Chuck Todd to Kellyanne Conway: Criticising MSM a ‘Knee-jerk’ ‘Crutch’
Eight Years Ago, MSM was ‘Debating Just How Cool Barack Obama Is’
Much of the commentary about Kellyanne Conway’s Meet the Press appearance this morning has focused on her criticism of the prospect of Mitt Romney as Secretary of State. We’ll discuss that in a “Note” below but would like to highlight a striking statement by Chuck Todd that immediately preceded the Romney discussion.
Todd was grilling Conway over potential conflicts between Trump’s business interests and his role as president. Conway eventually had enough, and observed “I went back and looked at what all the press clips and the conversations on shows like this eight years ago. It was basically debating just how cool Barack Obama is. . . . if we’re not going to do that about President-elect Trump, we should at the very least trust him to do the right thing and comply with the law here.”
A visibly annoyed Todd shot back: “I understand. Every knee-jerk pushback is going to be to blame the media. It’s a crutch. I get it. And I’m used to it. But it’s not the fact.”
Note: I’ve been a big fan of Conway’s performance as campaign manager, among other things writing at LI that I’d be disappointed if she weren’t named White House press secretary. But I think she has been out of bounds with her public criticism of Romney, which continued on today’s Meet the Press.
Conway prefaced her barrage against Mitt by claiming “I’m just a concerned citizen.” That’s simply not so. Conway serves as a senior adviser to the President-elect. By openly campaigning against Romney, she undermines Trump’s ability to make the choice he feels is best for the country. Conway criticizes Romney’s lack of loyalty, but here it is Conway herself who is being less than loyal to Trump.
KELLYANNE CONWAY: I went back and looked at what all the press clips and the conversations on shows like this eight years ago. It was basically debating just how cool Barack Obama is. So we should at least, if we’re not going to do that about President-elect Trump, we should at the very least trust him to do the right thing and comply with the law here.
CHUCK TODD: I understand. Every knee-jerk pushback is going to be to blame the media. It’s a crutch. I get it. And I’m used to it. But it’s not the fact.
CONWAY: Not by me. Not by me. That’s not fair.
TODD: Let me ask you this. Why are you campaigning against Mitt Romney as Secretary of State?
CONWAY: I’m not campaigning against anyone. I’m just a concerned citizen.
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Comments
“Conway herself who is being less than loyal to Trump.”
I’m not seeing evidence of this from the passage you quoted: “I went back and looked… I’m just a concerned citizen.”
Where are you getting the “less than loyal” line from?
If Conway is criticizing Romney on orders from Trump, then of course she is not being disloyal. But that would be very strange–a President-elect sending a spokesman out to undermine someone he is considering for a top post.
If in fact Conway is freelancing, doing this on her own, then it is disloyal. It makes life more difficult for Trump to pick the person he thinks is best for the country. And if Trump were ultimately to pick Romney, Trump and Romney would be hit with the uncomfortable quotes from Conway.
Humorous. Conway and Trump are the only ones you should be listening to. My guess is Trump is using Conway to put out info and see what the reaction is. She is not freelancing. She was one of the major reason he won. She knows how to take the rough edges off. The play is to get Romney to withdraw.
On Romney.
I believe he might do a good, job but he would be the number one loose screw in the administration.
Costing Trump in energy he doesn’t need to wate. IOW more trouble then he is worth.
My suspicion is that the whole thing is a set up letting Romney think he is a candidate, then “well sorry Mitt but the social media reaction is just so negative.”
Conway wouldn’t be speaking on her own because if she is, then that’d be Exhibit no. 1 that Trump doesn’t have control. Knowing the man from the campaign, that couldn’t be so.
She’s out there at his behest. Romney deserves to be humiliated. If he keeps coming back for more, then DJT is gonna give it to him. He earned the name “Mittens” because he wouldn’t fight, fire in the belly style. He wouldn’t fight for his own cause in 1994 (when he had Ted Kennedy on the ropes and wouldn’t go in for the kill); he wouldn’t fight in 2012 (and there were oodles of issues he could have attack Obama on). And as governor of MA he gave the state Romneycare, the forerunner of Obamacare. In Mittens we have a super RINO.
So if he wouldn’t fight for himself, how could we, especially Trump, expect him to fight on behalf of and champion another man’s vision concerning the place of the USA in the world?
Todd shot back: “I understand. Every knee-jerk pushback is going to be to blame the media. It’s a crutch. I get it. And I’m used to it. But it’s not the fact.”
They still don’t get it. And notice how we’ve gone from arguing against the MSM narrative to simply sharing it for the entertainment value?
The MSM is like a meth addict blowing through his kid’s college savings and insisting he doesn’t have a problem.
On her knee-jerk reaction: her knee should have jerked into Todd’s groin – then she should have left.
Why even bother going on these stupid “shows,” when all they are, are propaganda traps?
Also, I really wish Team Trump would just sideline the MSM. Why even appear on sites like NBC or CNN?
