Chuck Todd, NBC News Political Director and moderator of Meet the Press, appeared on Sunday’s Today to preview his upcoming show and to discuss the fallout following the White House’s announcement that President Obama will not meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits the United States in March.
Speaking to Today co-host Erica Hill, Todd found no fault in President Obama’s snub of Netanyahu and instead placed the blame squarely on the Israeli prime minister. Todd insisted that “the impact is probably going to be more acute potentially in Israel itself. I mean this is about Prime Minister Netanyahu, he's in an election year and one of the criticisms he's gotten is for strained relationships with President Obama."
Todd continued to criticize the Israeli prime minister by playing up how “now you've got unnamed White House aides or administration officials saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu spat in the face of President Obama.”
Nowhere in his remarks did Todd suggest that President Obama might be criticized by the American public for refusing to meet with one of America’s strongest allies following Netanyahu’s address to Congress. Instead, the Meet the Press moderator concluded his remarks by continuting to point the blame at Netanyahu and even warned that “it means that the next time Prime Minister Netanyahu needs a favor from the president he is not going to get it.”
See relevant transcript below.
NBC’s Today
January 25, 2015
ERICA HILL: Meantime, let’s turn our focus back to Washington. House Speaker John Boehner this week inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress in March. Then the next day we hear from the president that he won't be meeting with the prime minister because he don't want to, in his words, influence the election that would happen there later that month. What's the impact of both this invitation and the decision by the president on these already strained relations between the U.S. and Israel?
CHUCK TODD: Well look, I think the impact is probably going to be more acute potentially in Israel itself. I mean this is about Prime Minister Netanyahu, he's in an election year and one of the criticisms he's gotten is for strained relationships with President Obama. And this isn't helping things at all and now you've got unnamed White House aides or administration officials saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu spat in the face of President Obama.
Now Denis McDonough the White House Chief of Staff who’s on Meet the Press later today says that he doesn't know who said that, doesn't believe it is anybody in the White House that might have said that. That said it just strains it even more. So what does that mean? I think it means that the next time Prime Minister Netanyahu needs a favor from the president he is not going to get it.
