On Sunday, Meet The Press host Chuck Todd revealed his partisan affiliation while interviewing Senators Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Corey Booker (D-NJ) about President Trump’s Supreme Court candidate. Todd accused the Republicans of being “a bunch of hypocrites” for trying to hold hearings for a SCOTUS candidate during an election year – something they spoke out against back in 2016 – but he failed to bring the same indictment against the Democrats and instead took her side on her side on the issue, despite the fact that both parties had flip-flops since the Obama years.
During his interview with Senator Blunt, Todd spoke out against hearings for Trump’s candidates, claiming that “a large majority of the American public” disagreed with holding pre-election hearings, according to “rather overwhelming” polls. “Do you regret the hypocritical argument you made years ago?” he squeezed and continued, “Are you concerned that your party looks like a bunch of hypocrites on this matter four weeks before the election?”
Minutes later, however, Todd failed to confront Democratic Senator Corey Booker for his party’s flip-flop regarding SCOTUS’s nomination during an election year. He referred to this 2016 quote from Booker: “The Senate has no excuse to ignore, block, or stonewall this candidate’s deliberation. … The Senate must do its job to provide advice and assent, and to schedule hearings, debates, and an up or down vote quickly. “
But Todd used that attitude to make a partisan point that was barely disguised as a question, “Which should be the precedent? The ones that Republicans 16 invented or the ones they are inventing now? “
In other words, when his guest was a Republican, the question was, “Aren’t you hypocritical?” When his guest was a member of the party that Chuck Todd himself routinely supports, the question arose: “Aren’t your opponents hypocritical?” Booker even noted with a grin that Todd was making the same point he himself made last week: “Well, I think you asked the same question I asked Lindsey Graham and the Republicans.”
When both parties switch sides on a problem, not only can you blame the party you dislike of doing flip-flops. Or at least not if you want to look like something that resembles a journalist. For pro-democracy activists like Chuck Todd, however, this type of behavior is only part of the job.
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