Meet the Press host Chuck Todd got feisty with Republican Sen. Ron Johnson when the lawmaker accused him and the rest of the media of bias.
The confrontation began when the two were discussing classified documents recently found in President Joe Biden’s home and former office and Todd asked why Johnson was not proposing Congress wait until the Department of Justice concluded its investigation into the documents before doing congressional oversight. This prompted Johnson to go on a rambling diatribe accusing the FBI of “political wrongdoing” regarding its investigation into Hunter Biden’s laptop. Todd then asked if Johnson could mention a single crime the president’s son committed.
“Senator, do you have a crime that you think Hunter Biden committed because I’ve yet to see anybody explain. It is not a crime to make money off of your last name,” the NBC host asked.
Johnson responded by saying that Todd should read “the Marco Polo report,” a report on the laptop’s alleged contents compiled by former aide to Trump advisor Peter Navarro. Johnson claimed the report “detail[s] all kinds of potential crimes.”
“Oh, hold on, let me stop you there. Potential. This is potential. Potential is innuendo,” Todd replied.
Johnson then referenced $30,000 in funds that Hunter Biden allegedly paid to individuals, which the senator claimed was for “soliciting and purchasing prostitution in potentially European sex trafficking operations.” There’s that word again — “potentially.”
Todd then pointed out Johnson’s apparent hypocrisy in targeting Biden’s son while ignoring alleged wrongdoing by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who accepted a loan from the Qatari government while working in the White House.
“Your Senate Democrats want to investigate Jared Kushner’s loan from the Qatari government when he was working in the government negotiating many things in the Middle East,” Todd said. “Are you not as concerned about that? Are you not concerned about that? And I say that because it seems to me if you’re concerned about what Hunter Biden did, you should be equally outraged about what Jared Kushner did.”
“I’m concerned about getting to the truth. I don’t target individuals,” Johnson said, laughably.
“You’re targeting Hunter Biden multiple times on this show, senator,” Todd answered. “You’re targeting an individual.”
The interview then started getting personal. Johnson accused Todd of inviting him on Meet the Press “to argue with me.” He then went on a Trump-esque rant about the biased media.
“I’m just trying to lay out the facts that certainly Senator Grassley and I uncovered,” Johnson said. “They were suppressed. They were censored. They interfered in the 2020 election. Conservatives understand that. Unfortunately, liberals and the media don’t. And part of the reasons are our politics are inflamed, is we do not have an unbiased media. We don’t. It’s unfortunate. I’m all for a free press. It needs to be more unbiased.”
“Look, you can go back on your partisan cable cocoon and talk about media bias all you want. I understand it’s part of your identity,” Todd said, essentially telling Johnson to go peddle his bullshit on right-wing media where it might find a more receptive audience.