Hmmmmm…..maybe Team Trump is just playing the media to toy with Romney – two birds, one stone.
While I am concerned about conflicts of interest, I realize that Trump has what is the most complex financial infrastructure of any PE. It is going to take a while to reduce it.
I also noticed a meme on going all shows … Trump is walking back everything he said.
For example, everyone is talking about how he is not going to repeal all of Obamacare. Well fine. I think it’s a horrendous system, but in that mismash of crap there is at least 1% that is good. If Trump keeps that 1% I’m fine with it.
Rod, every President since George Washington (who certainly didn’t give up selling his crops to foreign buyers) has had outside business interests. The Emoluments Clause has NEVER been invoked. The general consensus has been that appointed officials (like SecState) were subject to it, but not elected.
How do you know Trump isn’t okay with Kellyanne’s attacks on Romney? I think Trump is toying with Romney. He wants Mittens the Rat to think he has a chance, maybe even get him to publicly apologize to Trump and then Trump says: “Sorry, you are too hated by the base, say hello to SOS Giuliani.” LOL.
Chuck Today: “Every knee-jerk pushback is going to be to blame the media. It’s a crutch. I get it. And I’m used to it. But it’s not the fact.”
Chuck Yesterday: “And that`s where I think all of this fake news stuff, and it`s a problem.”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/11/19/chuck_todd_discusses_the_fight_against_fake_news_were_in_the_post-truth_era.html
My takeaway is always how these people think they are so vital and important. Their arrogance and vanity has blinded them. It’s a good lesson in why we should avoid corruption – it’s handicapping.
Talk about a knee-jerk reaction.
Point of order: If every time somebody criticizes you, your first reaction is to blame somebody other than yourself, preferably the person who is criticizing you, this is a blinking red light on your dashboard of sanity.
The press seems to have put a piece of electrical tape over that indicator. And most of Congress. And the exiting president. And Hillary.
JournoLism was on trial. The People ruled against the Fourth Estate. Unresolved, undeclared conflicts of interest as charged. Prejudiced, partisan as charged.
We have gone from a tingling leg to a jerking knee.
After living through this campaign and the election results, I am not going to make any comments on what or why Trump is doing or saying anything. Conway is also in that category for me. None of us has any idea what is going on behind the scenes and to make comments on their “Expected” actions is like arguing about a football game before it is played. I hope Trump keeps his word and does the things he promised before the election. That’s all I can do for now. If he doesn’t then we all must face the fact that anyone who runs for that office is a phoney and a liar.
Heh.
She’s the best.
More here, “Kellyanne Conway Unloads on Mitt Romney — Trump Supporters ‘Feel Betrayed’ (VIDEO).”
Chuck, get used to it buttercup! Oh, and be happy anyone still cares enough about the enemedia to criticize it because a couple of years from now, the enemedia will be completely irrelevant.
Todd was one of the Democrat hacks exposed in Wikileaks. Kellyanne should avoid all Dem operatives who made the collaboration list. Showing up only helps them justify their paychecks.
Conway’s criticisms of Romney are just silly. A string of irrelevancies.
So … why is she feeding them to the press? It all makes her look idiotic. The press, of course, already looks idiotic, so no gain there.
Trial balloons for Trump? I doubt it; they’re just too goofy. It’s hard to believe that Trump thinks any of that crap is of any relevance to the SecState job. The press may think it’s important. But so what? We can count on the press to come up with its own list of low-info irrelevancies if it wants to attack Romney.
Very puzzling.
CHUCK TODD: I understand. Every knee-jerk pushback is going to be to blame the media. It’s a crutch. I get it. And I’m used to it. But it’s not the fact.
No, F. Chuck Todd, it goes right over your head. Keep it up though, your eroded trust will be ever more evident to those that the scales are starting to fall from their eyes.
I could be totally wrong about Kellyann Conway. But, the only reason that I can think for Trump to allow her to criticize his actions and positions is because she is serving as a sounding board. She puts these controversial notions out in the open and allows the press to snatch them up and run with them. Then, Trump and his advisers sit back and watch the reaction among his base, the Republicans and his enemies and makes a determination on that policy based upon those reactions. And, she is the perfect shill because she carries off the ditzy blond spokes model character perfectly. It’s sort of like watching “Legally Blond Goes To The White House”. She dangles the bait in front of the least intelligent members of the media and they jump for like a starving mackerel.
Now, I probably shouldn’t blow her cover, but I really do not think that the media is smart enough, at the moment, to believe this or act upon it. I find it very unlikely that Miss Conway is a vacuous as she appears in her interviews. I also find it very hard to believe that Trump would retain her if she was. So, when Kellyann says anything, ignore the fishing pole in her hand and the string attached to the bait. The MSM will.
In the case of Romney, the idea of Romney as SecState was floated to gauge the reacting to it. Now, the Trump organization is systematically undermining any chance of a Romney nomination for SecState. And, the harder the MSM and the Dems push for a Romney appointment, the more they make the case for Trump NOT to appoint him.