Following a gushing report on Friday’s NBC Today about President Obama awarding Vice President Joe Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, co-host Matt Lauer revealed that he was overtaken by emotion while watching the White House ceremony on Thursday: “So I'm glad there were no cameras in my apartment yesterday because I was just sitting there weeping....I just burst out crying when I saw that moment. It was incredible.”

Introducing the three-minute segment, Lauer proclaimed: “...there was something special in Washington yesterday. It's getting a lot of attention. President Obama surprising his vice president, Joe Biden, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.” Correspondent Andrea Mitchell followed: “It was extraordinary, Matt....Barack Obama had a parting gift for his vice president, Joe Biden. Also on display, the kind of friendship rarely seen between high-powered politicians here in Washington.”

Amid clips of the event, Mitchell offered a series of fawning declarations on the Obama-Biden relationship:

It’s a bond like we've never seen before....At times, more like a White House buddy movie than a political partnership....After eight years, the Bidens and Obamas forging a friendship so close they consider themselves family....Their friendship often reaching a fever pitch on social media. Biden tweeting a photo of a friendship bracelet on the President’s birthday: “Happy 55th, Barack! A brother to me, a best friend forever.”

<<< Please support MRC's NewsBusters team with a tax-deductible contribution today. >>>

Wrapping up the report, she touted: “...[Biden] has plans for an active life after the White House. There’s the cancer moonshot, there’s teaching, establishing a foreign policy institute, and who knows what else for a man who seems forever young.”

It was then that Lauer noted his weepy reaction. Fill-in co-host Meredith Vieira cheered the event as being “So beautiful.”

Here is a full transcript of the January 13 report: