After “28 years, 38 countries, eight Olympic games, seven Presidential elections, half a dozen Presidents, a few wars, and one SNL,” Brian Williams has signed off for good.
Williams, who announced that he would be leaving NBC in November, concluded his nightly MSNBC show The 11th Hour on Thursday with a look back at his nearly three decades with the network — and his “biggest worry” for the future.
“After 28 years of Peacock logos on much of what I own, it is my choice now to jump without a net into the great unknown. As I do, for the first time in my 62 years, my biggest worry is for my country,” he said. “The truth is I am not a liberal or a conservative. I am an institutionalist. I believe in this place, and in my love of country I yield to no one. But the darkness on the edge of town has spread to the main roads and highways and neighborhoods. It is now at the local bar and the bowling alley, at the school board and the grocery store. And it must be acknowledged and answered for.”
Williams continued:
“Grown men and women who swore an oath to our Constitution — elected by their constituents, possessing the kind of college degrees I could only dream of — have decided to join the mob and become something they are not, while hoping we somehow forget who they were. They’ve decided to burn it all down with us inside. That should scare you to no end as much as it scares an aging volunteer fireman.”
You can watch the sign-off video above.