The latest developments in the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private emails would probably be the top media story right now were it not for Donald Trump, according to MSNBC’s Chuck Todd.
“You know, 10 days ago is when the [State Department’s Inspector General’s] report came out on emails,” he said Friday.
“The last ten days could have been about nothing but emails, nothing but negatives about Hillary Clinton. We could be talking about Democratic hand wringing, but there’s Donald Trump. Enough said,” he added.
His remarks came just after a Wall Street Journal report revealing Clinton and her State Department staff may have used her unauthorized and unsecured private server to trade classified information about drones strikes.
Despite this and other recent revelations in the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s emails, the press’ focus has remained almost exclusively on the presumed GOP nominee and his controversial comments on Judge Gonzalo Curiel, whose judgment in the Trump University fraud case has been called into question because of his Mexican heritage.
Another NBC personality said Trump runs the risk of distracting voters from Clinton’s flaws.
“The bottom line is that the Republican freak-out exists on two pillars. One, sort of the tone and tenor of Trump’s comments and his candidacy,” NBC News political analyst Nicole Wallace said Friday.
“The second, the opportunity, the treasure trove of opportunity to really point to problematic questions about Hillary Clinton’s judgment, whether it’s her emails, whether it’s her conduct and interaction with the Clinton Foundation,” she added. “And ever since Clinton’s alleged foreign policy speech, Republicans have been at Defcon 4 with exasperation over Trump’s sort of refusal to this point to make a disciplined, concerted case about these kinds of topics.”
