This week’s Liberal Media Scream features NBC’s Chuck Todd, who put on his most dismissive smirk Sunday to mock Republican Sen. Ron Johnson’s defense of President Trump’s claims of election fraud.
It came on Todd’s show, Meet the Press, and despite talking over Johnson, a matter-of-fact lawmaker/businessman, the senator stood his ground and told the host after being badgered, “You have destroyed the credibility of the news media by your bias.”
When Johnson pointed out, “This fire was started when you completely ignored, for example, our investigation of Hunter Biden,” Todd jumped in: “Senator. All right, I’ve had enough of hearing this!”
During the heated, multi-minute exchange, Todd turned to ridicule when Johnson discussed investigating Trump’s allegations of voter fraud. “Why didn’t you hold hearings about the 9/11 truthers? There’s plenty of people who thought 9/11 was an inside job.” And: “How about the Moon landing? Are you going to hold hearings on that?”
From the Sunday, Jan. 3, Meet the Press:
SEN. RON JOHNSON: Chuck, this fire was started back in, you know, January of 2017. People like Mark Zaid in his tweet, ‘The coup has started. First of many steps. Rebellion and impeachment to follow ultimately.’ This was started when the mainstream media stopped, dropped any pretense of being unbiased and actually chose sides during this election. This fire was started when you completely ignored, for example, our investigation of Hunter Biden. You know, no evidence of wrongdoing there. And now we find out after the election, no, there is a fair amount of evidence to the point that we have a real FBI investigation. So-
CHUCK TODD: Senator. All right, I’ve had enough of hearing this!
JOHNSON: No, listen. I’ve had enough of this, too. It’s the bias of the media.
TODD: No, senator. It is, you have spent, you have spent the last two years —
JOHNSON: It’s the bias in the media that has created a situation where Republicans and conservatives do not trust the mainstream media. And that is what, that is what has destroyed the credibility of the media and our institutions and really —
TODD: Right, no, the destruction of the institutions —
JOHNSON: — shaken confidence in this election result. So I didn’t start this … I didn’t, I didn’t light this fire. This fire was lit over four years ago. And we’ve destroyed the credibility, you have destroyed the credibility of the news media by your bias. And of course people like James Comey, Andrew McCabe, John Brennan destroyed the credibility of the FBI and our justice system as well. We have an enormous problem in this country. It’s unsustainable. And the only way you solve it is with information, and transparency, and hearings, and investigations. It’s not quackery, it’s not conspiracy theory. It’s what’s going to be required.
TODD: Let me ask you this. Then why didn’t you hold hearings about the 9/11 truthers? There’s plenty of people who thought 9/11 was an inside job. So you’re basically saying is if there’s enough people who believe a conspiracy theory, if there’s enough people who hold, how about the Moon landing? Are you going to hold hearings on that?
JOHNSON: There are all kinds of things that I’d like to hold hearings on. You have to kind of pick and choose based on priorities. Right now, we have this election. We’ve got tens of millions of Americans that think this election was stolen. We need to get the bottom of it. Again, what’s explained, we need to explain it, get that off the table. We also have to acknowledge there were some real problems here. There’s some issues that need to be explored and investigated.
TODD: You’ve got to ask yourself when you tell people a million times that something was stolen or something was fraud and then they believe it, I think you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself why so many people believed it.
JOHNSON: Well, Chuck, you need to look at your mirror because you carried the Democrats’ water on the whole Russian collusion with the Trump campaign hoax —
TODD: Sen. Johnson, I’ve got to go. I appreciate you coming on. I’ve let you, I’ve let you say plenty of —
JOHNSON: That is what you did in the media. You carried that water for years. You destroyed the credibility of the press, not me.
TODD: Sen. Johnson, other than, other than crediting you for coming on, I appreciate that because only two of your colleagues had the guts to say yes this weekend about this conspiracy theory that you’re working on.
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Todd couldn’t have been more smug and sanctimonious toward a guest as he used his platform to discredit and ridicule a U.S. senator with whom he disagrees. Quite an egregious abuse of Todd’s journalistic role, especially since it’s very hard to imagine him ever showing such disdain toward a liberal guest, and one more example of why Trump supporters don’t trust the ‘mainstream media.’”
Rating: 5 out of 5 SCREAMS.
