While hacks in the liberal media were quick to claim no one on their side was politicizing the spread of the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19), NBC political director Chuck Todd spent a part of Sunday’s Meet the Press musing about how the virus could be President Trump’s version of the Iran Hostage Crisis, where President Jimmy Carter showed such poor leadership the public voted in President Ronald Reagan. Of course, the idea this time was that Trump would get dumped for a Democrat.
Just before a commercial break, Todd was reminded about a conversation he had with Washington Post columnist Matt Bai, who was on the panel. “Matt, you and I were talking about it before the break. What the Iran hostage crisis was to the final year of Carter's presidency, not his fault but it’s a test in real-time. This is what this seems to be for Trump,” Todd suggested.
Bai wholeheartedly agreed and began by lamenting how the public was taking cues from the President’s statements about the outbreak. “It’s one thing when all the Republicans in Washington say, .he says some crazy stuff on tax policy or this or that, but we’ve got it handled,’” he said. “It's a different thing when the President is out there leading publicly in a crisis like this and people are seeing it in real-time, taking their cues from it.”
Expanding on the Carter comparison, Bai surmised that if the outbreak went particularly terribly, then the public will have had enough of Trump’s “chaos” and bring about a “Jimmy Carter-like scenario”:
There is even – There is a certain capacity for chaos in American voters. They don't like chaos, they don’t like uncertainty, the markets don't like it, the voters don't like it, we don’t like it in our daily lives. I'm frankly surprised that the exhaustion from that chaos has been as slow in coming as it has in the American public, but this does hold the potential if it goes badly to become a kind of Jimmy Carter-like scenario where the public just says, “can't wake up with this anxiety every day. We’ve got to have some kind of leadership.”
Just minutes before the Carter comparison, other members of the entirely liberal panel were bashing the Trump administration’s response to COVID-19.
“He's been advised, I'm told by people, by his allies on Capitol Hill and elsewhere to put public health officials out more as the face of this than politicians, for example, people like Dr. Fauci, who you just had on,” claimed NBC chief White House correspondent Hallie Jackson. “But so far, they still want to make sure the White House is the face of it, led by Vice President Pence and Secretary Azar.”
Jackson claimed the White House was refusing to give up being the face of the response, but yet see admitted that Dr. Anthony Fauci was on the show. She also failed to mention that other health officials were making the rounds on the Sunday morning news shows, such as Surgeon General Jerome Adams appearing on CNN’s State of the Union.
Playing off of Jackson, New York Times Pentagon correspondent Helene Cooper declared that only Trump supporters are listening to the President because “the world is not looking for President Trump to lead on this” and “people expect that he's not capable of leading on this.”
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
NBC’s Meet the Press
March 8, 2020
11:09:46 a.m. Eastern(…)
HALLIE JACKSON: He's been advised, I'm told by people, by his allies on Capitol Hill and elsewhere to put public health officials out more as the face of this than politicians, for example, people like Dr. Fauci, who you just had on. But so far, they still want to make sure the White House is the face of it, led by Vice President Pence and Secretary Azar.
HELENE COOPER: Well, I think this is a case where nobody out there really – Well, okay, there are a few. There are Trump supporters out there who will listen to the President, but the world is not looking for President Trump to lead on this because, at this point, I think people expect that he's not capable of leading on this.
(…)
11:12:26 a.m. Eastern
CHUCK TODD: Matt, you and I were talking about it before the break. What the Iran hostage crisis was to the final year of Carter's presidency, not his fault but it’s a test in real-time. This is what this seems to be for Trump.
MATT BAI: Yeah, I mean, it’s one thing, it’s what you guys were talking about. Right? It’s one thing when all the Republicans in Washington say, “he says some crazy stuff on tax policy or this or that, but we’ve got it handled.” It's a different thing when the President is out there leading publicly in a crisis like this and people are seeing it in real-time, taking their cues from it.
There is even – There is a certain capacity for chaos in American voters. They don't like chaos, they don’t like uncertainty, the markets don't like it, the voters don't like it, we don’t like it in our daily lives. I'm frankly surprised that the exhaustion from that chaos has been as slow in coming as it has in the American public, but this does hold the potential if it goes badly to become a kind of Jimmy Carter-like scenario where the public just says, “can't wake up with this anxiety every day. We’ve got to have some kind of leadership.”
