Chuck Todd — the man who once looked into a camera on MTP Daily and told Americans, "Literally the only people dying are the unvaccinated" — now has concerns about public health credibility.
He'd like to talk about Anthony Fauci's mistakes.
Appearing on CNN's News Central, Todd delivered what sounded almost like conservative commentary. "I thought Anthony Fauci made a HUGE mistake in pleading the Fifth," he said. "I think the average person hears that and thinks, oh, maybe he does have something to hide." He called it a "gigantic mistake" and added, "It's a terrible end to his legacy."
The reason Todd's comments are noteworthy is because on July 1, 2021, the same Chuck Todd sat behind the same kind of desk and delivered this gem: "Please get vaccinated... Literally the only people dying are the unvaccinated." And then, for the coup de grâce: "For those spreading misinformation, shame on you. Shame on you."
That statement was false when he said it. Vaccinated individuals were dying of Covid in 2021. The data showed it then, and the data confirms it now. But Todd didn't just get it wrong — he moralized about it. He turned bad information into a lecture. He shamed people for questioning what he was telling them, and what he was telling them was wrong.
So when Todd says Fauci invoking the Fifth Amendment was a "PR mistake" that "harmed the perception of public health," the question practically asks itself: what does Chuck Todd think his own broadcasting did to that perception? He spent years as the hall monitor of Covid orthodoxy. Every skeptic was a danger. Every question was misinformation. Every dissenter deserved shame.
Now the man at the center of that orthodoxy is pleading the Fifth in front of a Senate committee, and Todd's hot take is that it looks bad.
Yes, Chuck. It looks bad. You know what else looked bad? Telling millions of viewers something demonstrably untrue and then scolding anyone who noticed.
The media's Fauci problem isn't that he pleaded the Fifth. The media's Fauci problem is that they spent three years insisting he was beyond reproach, and now the receipts are coming due. Todd isn't breaking ranks because he suddenly developed journalistic integrity. He's doing triage. When the ship is going down, you don't defend the captain — you start swimming.
"I really think it harmed the perception of public health," Todd said about Fauci's Fifth Amendment plea.
The perception of public health was harmed long before Fauci raised his right hand. It was harmed every night at six o'clock, by people who read talking points and called it news.
