While acknowledging that Hillary Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches revealed by WikiLeaks could have cost the Democratic candidate her party’s nomination if uncovered during the primary campaign, on Monday’s NBC Today, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd actually spun the news as an advantage for Clinton in the general election.
Co-host Matt Lauer wondered: “For months and months, Hillary Clinton refused to talk about or release the transcripts of those speeches to Goldman Sachs....Do you have a better sense of why she didn't release them?” Todd replied: “I sure do....Look, the Democratic Party is moving in a direction much faster to the left than Hillary Clinton ever was....I think it would have been absolutely damaging in the primary and possibly cost her the nomination.”
Lauer then followed up: “...if you say it would have been that damaging in the primary, the question then is, how damaging, if at all is it now with three weeks to go until the general election?” Todd quickly changed his tune, arguing Clinton’s glaring hypocrisy would now help her: “I think in a general election, much less damaging, number one. I mean, there are some voters that are gonna be reassured that she's in the middle here a little bit...”
He then offered his own reassurance to his liberal media colleagues: “And then second, remember who her opponent is. I think against another opponent this could be more lethal. I think against Donald Trump, obviously he blocks out the sun with all of his problems.”
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In a report prior to Todd’s appearance, correspondent Andrea Mitchell worried about the impact of the ongoing revelations: “Hillary Clinton riding high in the polls, but now facing that rolling wave of release by WikiLeaks of stolen campaign e-mails....how can she prepare for the drip, drip, drip of thousands of pages of stolen e-mails released each day by Wikileaks?”
Mitchell noted:
Now Clinton talks about cracking down on Wall Street....But as a highly paid speaker, Clinton appears to have told the bankers, “The people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry.” In the e-mails released by WikiLeaks, not authenticated by Clinton or NBC News, she also said new banking regulations after the 2008 crisis were passed for “political reasons” and “the jury is still out” on the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law.
Here is a full transcript of Todd’s October 17 appearance:
7:09 AM ET
MATT LAUER: Let us talk about all this with Chuck Todd. Chuck, good morning to you.
CHUCK TODD: Good morning, sir.
LAUER: For months and months, Hillary Clinton refused to talk about or release the transcripts of those speeches to Goldman Sachs, saying that, you know, she would do that sometime when Donald Trump released his taxes. Now we know, allegedly, what was included in her comments to Goldman Sachs. Do you have a better sense of why she didn't release them?
CHUCK TODD: I sure do. This was – I think this would have been more problematic for her in the Democratic primaries. Look, the Democratic Party is moving in a direction much faster to the left than Hillary Clinton ever was. What WikiLeaks – what we have learned out of all of this, Matt, on the one hand it sort of reinforced what we already thought we knew about Hillary Clinton, but politically and ideologically, this being exposed during the primaries with Bernie Sanders that basically she was making a calculation to move to the left, I think it would have been absolutely damaging in the primary and possibly cost her the nomination.
LAUER: So the question – so obviously if you say it would have been that damaging in the primary, the question then is, how damaging, if at all is it now with three weeks to go until the general election?
TODD: I think in a general election, much less damaging, number one. I mean, there are some voters that are gonna be reassured that she's in the middle here a little bit, number one. And then second, remember who her opponent is. I think against another opponent this could be more lethal. I think against Donald Trump, obviously he blocks out the sun with all of his problems.
GUTHRIE: Well, let’s talk about Donald Trump, he spent the weekend really honing in on this idea and this message that the whole system is rigged. But if you really think about it, I mean that’s a message that’s not a message to win, it’s not a message to turn out voters, because frankly people might get depressed and think why bother. It's a message to explain a loss.
TODD: Well, that's right, Savannah. And I think it's also a message as a way to not lose either, to not look like a loser. This is gonna be Donald Trump looking like a fighter. This is gonna be Donald Trump defining victory in his own way. I mean, we’ve got – we all know Donald Trump pretty well, I think, the three of us. One thing he’ll never admit is to losing or failing at anything. So to me this feels like Donald Trump's way of deciding this fight for the presidency will make him look like a winner even if he gets trounced.
LAUER: Alright, Chuck Todd. Chuck, thank you very much.
TODD: You got it, guys.
LAUER: Want to mention, NBC News will bring you that third and final presidential debate, it’s Wednesday night, coverage begins 9:00 Eastern Time.
