Early days of the iraq war, a chopper that he said came under rpg fire and he had not been on that helicopter. He said he made a mistake, he informs a following aircraft, not the one that took fire. He conflatted the story with his memory. After that apology, nbc opened an internal review of mr. Williams reporting. He said as managing editor of nbc nightly news, i have decided to take myself office of the daily broadcast for the next several days. He said upon my return, i will continue my careerlong effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us. The nbc news review is still on going, but the breaking news tonight is the network announced they are suspending him without pay for six months. In a statement tonight, debra turness says the suspension is effective immediately. Brian misrepresented events that happened in the iraq war in 2003. It became clear that he had done the same while telling the story in other venues. We have concerns about comments that occurred outside of nbc news. As managing editor and anchor of nightly news, he has a responsibility to be truthful and uphold the high standards of the News Division at all times. We felt it would have been wrong to disregard the good work that brian has done and the special relationship he has forged with our viewers. He has been an important and well respected part of our organization. We also have a statement from the head of Nbc Universal steve burke. He says this has been a painful period for all concerned and we appreciate your patience while we gather the available facts. He has jeopardized the trust that millions of americans placed in nbc news. The suspension is severe and appropriate. His lifes work is delivering the news, i know brian loves his country, nbc news, and his colleagues. He deserves a Second Chance and we are rooting for him. Brian shared his deep remorse with me and is committed to winning back everyones trust. That statement from steve burke, the head of Nbc Universal. Breaking news tonight. Nbc news ape announces that Brian Williams is suspended, without pay, for six months. Here is the awkward part for us. We are msnbc. The nbc in that means we operate under the nbc umbrella, and there is a good reason why you see so many faces from nbc news on our air. Were working partners within the News Division. But tonight even as were reporting on this breaking news about the News Division of which we are a part, no, nbc news will not make anyone available to discuss this story with us on the air. That may change in days ahead. You would think if theyre going to talk to anybody about this, we might get a leg up. If only because were right down the hall. But so far, no one. I hope in days to come we are not talking about this yet. Well have more on that in just a moment. This has been sort of a wild night of late breaking big news about the media. The other big breaking news is some honestly really unexpected news, and that is that jon stewart, long time host of the daily show on Comedy Central is stepping down. Jon stewart broke the news himself in tonights taping of the daily show. He told the audience there for tonights show that he was leaving the show and it quickly filtered out. He has been host of the daily show since shortly after its finding. He has been the one constant on that show since then. It has a revolving cast of contributors and coconspirators. But they confirmed that he will be stepping down from that job by the end of this year. And that is a big deal, right . That is a big deal for the comedy world since this news comes at the same time that David Letterman is leaving his job. For a whole generation of people, jon stewart has been in the news, right . There is a whole news enterprise separate from what he calls his fake news enterprise. But he has been a legitimate source of news for nearly two decades running now. He doesnt like to talk about it or admit it that way but it is true. Maybe the most amazing part is that it started like this. This is from the 1997 white house Correspondence Dinner when jon stewart was the last minute guy that could get to be the comedy act for that night. Now we turn to a veteran of the stand up comedy circuit and television. Jon stewart is considered one of americas top young comedians. He has hosted the jon stewart show. There is more that i could tell you, but one of the nicest things is simply this. He showed up when someone else didnt. Jon stewart was the third choice that year. Rosie odonnell was asked and she said no, jon stewart was someone no one heard of, and since then he has been one of the most influential comedians on the planet, its because of stuff like this that he does on a nightly basis. There was some individuals who were wrong. Ant the whole [ bleep ] thing. Just dead wrong about everything. All of them. Lets act now to get rid of a tyrant who abused and killed his own people. Procuring weapons of mass destruction. The choice is to start a war or letting them have weapons of mass destruction. Dealing with a country that can finance reconstruction and relatively soon. The baptists that use their power to repress the iraqi people you can have all of these memorable screw ups. That is what i call being totally [ bleep ] wrong. Just so you know, someone wrote about it. [ bleep ] just got real. Santa is just white. And who are you actually talking to . Children who are sophisticated enough to be watching a news channel at 10 00 at night, yet innocent enough to still believe santa claus is real, yet racist enough to be freaked out if he isnt white. That should be noted, and i think it does need to be noted that jon stewart himself at times veered out of the just doing fake news here lane that he ascribed to. They held a joint rally in washington dc called the rally to refore sanity and or fear. It was sort of a response to the tea party. To the extremes in politics. Whatever it was, Something Like 200,000 people turned out for that rally. With jon stewart and steven colbert, and he broke out of his role at that very cool event. We live now in hard times, not end times. And we have have animosity without being enemies. Most americans dont live their lives as republicans, democrats, liberals or conservatives. Look at the screen, this is where we are, this is who we are. This cars. Thats a School Teacher that thinks his taxes are too high, he is going to work. There is another car, a woman with two small kids cant think about anything else right now. This is us every one of them have principals and believes they hold deer. Often in opposition to their fellow travelers. Yet the millions of cars must find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile long 30 foot wide tunnel carved under a mighty river. Carved by people, by the way, who im sure had their differences. And they do it. Concession by concession. You go, ill go, you go, ill go, is that an nra sticker on your car . An obama sticker on your car . Thats okay, you go then ill go. That was jon stewart at the rally he had a couple years ago, that ended up being kind of a political rally of his own. I interviewed jon stewart in 2010 after that rally and we talked about the difference between news and fake news, and how he fit into that. This is what he had to say about what he has been trying to do every night. I feel more of a kinship to Jerry Seinfeld to what you do, cnn dose or nbc dose. He is able to articulate an intangible for people. People say its been in my head, i know its been in there, but i never put it together with that kind of rhythm, and thats hilarious that you were able to articulate that. He is the best at crafting those moments. We try to do the same thing, but with a more political and social avenue. But it is still, if you were to look at our process, he is much more our process than the news is. Does that make sense . What i know of your process seems similar to the way i put my show together. Then you really need to change. You we have to because were parodying a news organization. We have to have logistics and mechanics of one, but the process that the material goes through is not a news process, its a comedy but it is fact checking. We do that not to be journalists, we do that because it would not be that funny if it was a live. You do that because untrue things stand out like a sore thumb. Even though you identify as fake news, and having a fake news process, i think we dont sigh fake fake is wrong. That is a misnomer that we use, it is glib, it is not were not news anything. Were commenting on the news. Comedically. That was jon stewart in 2010. Again, he is leaving, stepping down from the daily show at the end of this year. This is not a temporary step away like he did when he left to do a movie. He announced tonight in the filming of his show. It has been confirmed in a statement by Comedy Central. That news is coming at almost exactly the same time that nbc news announced that Brian Williams is being suspended from his role as nbc nightly news, suspended for six months without pay after he misstated his role in a combat incident while reporting on the iraq war. Saying his helicopter came under fire when it did not. David carr is joining us tonight. This came as new news at the end of about a week now of a lot of news about Brian Williams, is this what you expected as a media observer for how nbc would handle this . I thought it was a good outcome. I wanted to hear as a consumer and reporter from someone other than Brian Williams about this. It was, you know, him saying he was story. Sort of kind of. And then him saying he was taking himself off of the news. And even though i know and like brian, i thought to myself well, you really should not be in charge right now. Youre not the managing editor of much of anything. You should sit still, and quiet, and find out what is going to happen. In terms of it is weird you know that this is happening at the same time, within a few minutes of us getting the same announcement of jon stewart leaving the daily show. But just watching jon stewarts coverage of this last night on the daily show, i found it striking that his essential defense of what happened to Brian Williams is that the news should not be so high and mighty about getting stuff wrong. Its not that everybody believes that the news, the voice of god news is always correct. The news has been wrong about really important stuff. What explains the intense personal focus on Brian Williams, given