" Sunday and the "Today" show Monday, Bush's response was: "You know, my policies haven't changed, but evidently the political calendar has ... And when, you know, a leader of Iran says that they want to destroy Israel, you've got to take those words seriously."

But the White House said NBC edited out these words that Bush said between those two sentences: "People need to read the speech. You didn't get it exactly right, either. What I said was that we need to take the words of people seriously."

NBC stands by its editing
Bush counsel Ed Gillespie, in a letter to NBC News President Steve Capus, said that "this deceitful editing to further a media-manufactured storyline is utterly misleading and irresponsible." He asked that the network air Bush's response in full on the two programs.

Video   ‘Nightly News’ version May 18: Watch the edited version of Richard Engel's interview as it appeared on "NBC Nightly News," spurring a strong response from the White House. Nightly News

NBC countered by saying the unedited interview has been available since Sunday on the network's Web site, and that the reporting accurately reflects the interview. The extra sentences by Bush were included during a report on Sunday's "Today" show.

Capus replied that there was no effort to be deceptive and called Gillespie's criticism a gross misrepresentation of the facts.

"Just as the White House does not participate in the editorial process at the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal or USA Today, NBC News, as part of a free press in a free society, makes its own editorial decisions," NBC said in a statement.

In NBC's nightly newscast on Monday, anchor Brian Williams noted that the White House objected to how it presented the Bush interview. Williams reiterated that the entire interview was   available on msnbc.com and that viewers could post comments on the broadcast's blog if they wanted.

That didn't satisfy Gillespie, who issued another statement moments later. "It's simply absurd for people to have to log onto the Internet and stream video to get accurate information from NBC News," he said.

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