Megyn Kelly guest says it’s astonishing Chuck Todd didn’t know a basic tenet of journalism when covering Biden

Co-host of “The Fifth Column” podcast, Matt Welch, told SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly on Wednesday that he “can’t believe” former NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd didn’t exercise any skepticism when it came to former President Joe Biden’s mental fitness during his time in the White House.

With the upcoming release of Alex Thompson’s and Jake Tapper’s new book digging into Biden’s time in office as president, some Democrats have begun to openly discuss their views on the former president’s decline. While calling out the new revelation for the party on “The Megyn Kelly Show,” Kelly said Todd is “fake gaslighting” Biden’s mental fitness.

“Chuck Todd is gonna go along with this fake gaslighting. Again, that word gets overused. But it’s truly what’s happening with the Biden decline. They were actually saying, ‘Don’t believe your lying eyes. Don’t believe your lying ears. He’s fine. You’re being lied to by cheap fake videos that aren’t real.’ Now that you know all of us who said ‘That’s bullshit, he’s deteriorating,’ have been validated and confirmed to be right. They’re saying, ‘We can’t believe we were lied to. These are lies. They’re to blame.’”

“Except the fundamental problem with that position is that half of us in the media ecosystem, those who are independent and or right-leaning, all saw it and reported on it. It cannot be a cover-up if half of the journalistic ecosphere saw it and reported on it, right?” Kelly asked. “Like the fact that the first half is now pretending they never saw and are outraged because they were lied to doesn’t excuse them because they’ve uttered the words ‘cover-up.’ That’s what’s so galling about the dynamic at play here.”

During Biden’s time in office, Republicans repeatedly warned Americans and Democrats about their concerns regarding the former president’s fitness for office. Videos had circulated showing his stumbling and pausing. However, Democrats and members of Biden’s White House staff denied accusations he had problems, with officials calling the online viral videos “cheap fakes” and blaming Republicans.

WATCH:

Discussions of Biden’s age among party members began after his disastrous debate against then-former President Donald Trump. Biden was seen freezing mid-sentence and struggling to finish arguments. Prior to Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 race, lawmakers, Democratic donors, and media pundits publicly called for him to drop out, leading to the end of his campaign in July 2024.

“It’s not just half of the media ecosystem, it’s two-thirds of Americans in 2022 [who said he’s] too old,” Welch said. “More than half of registered Democrats consistently said, as of 2022, ‘Dude is too old, we should have other people running for president. That would be a better thing to do.’ Kyle Smith, the great movie reviewer for National Review [and] Wall Street Journal … had a comment yesterday in the wake of all of this, tweeted out something like ‘I guess there’s a market for books where journalists try to figure out what Americans already concluded.’”

A poll conducted by Yahoo News/YouGov in 2023 said 68% of respondents said Biden was too old for another term, with 48% of Democrats concurring, compared to 34% who disagreed.

“Part of what Chuck thought — I’ve seen him in the past, I’m glad that he’s on his discovery tour, ELO 1979 here. But part of it is that he’s one of the people who have said — and I’ve heard this a lot — ‘I can’t believe that the — I trusted the insiders who told me he was doing well,’” Welch said.

“No, dude, when you are critiquing and covering power — and this is true of critiquing and covering Donald Trump as well — different store set of stories,” Welch added. “But you can’t just take the word of people who are very near the throne of power that they are not going to be operating according to their own sort of response to the incentives of wielding that power. You have to treat all of that with skepticism.”

Todd said in an April interview that he believes Biden’s aides had been unaware of the decline due to “benign ignorance” and “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” The former NBC analyst additionally lashed out in another conversation, claiming corporate media was not at fault as they had “showed” Biden and instead blamed the “failure” on the Democratic Party.

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