all of the things that come across as wrong all of the time. I think that mr. Stewart did a good job as he always did is it bad because you said youre on a helicopter that got hit or didnt, or because you said another nation was armed with weapons of mass destruction when that turned out not to be true, which of those errors is worse . Which deserves to be looked into . I think it is interesting what is going on with jon stewart and Brian Williams because Brian Williams lived on that continuum between the socalled real news and celebrity culture, those commenting on the news, and is able to move through all of those worlds with a great deal of gracefulness. As it turned out he kind of got tripped up trying to make the trip back and forth. David carr, thank you for joining us on short notice. Thank you for your time. It was an absolute pleasure. Joining us now is chris smith, editor for new york magazine. Thank you for being here, it is nice to see you. Thank you for having me, rachel. The thing that has been fascinating in the media about the daily show is finding a way to describe it that accounts for its influence among newsmakers and the rest of the media. Do you feel in a has been an appropriate focus or were we missing the point . In that clip you showed from john talking with you, he did a bad job of defining what he does, which in a crazy way is the beauty of it. He blurred a lot of these lines. Yes, at the core it is jokes about the news, but over the course of 16 years he really there is satire, there is stupid gags. It is at times straight out commentary. It became in the last five or eight or so years a more criticism of the media. And that was an interesting evolution. But the fact that jon never really pinned it down and didnt want to, didnt want the show to, is part of why it has been so successful. That was going to be my next question to you. The media criticism turned there. I felt like within the media, i dont know a lot of people in the business. Im kind of isolated because im shy. Nbc wont even come. But, i feel like when jon stewart turned itself lens on media criticism, it was very effective. I think it is very true, a friend of mine pointed out to me that when i wrote a piece about jon in 2010, i interviewed Brian Williams, and he talked about why he envied what jon was able to do, and that is ironic or comic or just weird now. But yes, certainly people in the socalled mainstream News Business took their cues from what jon was doing both to get larger audiences, and to try to stay ahead of the curve. His media criticism grew in large part because fox news was so successful. It gave him a great target, something that he disagreed with philosophically, the politics, and how successful they had been in actually selling their message. Gave him a great target to pull apart whether it was more serious stuff than megan kelly and santa claus. I feel like he is the only other person who is in the media at the same time that i am who is as obsessed with that topic. So it is gratifying to me that he has not let that go. He has been tenacious on some issues like that and i think he changed the way that people think about them across generes. He spun off the colbert report. And jon oliver. Does someone follow in jon stewarts footsteps or is his influence wide instead of direct. That will be a hard chair to fill. How much of a vote he gets in picking a person, i think it will be interesting. Think if it was up to jon, he would like to open it up and broaden it. Brian williams was on the show last night, but if people stuck around, there was a man who was a doctor, i think, by profession, who became a comedian and satirest in egypt. Jon in filming his movie spent time in jordan and egypt and saw places why jon because, and what you and i do even is not allowed by and large. And not that he will turn the daily show into an overt small derevolutionary machine, but he has a notion of helping people or taking the show in an unexpected direction. Chris smith, thank you for being here, especially on short notice to discuss news that i did not expect at all. We have more ahead on this very, very busy news night. Shopping online is as easy as it gets. Wouldnt it be great if hiring plumbers, carpenters and even piano tuners were just as simple . Thanks to angies list now it is. Weve made hiring anyone from a handyman to a dog walker as simple as a few clicks. Buy their services directly at angieslist. Com no more calling around. No more hassles. Start shopping from a list of toprated providers today. Angies list is revolutionizing local service again. Visit angieslist. Com today. I know a lot of vets will see News Coverage about the bill this week, and that is good news. I want our vets to know that we care about you, your life, and that is why we fought all year for you to get this bill passed and to get you the care that you deserve. So please dont give up, dont lose hope. If you need help, ask for it, and trust now, we trust now that it will be there for you. America is a nation that is full of hope. Today i pray that we have started to give that hope back to our veterans. Thank you. On thursday, president obama will sign it, and that will formally make