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.

Video: Trump Greets Fallen Heroes at Dignified Transfer for Troops Killed in Iran Conflict

Six-figure private security bill for top Dem Senate hopeful fuels GOP hypocrisy claims

Former Biden Admin Official Roasts Kamala’s 2028 Chances on Fox News: ‘She Follows’

Defense industry leaders align with Trump admin plans in closed-door strategy session on Iran war funding

Nancy Guthrie mystery: ‘Today’ show intruder sparks security shakeup at NBC studio

WATCH: ‘Shocking’ Ben Franklin smear leaves Smithsonian chief with ‘no regrets’

Former CIA Director James Woolsey, Who Served Under Clinton and Later Advised Trump, Dies at 84

Vance Boelter sentenced for shootings of Minnesota lawmakers and spouses

Montana Teen Says God Coached Him As He Used a Lasso Rope to Save Man from Drowning

Dem Rhode Island lawmaker threatens ICE: ‘Your day of reckoning will come m—– f——‘

Fox News ‘Antisemitism Exposed’ Newsletter: Why Fetterman called Mamdani a ‘clown’

Joe Rogan says ex-con guest allegedly killed man, hid dismembered remains month after podcast

Illegal Alien Released Into US by Obama Administration Charged with Killing 3 in Hit-and-Run

FIRST ON FOX: White House reveals who’s joining Trump at correspondents’ dinner — and who can’t attend

4 House Republicans rebel against Trump, vote with Dems to block Iran war powers

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.