Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 11:35 am
In a gigantic shift from 2016, MSNBC’s Chuck Todd refused to reward Trump by airing the audio of the president’s attack on Hunter Biden.
Chuck Todd Refuses To Show Trump’s Attack on Hunter Biden
Todd said on his show MTP Daily, “What’s even more remarkable about what happened at last night’s Trump rally, the president went further than he’s gone before. We’re going further than before to say we aren’t going to play the sound and repeat the president’s vicious attacks on Hunter Biden. The President of the United States stood in front of a crowd and character assassinated a man, whatever you think of his decisions, is not a public figure, not running for office, not a campaign surrogate, not even on the campaign trail, isn’t in any way asking for this attention, obviously. Look, we’re going to tell you the attack on Hunter Biden is remarkable and newsworthy, can’t amplify the attacks. We won’t. We will tell you it happened and seemed to cross a line, another line. We all need to play a role, not rewarding this kind of politics, not just the press, this is the job of anyone that’s sworn an oath to defend the Constitution.”
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Chuck Todd refuses to reward Trump by playing his attacks on Hunter Biden. pic.twitter.com/ffjkdBNPPJ
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) October 11, 2019
Trump got $5 billion in free media coverage during the 2016 election. The media ran with everything that Trump said, usually on live television during his campaign and early in his term. There was a time when all three cable news networks would cover White House press briefings and Trump events live, but those days are long gone. Even Fox News has stopped giving Trump wall to wall coverage of his rallies.
The press has learned that they can’t treat Trump like a normal president. Trump can’t be trusted with an unfiltered platform, and that he is counting on the press repeating his baseless attacks on the Bidens to inject them into the mainstream of American conversation.
The media has learned and they aren’t going to be mules for Trump’s attacks and lies.
Chuck Todd is NBC News’s political director, so when he cuts Trump off, it is a signal that NBC News won’t be pushing Trump’s lies.
The president is frustrated because his lies and conspiracy theories aren’t breaking through to the mainstream anymore.
Donald Trump is trying to run the same playbook that he used in 2016, but the press and the American people have decided that they won’t get fooled again.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
