NBC's Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd opened his program on Sunday with a mini temper tantrum due to the majority of the 2024 Republican presidential hopefuls and even President Joe Biden steering away from attacking former President Donald Trump in the manner Todd demands. Of course, the icing on the cake was Todd's insistence that Republicans staying "silent has left a massive moral vacuum in our fraying democracy."
"It used to be that extramarital affairs, campaign trail tears, forgetting a cabinet agency, even a weird scream could end a presidential campaign," Todd bemoaned. "Now Donald Trump has been criminally indicted four times in as many months, faces 91 felony counts, and he still leads the Republican field nationally by nearly forty points."
Todd should look in the mirror. It's ironic that he's fretting over 2012 GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry "forgetting a cabinet agency" was considered a scandal, when his own network urged Perry to drop out of the race due to his brief brain freeze.
Continuing to whine, Todd huffed that other than former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Vice President Mike Pence: "Trump’s Republican opponents for the most part are declining to take him on directly."
"The Republican candidates are terrified of alienating the Trump-supporting voters that they'll need to win by criticizing Trump. But show us the campaign where an underdog beat a dominant front-runner by not taking on said front-runner directly," Todd lectured.
According to Todd, a failure to sufficiently attack Trump isn't just a political strategy failure, it's dangerous to American democracy: "As Trump has been indicted again and again and again and again, Biden has chosen against taking him on in any meaningful way right now. That choice and the choice of top Republicans to stay silent has left a massive moral vacuum in our fraying democracy. Who is defending the guardrails?"
If everything Republicans do is dangerous to our democracy, than nothing is. Especially since it seems nothing Democrats do gets the same media treatment.
This latest Todd outburst was made possible by Allstate. Their information is linked.
The transcript is below:
NBC’s Meet the Press
8/20/2023
10:02:47 a.m. EasternCHUCK TODD: It used to be that extramarital affairs, campaign trail tears, forgetting a cabinet agency, even a weird scream could end a presidential campaign. Now Donald Trump has been criminally indicted four times in as many months, faces 91 felony counts, and he still leads the Republican field nationally by nearly forty points. And outside of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who’s polling at three percent in a new Quinnipiac poll, and to a degree his former Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s Republican opponents for the most part are declining to take him on directly.
[...]
10:03:48 a.m. Eastern
TODD: Instead, in a pre-debate memo from Ron DeSantis's super pac advises him to take a sledgehammer to Vivek Ramaswamy and to defend Trump when Christie inevitably attacks him. Of course, the Republican candidates are terrified of alienating the Trump-supporting voters that they'll need to win by criticizing Trump. But show us the campaign where an underdog beat a dominant front-runner by not taking on said front-runner directly. In an interview with the Florida Standard, DeSantis took a swipe at Trump's cult of personality inside the Republican Party and the swipe immediately got Trump and his allies to lash out.
[...]
10:06:00 a.m. Eastern
TODD: And as Trump has been indicted again and again and again and again, Biden has chosen against taking him on in any meaningful way right now. That choice and the choice of top Republicans to stay silent has left a massive moral vacuum in our fraying democracy. Who is defending the guardrails?