it law. But even before that, congress signed it today. They held a big bipartisan on camera signing ceremony. Even just for congress, even just for the part where they send the bill they passed formally to the president. Why did they do that today . I think a, it is rare enough that Congress Passes anything, time to make a big deal out of it, but they really want people to know that it has passed. It will become law this week at a time when nothing passes through congress and becomes law. Today that was his mother and his stepfather on hand as that bill heads to the white house for president obamas signature. Theyre making a big deal out of this because they have nothing else to make a big deal out of and because this is something that i think deserves as much publicity as they can get it. It is almost done. She was a Outstanding Young woman. Had a great spirit. And i think that spirit will live on. I think the more people learn about her, the more they appreciate what he stood for and the barbaric organization that held her captive. That was president obama today speaking in an interview with buzzfeed. It has now been confirmed by the white house and the Intelligence Community that Kayla Mueller, the last american known to be held be by isis, the only American Woman to be held by the group, it is confirmed that she died while being held by isis. People told us that kayla tried to teach the guards crafts, to make little peace cranes. And they told each other stories and sang songs. They tried to exercise in that small space, and they kayla would stand on her head. All of us that know her and what a free spirit she was, we delight in knowing that kayla remained kayla. That is kathleenday, she is a friend of the family. She and family members of Kayla Mueller relayed stories from hostages that were released even though kayla was not. Isis said that kayla had been killed by a coalition airstrike. They did not provide anything until this weekend when they provided a photo and they verified it as real but it verified her death but now the cause of death. No matter how long it takes, we will find and bring to justice those responsible for her captivity and death. His language to authorize the military campaign against isis goes to congress as early as tomorrow. This past november, buffalo new york got pummelled with a lot of snow. See the Little People in the white stuff. They got four to five feet of snow in a single storm. There was seven feet plus piled in some areas. Home to the buffalo bills. The stadium where the bills play was totally snowed in, and four days after the storm, they had a home game planned against the new york jets. They offered 10 an hour plus free tickets if people came to help out. So what they brought in was these beasts. Snow dragons. High tend industrialized know snow melters. Now those are being deployed to boston. The city of boston, along with the whole state of massachusetts has been hit with a continuous, never ending onslaught of snow. They have asked the state of virginia, new jersey, and pennsylvania for help. The city of boston also started farming. They opened what they call snow farms. Five giant snow farm thats are huge piles of snow they make in vacant lots and bill with tractors. They unload thousands and thousands and thousands of dump trucks of snow and they built it into a giant cold dirty mountain. Even the snow farm mountains are overflowing at this point. And so, cue the snow melters. Boston has fired two of these guys up now. They have two snow dragons on loan, but there is so much snow to melt, that the governor of massachusetts says he may buy another two for the state. So far the melting capacity is not enough. The know that is there now is disappearing cars and dwarfing people and making things impossible. Now cities all over the state. Cities faced with this problem on what to do with snow, cities are considering dumping the snow into nearby bodies of water. It is not something the communities want to do and theyre forced to do it and theyre allowed to do it in these exceptions. With storm after storm, and more on the way, they literally have no place to put it. They have received the go ahead to go ahead and dump this snow in the atlantic ocean. That is video you see of the snow going in. State law prohibits it because of pollution concerns, but in extreme circumstances where Public Safety is an issue concern. When all else fails, dump it into the sea . Boston is not policemaning on dumping their snow into Boston Harbor at the moment. The report obtained a waiver to jump their know into river. Theyre out of places to shove it. What does this strategy mean for massachusetts . Especially considering that massachusetts is expected to great another foot of snow before this week is over. Will all of the cities start dumping their polluted snow into bodies of water, and when the snow problem is gone, what happens with all that water. Joining me is bruce berman. As save the harbor, save the bay guy, i have to ask about your decision to dump the excess snow and everything it has been sitting in into bodies of water that include the ocean and rivers . It depends on what the circumstances are. We spent 5 billion cleaning up Boston Harbor. It is the forefront of civic life here. We really care about it. We have to keep a sense of perspective. We have had an extraordinary series of storms. 