Washington (CNN) – In her first "Meet the Press" appearance since her use of Benghazi “talking points” set off a political firestorm in 2012, National Security Adviser Susan Rice was asked point-blank whether she has any regrets about her involvement in informing the public of developments regarding the violence before, during and after the attacks on a U.S. post in Libya.
"No," Rice bluntly told David Gregory on the NBC program.
He noted that many believe the controversy over the accuracy of Rice's talking points cost her a chance at becoming secretary of state.
“This information I provided, which I explained to you, which was what we had at the moment, it could change,” Rice said. “I commented this was based on what we knew on that morning was provided to me and my colleagues and Congress, by the intelligence community, and that's been well validated in many ways since.
“That information turned out to be, in some respects, not 100% correct. But the notion that somehow I or anybody else in the administration misled the American people is patently false,“ Rice said.
Republican Sen. John McCain, an outspoken critic of Rice's involvement in the Obama administration’s delivery of information on the attacks, responded on CBS’s “Face the Nation" that he was “almost speechless.”
"It's patently obvious, first of all, that Susan Rice had no reason to be on the program,” he said of the Sunday in 2012 when she appeared on five talk shows.
“She had no involvement in it," he said of actual events on the ground in Benghazi. “Second of all, she read talking points that we're now beginning to believe came from the White House, which were absolutely false.”
At the time of the September 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Rice was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The attacks left four Americans dead, including J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya.
In the wake of the controversy, Rice withdrew her name from consideration as a possible successor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
On being President Obama's national security adviser, Rice said that "she couldn't ask for anything more" and that "it's the greatest honor in the world to work for the President of the United States and on behalf of the American people."