Biased? NBC's Chuck Todd reveals belief system

Analysis by FPI / January 1, 2020

Media personality Chuck Todd’s contempt for President Donald Trump and his supporters has been well established. During Sunday’s broadcast of Meet the Press, Todd threw in what one critic called a "twist of anti-Christian bigotry" for good measure.

Todd devoted the Dec. 29 show on NBC to what he called “Alternative Facts: Inside the Weaponization of Disinformation”.

During a segment with guests Marty Baron and Dean Baquet, the top editors of the Washington Post and New York Times, Todd read what he called a “fascinating” letter to a newspaper which claimed that Trump’s supporters “believe in fairy tales” such as Noah's ark.

Todd said: “I want to read you guys a letter to the editor that we found in the Lexington Herald-Leader. It was a fascinating attempt at trying to explain why some people support President Trump. Here’s what he says. ‘Why do good people support Trump? It’s because people have been trained, from childhood, to believe in fairy tales. This set their minds up to accept things that make them feel good. The more fairy tales and lies he tells, the better they feel. Show me a person who believes in Noah’s Ark, and I will show you a Trump voter.’ Look, this gets at something, Dean, that my executive producer likes to say, is ‘Hey, voters want to be lied to, sometimes. They don’t, they don’t always love being told hard truths.’ ”

Todd and his staff were likely very much taken aback when both Baquet and Baron said they disagreed with the letter’s content.

"I'm not quite sure I buy that," Baquet said. "Politicians historically have lied to people. I don't want to keep flogging Mary's terrific Afghanistan story but that was about a generation of political leaders who lied in the most egregious way, which was to say a war that was failing and leading to American deaths was actually succeeding. I'm not convinced that people want to be lied to. I think people want to be comforted and I think bad politicians sometimes say comforting things to them."

Baron said: "I think we have to be careful, I don't want to be dismissive of people who support the president. I think they're owed our respect and they certainly have mine, but they feel that the so-called elites in Washington has not paid attention to them. That they don't understand their lives, they don't understand their concerns and they're not being heard. They feel that the president is actually listening to them and addressing their concerns so they tend to believe him."

The letter to the Lexington Herald-Leader was written by David Bowles. Following the Meet the Press segment, several writers condemned Todd for touting Bowles' theories and saying they likely matched those of his staff.

NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck tweeted: "On a morning after an attack on people of faith, @ChuckTodd uses an ugly Letter to the Editor to mock religious people. What a repugnant individual."

The Federalist publisher Ben Domenech tweeted: "The fairy tales Chuck Todd told us for years about the Steele dossier have more to do with media distrust than Noah's Ark."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker wrote: “That Todd felt so comfortable about showing such disdain for the ‘deplorables’ who support Trump, with a twist of anti-Christian bigotry thrown in, shows just how little respect those in the press corps have for those with a differing political view. Todd would never deride any ‘fairy tales’ believed by liberal voters and it’s hard to imagine him daring to make such a flippant remark about the religious beliefs of any religion other than Christianity.”

Others noted that Todd’s bigoted comments covered not only Christianity, but Judaism and Islam, as Noah’s ark is part of all three religions.

Free Press International