A conversation between Chuck Todd and Jason Miller nearly collapsed on Wednesday after the Meet the Press host and the Trump campaign senior adviser battled over President Donald Trump’s debate performance.
As Miller slammed former Vice President Joe Biden on MSNBC for his “weak words” condemning Antifa, Todd pointed out that Trump is facing major criticism for his failure to explicitly condemn white supremacists. Todd further noted that Trump has so far declined to offer any kind of clarification for his remarks, even as his allies claim the president misspoke.
“He’s refusing to say anything,” Todd said, “and it sounds like the public should take that for what it’s worth.”
From there, Miller went on a rapid-fire, out of context rant to attack Biden over his history with issues pertaining to race. He started by attacking Biden for eulogizing Robert Byrd (D-WV), making sure to highlight that the late senator was a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, but saying nothing of the fact Byrd apologized for that and disavowed the organization decades before his death.
As Miller went on, Todd offered an exasperated “are you really going down this road?” The two of them continued to clash over Trump’s tepid remarks about racism on the debate stage, and as Miller accused Todd of throwing a lifeline to Biden, Todd scoffed “Stop with this. You know you’re making
“You know what you’re doing, you’re taking things purposefully out of context to try to somehow equalize what the president did,” Todd continued. Redirecting himself towards Trump’s inability to condemn racists, Todd added “this is not an accident anymore, this is called a pattern.”
After the interview continued to gravitate around Trump’s engagement with African Americans, Miller went on to claim Trump emerged from the debate as “a dominant force” while Biden was reduced to “a swamp creature” and a “grifter.”
“The idea that President Trump accuses anybody else of being a grifter is something else with those tax returns,” Todd snarked back.
Watch above, via MSNBC.