While Chuck Todd did a decent job of debunking a good deal of the constant stream of lies that poured out of RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel's mouth, he let her get away with lying about Biden being privy to the same intelligence on the coronavirus as Trump in the early days of the pandemic.
During an appearance on this Sunday's Meet the Press, McDaniel was asked about the Woodward tapes and the ridiculous notion that he has any aversion to inciting panic after watching him in action fearmongering over everything from migrant caravans to BLM protests across the country, to you name it, and the fact that he's openly fought against mask mandates and refused to wear one himself for months on end.
Todd pushed back hard when McDaniel straight up lied about Trump being supportive of mask wearing, but gave McDaniel a huge pass when she deflected to blaming Democrats when asked why the United States was doing so much worse than the rest of the Western world in getting the pandemic under control:
RONNA McDANIEL: I will just tell you right now if Democrats were in charge, if Joe Biden had his way, go look at his statements in January when he said the president was being xenophobic --
CHUCK TODD: He's not the president.
RONNA McDANIEL: -- and hysterical for closing the borders to China --
CHUCK TODD: He's not the president.
RONNA McDANIEL: No. No, no. He was running for president, and he had the same data and the same information. And while Democrats were trying to impeach this president, this president was taking decisive action. So I think it's disgusting to take a crisis in our country and try and lay it at the feet of the president. And where is the outrage at China, as we're hearing more and more stories come forward and research coming forward that they knew about it earlier, that they weren't transparent? What about the WHO that had one job, Chuck? One job, to warn the world about a pandemic. And they failed. And this is a president saying, "We're going to hold you accountable. We're not going to give you hundreds of millions of dollars." This is a president who took decisive action early on that was derided by Democrats. So he saved lives with the actions he has taken. And the fact that we've ramped up testing --
CHUCK TODD: You just, you just --
RONNA McDANIEL: -- and the fact that we're close to a vaccine is because of this president.
CHUCK TODD: You just said that the WHO didn’t warn, didn't do enough to warn the world of a pandemic. The president of the United States has admitted that he's purposely downplaying the severity of this virus to not panic the public. So --
RONNA McDANIEL: No, Chuck, he's not.
CHUCK TODD:-- both of your statements can't be true --
RONNA McDANIEL: He's saying he's trying not to panic --
CHUCK TODD: He said that.
RONNA McDANIEL: No, he's saying he wasn't going to create a panic. What would it mean if the president came out and said, "The sky is falling and everybody should be panicked"? He presented calm and a steady hand and a plan. And that is what a president should do. You know, we just commemorated 9/11 this week. And I watched Andy Card walk over to George Bush and say, "The second tower has been hit. America is under attack." And George Bush didn't stand up and say, "America's been attacked by terrorists. Everyone panic." They created a plan and they presented calm and certainty in a difficult time. What's different this time is Democrats are politicizing it because we have an election, instead of saying, "Let's work with you, Mr. President, and make sure we're all fighting a virus like we've never seen together."
CHUCK TODD: All right. You keep accusing the Democrats of politicizing. There's a report overnight in Politico that political operatives in, at HHS are manipulating data and manipulating some of the CDC recommendations before they go public in order to, quote, "fit with the president's positions." That is the definition of politicizing the pandemic. Is it not?
While I'm glad he reminded McDaniel that Biden is not the president and is not responsible for the response, and that Republicans and the Trump administration are the ones that have actually politicized the crisis, he allowed her to push the same lie being told on Fox this week, unchallenged, which is that Biden was somehow privy to the same intelligence as Trump on the pandemic, when he didn't actually start receiving briefings until sometime in mid-June.
It's a step up from the nonsense viewers were treated to on ABC with George Stephanopoulos pressing Biden surrogate Symone Sanders why the former vice president did not do more to stop the coronavirus pandemic, despite the fact that he was not running the country at the time, but not by much.
None of them should allow these gaslighting Republicans on the air if they're not going to be fact-checked on ALL of the lies they tell in real time.
