Brian Williams: ‘I own up to this,’ Lester Holt is ‘deserving’

Brian Williams spoke to Matt Lauer on Friday morning, and though he didn’t say he lied, he said he owned the mistakes that have cost him his job as anchor of “NBC Nightly News.”

Williams also made it clear in Friday’s interview that his intent was not to deceive viewers.

“I told stories that were wrong,” Williams said. “It was not from a place where I was trying to use my job and title to mislead…I got it wrong. I own this. And I own up to this.”

Williams still has a job in the NBC family, but Lester Holt will officially succeed him as anchor of “NBC Nightly News.”

NBC News and MSNBC chairman Andrew Lack announced the network’s decision Thursday. He said Williams will return to MSNBC as an anchor of breaking news and special reports. Williams was an MSNBC anchor from 1996 to 2004.

Williams told Lauer that his six-month suspension, along with the public scorn that came with it, was “torture” for him, and he now should be judged by a harsher standard in order to gain back trust.

“This came from clearly a bad place, a bad urge inside of me. This was clearly ego driven, a desire to better my role in a story I was already in.”