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Brokaw: 'You Cannot Explain Away Susan Rice's Performance on Those Sunday Talk Shows'

MSNBC contributor Tom Brokaw piled on the Obama Administration over Susan Rice's Sunday talk show appearances following the Benghazi terror attack Monday on "Morning Joe."

Brokaw said there is a legitimate debate as to whether the Benghazi diplomatic mission was adequately protected or whether there was an appropriate military response, but given recent reports that clearly illustrate the Obama Administration was aware Benghazi was a terror attack "you cannot explain away Susan Rice's performance on those Sunday talk shows":

JOE SCARBOROUGH: [...] To play off what Senator Feinstein said, that it was evident from the very beginning this was a terror attack and yet Susan Rice is sent out five days later with talking points that have been changed from the CIA 12 times in 24 hours. The White House just not being straightforward about it from the very beginning. The Susan -- Susan Rice calling [the attack a demonstration] five days after, is mind boggling.

TOM BROKAW: That is the part still inexplicable to me, the debate that is going on prior to her appearance, that is what is going on now about whether there could have been an appropriate military response, whether they were aware of what was going on. You cannot explain away Susan Rice's performance on those Sunday talk shows in which she said it was not a terrorist attack and grew out of a domestic demonstration of some kind, she completely underplayed it and rewrote the script and I think we deserve to who it is. That is what the American public finally tuned into that was first public response and we have not had an adequate notice from the White House or anybody in the administration as to why she was allowed to say what she did. Did flags go off in her own mind? I mean she's a sophisticated diplomat. Did she go down and say, wait a minute? But nonetheless she went on all of those shows in a very emphatic way and said it was not a terrorist attack and this grew out of a demonstration that it was spontaneous and that turned out to be not so true whatsoever.