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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
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Former NBC “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd said on Friday that Democratic leaders Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer appeared to be acting “paralyzed” due to divisions between two distinct wings of the party.
“Jeffries and Schumer are acting paralyzed because they have two different constituencies. They have ones who are worried about a left-wing tea party, and they should be worried about that, because I do think this anger inside the base is real,” Todd said during an appearance on CNN.
Todd recently left NBC News after several years as the moderator of “Meet the Press.” He now hosts a podcast titled “The Chuck Toddcast.” On the panel, they discussed the Democratic response and the protests that occurred during President Donald Trump’s address to Congress.
“Then you have others who are like, hey, I won, and Trump carried my state. So I’ve got to do this. So, I think that’s why Jeffries and Schumer come across as paralyzed because they’re trying to placate a coalition party that doesn’t know which direction to go to,” Todd continued.
“This really they should be having a loud argument the way Bill Clinton and Jesse Jackson did in 1989 and 1990 after a thrashing in 1988 where Republicans won,” Todd said. “And the problem is, the Democrats right now are afraid of having a public debate because they don’t want to help out Trump, but I do think it’s stifling their ability to figure out what to do next.”
Republican strategist Brad Todd stated that for Democrats to regain control of the House, they needed to win over Trump voters.
“Democrats can’t take the House unless they appeal to people who voted for Donald Trump. That‘s their challenge,” Todd said, according to Fox News.
During a recent podcast interview, Todd described former President Joe Biden as a “craven political animal.” In his Sunday appearance on Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt’s podcast “The Warning,” Todd explored the reasons behind the Democrats’ loss in the 2024 election and examined what he sees as the media’s relationship with the second Trump administration.
“You know, Joe Biden never should have been there in the first place, right? Number one, he shouldn’t have run for president [in 2020],” Todd remarked.
“I completely got so angry at Joe Biden, the man, when I read the transcript of the Hunter Biden trial, and when I realized that not one, not two, but three Biden children, and I count Beau’s widow, were all dealing with drug problems in 2018. And Joe Biden said, ‘Now’s a perfect time to run for president, because who cares about our family?’”
“I have to tell you something about Joe Biden. There’s this mythology about Joe Biden, that the man cared so much, it’s all bulls—,” he continued.
Todd said Biden had “created this myth,” over his 40-year career, that he was an “incredible family man.”
Ironically, Todd regularly defended Biden — and most Democrats — during the former president’s term and throughout his career in journalism.
Last month, meanwhile, a former official in Biden’s administration admitted that he and others “gaslit” the American people about the condition of the elderly leader, practically throughout the duration of his term.
Michael LaRosa, who served as the press secretary to former first lady Jill Biden, spoke to Puck reporter Tara Palmeri at the Sine Institute of Policy and Politics at American University, where he admitted to the efforts they took to protect the former president from the media spotlight.
He said that they had been aware of Biden’s cognitive issues from “Day One” and also admitted that they downplayed his crash in the polls.
“There are some things that are true. I mean, like the gaslighting, there was a lot of denial of the polling. And I will use the term gaslight because that’s what they were doing, the campaign, former colleagues,” he said.