During MSNBC’s MTP Daily on Tuesday, anchor Chuck Todd actually interrupted the beginning of the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing to deliver a pompous disclaimer to viewers and warn that “these briefings have a tendency to veer in a lot of different directions, not all of them are informative or relevant in the midst of this crisis.”
“So we will listen as the President talks and we will make sure we’re giving you a fact check and putting what he says in context on the other side,” the Meet the Press moderator proclaimed as President Trump was starting to speak at the podium. Continuing to cut off the briefing, Todd listed questions “that we are looking to get answered.”
He assured his liberal audience: “If it veers too much off, we will break in – we will break off and come back here.”
Todd’s lecture came just a day after his MSNBC colleague Chris Hayes ranted that it was “crazy” and “dangerous” for the media to continue to air the White House briefings because the events were “bad for the country.”
It also came amid various media outlets debating whether to drop their coverage of briefings completely.
The main motivation for all this sudden concern over the pressers – after months of complaining that the administration was not doing enough formal briefings – seems to be that the President's poll numbers have been on the rise.
That was clearly the fear of liberal Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan on March 21. A few days after that, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell worried that “The briefings are working for the President.” Just over the weekend, NBC’s Today show fretted that the “daily briefings are now his daily substitute for campaign rallies” while likely Democratic nominee Joe Biden was forced to stay home.
At this uncertain time, it’s important for viewers to know that liberal media outlets like MSNBC “have a tendency to veer in a lot of different directions, not all of them are informative or relevant in the midst of this crisis.”
Here is a transcript of Todd’s March 31 “discretion is advised” commentary:
5:30 PM ET
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CHUCK TODD: And the White House coronavirus briefing is about to begin. But before we go to it, we want to note a few things. First of all, we know these briefings have a tendency to veer in a lot of different directions, not all of them are informative or relevant in the midst of this crisis. So we will listen as the President talks and we will make sure we’re giving you a fact check and putting what he says in context on the other side. There are several questions that we have today that we are looking to get answered. You just heard a bunch of them. On masks, are we going to be wearing them? What does our summer look like? What’s the situation on testing and the medical equipment? So those are the answers we’re hoping to get, and obviously, what is the data that you use to make these decisions? If it veers too much off, we will break in – we will break off and come back here. But for the most part, we want to listen in to the information, we hope, he is bringing to all of us. Let’s take a listen.
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