70 inches of know in the past couple weeks. A Public Safety crisis. As a last resort, and when the warter is deep and fast moving, it doesnt concern me that much. You have to keep a sense of perspective here. Today i think the mayor announced that we will move 2,000 truckloads of snow to the snow farms. That is terrific. Were glad that we have nod had to take that step here in boston yet. But if we did have to do it, that would be about two million gallons which is about 1 of the daily flow of the charles river. Certainly urban snow is dirty, but at the end of the day, Public Safety first. Is there anything they can do to be dumping into rivers or the sea, is there anything they can do to mitigate any potential worries . Are there cleaner or better ways to do it . Absolutely, the critical thing is that snow is fairly heavy when you dump trailer truckloads into the water. Are concerned that it not be done in shallow water, that it be done in deep water. Boston harbor has an average depth of 40 feet at low tide. And you want to be alert. There is a lot of crap that you can see. We have a tradition here in boston of putting space savers in our space once we dug out our car. A dinette set, so we might have furniture floating in the harbor. I have been the bay watcher for 25 years and i have never seen anything like it. It feels like were under assault by mother nature. Thank you for some perspective on this, appreciate your time tonight. My usual commute from western massachusetts to new york. I go home on the weekends and come here monday morning. I leave hasnt 8 00 in the morning and im at my office by noon, i left about 7 30 yesterday morning to get to work. I arrived in my office at 7 45 p. M. In massachusetts, if you dont believe the pictures, theyre for real, it is like nothing i have ever seen. Stay with us, well be right back. [ julie ] the wrinkle cream graveyard. If it doesnt work fast. Youre on to the next thing. Clinically proven neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair. It targets fine lines and wrinkles with the fastest retinol formula available. Youll see younger looking skin in just one week. One week . This ones a keeper. Rapid wrinkle repair. And for dark spots rapid tone repair. From neutrogena®. The good people of salem, oregon named their owl today, the one that keeps attacking their joggers. Owlcapone won. He is the winged wise guy. But you are beautiful, salem also got you the best new thing in the world. One of the things i did not expect to be covering this year is trends in politics. That is politicians having shocking and unusual injuries. The next installment in this series is next. In our house, we do just about everything online. And our old internet just wasnt cutting it. So i switched us from uverse to xfinity. They have the fastest, most reliable internet. Which is perfect for me, because i think everything should just work. Works . Works. Works works . Works. Works. When last we checked in on senator harry reid of nevada, the top democrat in the senate, he looked like this. On new years day, harry reid was working out at home in nevada when he had some kind of bizarre workout accident. He was apparently using a resistance band, stretchy thing. The band snapped and harry reid broke a bunch of bones in his face, broke a few ribs and he sustained some serious damage to his right eye. Well, harry reid has soldiered on. He has returned to work. But it has remained unclear whether or not he will regain any vision at all in his right eye. He had surgery on that eye last month. We just learned today he will now undergo another round of eye surgery tomorrow at George WashingtonUniversity Hospital to try to restore the vision in his right eye. Second eye surgery to try to save that vision. We wish him the best of luck with that procedure and what is turning out to be a health ordeal for him. Also, news today of another workout accident involving another very prominent democratic politician, and im not kidding. This one involves Martin Omally of maryland, who is best known because hes very publicly testing the waters for a possible president ial run on the democratic side. We have now learned he suffered some kind of workout accident over the weekend which he broke his elbow. He tweeted, broke my elbow over the weekend at the gym. Thanks to the staff at union memorial, surgery went well and im on the road to a quick recovery. His staff says he broke it while lifting weights. If youve ever seen youtube videos of weightlifting injuries involving broken elbows, youre probably cringing right now. We reached out to a spokesman, but no further details were provided how the accident happen. The governors right arm will be in a brace the next three to five weeks. Who says politics is not a dangerous sport, especially if you like to remain fit while youre doing it. We wish a speedy recovery to both you gentlemen. scraping sound what are you doing . The dishes are clean. I just gotta scrape the rest of the food off them. Ew. Dish issues . Cascade platinum powers through