In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, NBC’s Meet the Press anchor, Chuck Todd, did what he’s been doing for a while now, which was to act like a social scientist researching the confounding reason why so much of the public, particularly conservatives, don’t trust journalists in the national media.

“The right has an incentive structure to utter the misinformation,” Todd told the magazine, referring to his own belief that there’s a rash of lies and untruths that are pushed by Republican officials and conservative media for sinister purposes. He added a little later in the interview that “one of the things we don’t fully appreciate in mainstream media on these attacks is that it’s become fun to attack the press, if that makes sense, on the right. It doesn’t matter if we’re right or wrong, attack them anyway.”