The end of Chuck Todd
By now it’s become a familiar routine. Chuck Todd uses his MSNBC show to try to paint both sides of the political spectrum as being the same, and he does it by using whataboutism or by falsely hyping some supposed Democratic Party scandal. MSNBC viewers widely and loudly react with outrage across social media, making clear there’s no one interested in the crap he’s peddling. But instead of getting fired like any other unpopular and inept TV host, he somehow remains on the air.
Chuck Todd’s ratings are so terrible, MSNBC had to move his weekday show from 5pm to the “nobody cares” 1pm time slot. But he’s still hosting NBC Meet The Press on Sunday mornings, which has turned into little more than a platform where Republican politicians can freely spew lies. It’s enough to make you half jokingly wonder if perhaps Todd has blackmail material on NBC and MSNBC executives, because there’s literally no above-board reason for keeping him around.
But you have to wonder if that might be on the verge of changing. These past couple weeks, Chuck Todd has used most of his airtime to massively overhype the supposed “Biden border crisis” even though 1) it isn’t remotely a crisis, and 2) it’s a long running Trump mess that Biden is in the process of cleaning up. Chuck Todd’s false coverage of the border has become indistinguishable from Fox News.
This vaguely reminds me of back when Lou Dobbs was a host on CNN more than a decade ago. He was never any good. But he spent enough time playing both sides that it kept his job safe. Then eventually, Dobbs became almost clinically obsessed with massively overhyping the border situation, to the point that it dominated his show every night. It got so out of control that it ended up costing him his job, and he ultimately ended up on Fox News instead.
Now we’ve got Chuck Todd, a lousy MSNBC host who has managed to keep his job safe by pretending both sides are the same, but has now become clinically obsessed with overhyping the border situation. Sound familiar? Chuck Todd has long gotten away with being the “D” student who never got expelled, but now he’s setting the bathroom on fire and forcing the issue. Are we finally about to see the end of Chuck Todd? Of course we hear Fox News is hiring.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report