During NBC’s Sunday Today, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd joined host Willie Geist to discuss the past week which of course included the days-long Speaker election in which Kevin McCarthy emerged victorious. Todd used his appearance to make a prediction that is both filled with wishful thinking and a lack of nuance in his analysis.
When noting how Speaker McCarthy had been elected early Saturday morning, Geist asked Todd “what does this Congress look like now for the next two years?”
“I think it's really a minimalist House of Representatives as far as legislative accomplishments are concerned,” Todd proclaimed.
“They're not going to have any accomplishments that they're going to be bragging about. I think the only thing they’re going to be able to take to voters, that their voters want are gonna be their investigations, their subpoenas, their oversight,” he added.
Todd insisted that “committee hearings might be all that they accomplish because I don't know how they get the basics done.”
Since a “discharge petition” according to Todd will “be the only viable tool that will keep the lights on for the federal government” and “keep the country from defaulting on its debt,” Todd predicted that history will repeat itself from his perspective:
The last two times Republicans gained the house in the mid-term of a Democratic presidency, the behavior of the House Republicans essentially helped re-elect said Democratic President. See Bill Clinton, 1996. See Barack Obama, 2012. And I'll tell you, I don't know about you, Willie, but all this week it felt like we're about to see a trilogy.
What Todd apparently failed to realize is that while Joe Biden is just as radical as Obama, he doesn’t have his speaking skills. Nor does Biden have the ability to moderate his views and work with Republicans like Bill Clinton.
Biden also won’t be as lucky by running against old, weak, milquetoast liberal Republicans like Clinton and Obama did when they each ran for reelection.
Clinton also benefited from a strong economy that was still booming from the Reagan years, and Obama’s economy had stabilized from the great recession which (thanks to the deception of the leftist media) voters credited him for.
Biden on the other hand is going into the 2023-2024 presidential election cycle with a cratering economy after inheriting an economy that was recovering from an artificial recession due to the left’s COVID lockdowns.
This faulty analysis by NBC’s Chuck Todd was made possible by Sleep Number. Their information is linked.
To read the relevant transcript click “expand”:
NBC’s Sunday Today
1/8/2023
8:08:11 a.m. EasternWILLIE GEIST: Chuck, good morning. What a week it was in the House of Representatives. It was already a slim margin, of course, for Republicans after those mid-term elections and now Kevin McCarthy gives away so much of his power to finally get to the number he needed to become Speaker of the House, so what does this House of Representatives, what does this Congress look like now for the next two years?
CHUCK TODD: I think it's really a minimalist House of Representatives as far as legislative accomplishments are concerned. They're not going to have any accomplishments that they're going to be bragging about. I think the only thing they’re going to be able to take to voters, that their voters want are gonna be their investigations, their subpoenas, their oversight.
And I think the committee hearings might be all that they accomplish because I don't know how they get the basics done, right? Raising the debt ceiling, funding the government. I think you're going to see a lot of sort of having to go around the Republican leadership. Right? You're going to see discharge petitions.
My apologies for using such an arcane term, but it is something I think will be the only viable tool that will keep the lights on for the federal government, that'll keep the country from defaulting on its debt. So the real question to me is the political impact here. The last two times Republicans gained the house in the mid-term of a Democratic presidency, the behavior of the House Republicans essentially helped re-elect said Democratic President. See Bill Clinton, 1996. See Barack Obama, 2012. And I'll tell you, I don't know about you, Willie, but all this week it felt like we're about to see a trilogy.
GEIST: Yeah, absolutely. And those issues you talked about raising the debt ceiling and funding the government, huge issues as you say may not actually get done.