your toughest messes better than the competition the first time. Cascade. Now thats clean. Our name your price tool helps oh, jamie you got a Little Something on the back of your shoe there. A price tag danger price tag alert oh. Hey, guys. Price tag alert is this normal . Well, progressive is a price tag free zone. We let you tell us what you want to pay and we help you find options to fit your budget. Where are they taking him . I dont know. This seems excessive decontamination in progress. I dont want to tell you guys your job, but. Policies without the price tags. Now, thats progressive. In eastern oregon, when it rained this week, it looked like it rained milk. The rain was all chalky and dirty and opaque. The National Weather service in oregon took pictures, pronoinls pronounced it milky. The best guest so far was a weird weather byproduct of a dust storm in nevada. Okay. The world works in mysterious ways. Also in oregon, if you want to become a Major Political party, you have to submit the membership list of your party to the state. If your list equals 5 of the total number of people who voted in the last statewide election, you can be a Major Political party. Heres the threshold last year. Thats 5 of the total number who voted for governor. Thats the number you have to hit to be a Major Political party. Thats the number. Here is what the independent party of oregon just turned in. They made it by three people. And so now, oregon is the latest state in the country to have another Major Political party on the ballot. You spend enough time rooting around in some random states news, it turns out theres weird stuff going on all the time. On that front, there is a best new thing in the world. As weve been reporting, there is a park in salem where four people so far have been attacked by a big barred owl while out jogging. Were talking a big owl, four foot wingspan, talons selfinches long and you dont hear them coming at all. This thing is probably protecting its nest. Sometimes the owl just steals a guys hat, sometimes its knocked a guy down. One case it punctured a guys scalp and hurt him so bad he thought he was maybe dying. Four attacks so far in the same park. These are the warning signs put up about it afterwards. We asked for your help in redesigning the warning sign. This is a good one. Beware of owl. Or this one, here be owls. This one was really good. This has to be like oh, no, its mr. Bill. Oh, no, its the great barred owl. But then theres this one. Owl not only attacks you, it picking you up and carries you to its nest and feeds you to its terrifying young. In the end, we settled on this one. Which i love. There we go. We put this on the show a couple of days ago, and then the salem, oregon surgeon, who was the first owl victim in the park, the guy who thought he was having an aneurysm, some friends of his made our suggestive sign into shirt and now selling them online. This is awesome. But meanwhile, we sent this sign to the folks at the Parks Department in salem, oregon. In part, because we enjoyed making it. So we sent this asking if we got it right, if this was inaccurate in any way, the they suggested we change it at all. We also asked them if they want to use it. Turns out, they want to use it. They did ask us to make one change. They asked us to drop the little lanes to show the jogging trail. See . You never know where the owl may decide to descend. You dont have to be on the trail. It can get you anywhere. But they like it and would like to use it. This is what they said to us yeah. I agree. Celebrate it. And so we are happily passing this on to them. Its in the mail, salem, oregon Parks Department. Thank you for being so cool about this whole thing. I have to say, you know what . To all of oregon, from the giant, adorable gay bear couple that owns jebbushforpresident. Com to your governors bizarre girlfriend scandal, to your rain that looks like milk, to your Republican Party chairman, whose day job is collecting peoples urine by mail, to your attack owl and the way that you love them, to your jogging surgeons who sometimes wear homemade green bay packer suits with a cape. To all of oregon, ive got to say thank you. The rest of the news in the world right now sucks. The rest of the world has news that is terrible. But oregon, you are freaking excellent. Best new thing in the world. We are sending you the sign. That does it for us tonight. World. We are sending you the sign. First look is up next. Good morning, everyone. Right now on first look, breaking news. On the heels of the death of american aide worker Kayla Mueller, the ap is reporting thousands of new foreign fighters are joining isis. After 17 years, Comedy Centrals jon stewart is leaving the daily show. Apple has just done something that no other company on the planet has achieved. Plus tonights Powerball Jackpot is approaching 500 million. And saturday night live gears up for a 40th anniversary extravaganza. Well, good morning to you and thanks so much for joining us today. Im betty nguyen. A deteriorating situation in yemen has forced the state department to relocate its already skeletal staff at the u. S. Embassy and suspend operations there. The British Embassy has taken it a