‘Don’t Gaslight Us!’ Chuck Todd and GOP Sen. Kennedy Go Off in Wild Clash Over Ukraine, Trump, Biden

Chuck Todd and GOP Senator John Kennedy got into a heated back-and-forth this afternoon on the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump and the Ukraine call at the center of this huge controversy.

Kennedy expressed concern about releasing the transcript of the call before arguing, “Guy robs a bank. On the way to jail, the cops beat the living hades out of him. The cops should be investigated. Should you beat a criminal suspect? No. Should there be investigations? Yes. But you also have to go investigate the alleged bank robbery.”

He called for investigations into both the whistleblower complaint and into Hunter Biden.

“It’s hard to believe the concern about Hunter Biden by some of these folks making this case,” Todd responded. “If they were so serious about this, I’m trying to figure out why nobody from the FBI has been contacted. Not a single person. I don’t understand why Rudy Giuliani thinks it’s better to investigate an American and outsource it to a country that apparently they also didn’t trust? Do you see why I’m skeptical that the Hunter Biden stuff is really that serious? If they were serious about it, you go to the FBI, you don’t go to an oligarch in Ukraine.”

Kennedy argued that they don’t know the FBI wasn’t contacted. Todd countered that if there was an investigation, the White House might be saying so publicly.

Todd said plenty of people have looked into the Biden allegations and haven’t found anything there.

“Who has?” Kennedy asked. “Who’s looked into it, Chuck?… Has MSNBC looked into it?”

Todd said, “You realize you’re looking for outcome, not the facts. There have been four or five different entities that have found nothing here.”

“Maybe you’re right, maybe there’s magical missing information here,” he continued. “But at some point, do you not accept all of these entities looking into it to have found the answer?”

As they kept going back and forth, Kennedy said, “You’re wrong, this hasn’t been investigated! Just because you think that the — I’m not alleging the vice president did anything wrong. But I’m just telling you the American people are looking at this and going, ‘Okay, um, Mr. Biden…'”

Todd asked what that has to do with Trump pressuring another world leader over it. “Because it has to do with Ukrainian corruption, which is what all of this is about,” Kennedy said.

“I am trying to be fair here,” Todd said, “but you can’t gaslight us, sir. Don’t gaslight us!”

“I’m not gaslighting you. I’m telling you the facts,” Kennedy shot back. Do you deny those facts, do you think they got Hunter Biden’s name off ZipRecruiter? I don’t! I don’t think the American people do. I’m not alleging impropriety. I’m saying we need to look into it!”

“The President of the United States is the one who violated the Constitution, perhaps, not Hunter Biden,” Todd said.

“‘Perhaps’ is the operative term, because you don’t know and I don’t know because we haven’t seen the transcript, Chuck,” Kennedy responded.

“Do you know all the financial affairs of all of your children?” Todd asked. “Do you think he tells you everything he does in his business life?”

Kennedy told him, “Chuck, you’re a fair guy. If you’re going to be fair here, you’re going to have to investigate everybody. The president and the former vice president.”

You can watch above, via MSNBC.

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