Chuck Todd of NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ Blames Russia for ‘Fake News’

Chuck Todd used his Meet the Press program Sunday on NBC to attack “fake news” — and blamed Russian disinformation, rather than shoddy journalism, for convincing Americans not to trust the mainstream media.

His show, featuring guests whom he described “top players in journalism, diplomacy and technology,” claimed that “Russian tactics” of “truth manipulation” have migrated right here to the United States.”

Todd’s primary culprit: the Trump administration, which he noted on day one pushed “an easily disprovable lie about his inaugural crowd size.”

He ignored the other “day one” lie: that Trump was colluding with Russia, a lie the media pushed relentlessly.

Todd’s first guest was New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet, who admitted earlier this year that his newsroom had been built around the Russia story for two years.

Todd did not ask Banquet about that: instead, he asked Baquet about whether “the truth itself is on trial,” an idea with which Baquet enthusiastically agreed.

Dem insurgent turns on the charm with party establishment as Schumer leaves bitter feud hanging

Lawmakers say they are standing at the gates against ‘Trojan horses’ promoting malign foreign interests

Illegal Alien Sentenced to Prison for Multimillion-Dollar Scheme Against Travis Kelce and Others

National Park Service offers plan to mitigate ‘adverse effects’ of Trump arch

Breaking: LA and Calif. Reeling After Woke, Anti-Trump Antics Drive Out Paramount, Taking up to $21B in Output, 60K Jobs, and $1B in Taxes

Thom Tillis urges Michael Whatley not to shy from ‘healthy disagreement’ with Trump

Would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks had Snapchat that may hold evidence ‘treasure trove’: former FBI agent

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Massie saying Johnson is sending the House home early to prevent Hegseth impeachment

Hawley takes aim at ‘corporate welfare’ after GOP-backed tax break boosted controversial industry

Virginia court sentences Abbey Gate conspirator to 20 years for role in explosion

DOJ Arrests LA Nonprofit Employees in Connection to Multimillion-Dollar Homeless Fraud Schemes

3 stabbed at New York college; 2 suspects in custody

Trump Nominates Lee Greenwood’s Wife, Kimberly, to Be US Ambassador

Kennedy scion accused Trump of ‘bankrupting’ Kennedy Center as ‘hostage taking’ name change battle persists

GOP lawmakers blindsided by new revelations about Trump Butler shooter: ‘Awfully strange’

Next, Todd turned to Martin Baron, the executive editor of the Washington Post — another paper that pushed the Russia collusion hoax, and which also led the way in trying to debunk Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA)’s effort, recently vindicated, to expose the truth about the FBI’s abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts.

Baron complained: “We live in an environment where people are able to spread crazy conspiracy theories and absolute falsehoods and lies.” He blamed social media — not the conspiracy theories validated by his own paper.

Baron also griped that Americans had become “numb” to the supposedly “15,000 false or misleading claims” by the president that his paper has been tracking. Not only are many of those supposedly false “claims” actually true, or defensible differences of opinion, but the Post is seemingly numb to the major anti-Trump lies it has pushed.

Todd asked Baquet if journalists would have to “market” the idea that they are there to tell the truth — in the course of continuing to push the idea that Russian propaganda, not media malpractice, is to blame to public mistrust.

Baquet said that he and Baron needed to continue “very aggressively defending our institutions, defending the truth and defending our important role in democracy.”

Again, no mention of the corrosive effect that the Russia hoax has had on our democracy — or the role that the media has played in the ongoing impeachment debacle over Ukraine, including the Post‘s own misreporting of leaked testimony from closed-door hearings in the House Intelligence Committee.

Todd would not admit that the media’s leading institutions had failed by their own standards — only that they might be “culturally” out of touch with the rest of America.