Chuck Todd and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) have had some heated confrontations before. But the pair’s latest clash might be their most contentious yet.
In a fiery interview on Meet the Press Sunday, the NBC News political director clashed with the Wisconsin Senator about Hunter Biden — a collision which kicked off in earnest when Todd put a crucial question to Johnson point-blank.
“Senator, do you have a crime that you think Hunter Biden committed?” Todd asked. “Because I’ve yet to see anybody explain. It is not a crime to make money off of your last name.”
“Chuck, you ought to read the Marco Polo report, where they detail all kinds of potential crimes,” Johnson replied — referring to a 634 page report on the controversy surrounding the president’s son, which was published by a right wing group called Marco Polo.
Todd immediately cut Johnson off when he heard the word “potential.”
“Let me stop you there,” Todd said. He added, “Potential is innuendo. That’s why you do investigation!”
The two men talked over each other — as they did for much of the interview — while trying to land their points.
“Chuck, is it a crime to be soliciting and purchasing prostitution in potentially European sex trafficking operations?” Johnson said. “Is that a crime? Because Chuck Grassley and I laid out about $30,000 paid by Hunter Biden to those types of individuals over December of 2018, 2019, about $30,000. That’s about the same time that President Biden offered to pay about $100,000 of Hunter Biden’s bills. I mean, again, that’s just some information. I don’t know exactly if it’s a crime.”
The senator added, “It sounds sleazy as you know what.”
From there, Todd pressed Johnson on why Hunter Biden has been such a focus of his, while former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Donald Trump appears to be less of a concern — despite Kushner receiving a billion-dollar loan from the government of Qatar while working on Middle East policy for the White House.
“It seems to me if you’re concerned about what Hunter Biden did, you should be equally outraged about what Jared Kushner did,” Todd said.
“I’m concerned about getting to the truth,” Johnson said. “I don’t target individuals.”
“You don’t?” Todd said, incredulously. “You’re targeting Hunter Biden multiple times on this show, Senator. You’re targeting an individual.”
From there, Johnson attacked Todd — accusing the NBC News political director of having him to the show simply to pick a fight with him.
“Chuck, you know, part of the problem — and this is pretty obvious to anybody watching this — is you don’t invite me on to interview me. You invite me on to argue with me. You know, I’m just trying to lay out the facts that certainly Senator Grassley and I uncovered.”
Johnson went on to take a more broad shot at the media.
“And part of the reason are our politics are inflamed is we do not have an unbiased media,” Johnson said. “We don’t. It’s unfortunate.”
Johnson added, “Primarily it occurs from the left.”
Frustrated, Todd completely shut down Johnson’s gripe about the fourth estate.
“Look, you can go back on your partisan cable cocoon and talk about media bias all you want!” Todd said. “I understand it’s part of your identity.”
I can’t believe Wisconsin re-elected this moron. Seriously. It’s just too depressing to realize that we are stuck with this nonsense for another 6 years.