Chuck Todd dug out an 11-month-old letter to the editor of Kentucky’s Lexington Herald Leader to support claims that Trump voters wanted to be lied to.
Todd read the letter, originally published in January 2019, during a panel discussion on the role of the media during Sunday’s “Meet the Press.” (RELATED: MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt Claims Electing A Woman Would Fix ‘Character’ Issues In Politics)
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Speaking with the New York Times’ Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron, Todd argued that the press had a responsibility to tell the hard truths even when that meant that voters didn’t like them as much as they liked politicians who lied to make them feel more comfortable.
“I want to read you guys a letter to the editor we found in the Lexington Herald Leader. It was a fascinating attempt to kind of explain why some people support President Trump,” Todd began. “‘Why do good people support Trump? It’s because people have been trained from childhood to believe in fairy tales. This set their minds up to accept things that make them feel good … the more fairy tales and lies he tells, the better they feel. Show me a person that believes in Noah’s Ark, I will show you a Trump voter.'”
Todd went on with his own assessment, adding, “My executive producers like to say that voters want to be lied to sometimes. They don’t always love being told hard truths.”
“You know, I’m not quite sure I buy that,” Baquet replied, saying he believes that people don’t want to be lied to so much as they want to not hear things that make them uncomfortable. “I think people want to be comforted and I think bad politician sometimes say comforting things to them. And our job is to jump into the breach and to jump into those conversations to do the deep reporting to say, look, I’m sorry, what I have to say may be uncomfortable. But that thing you just heard that made you feel good is a lie. And I think that’s our job.”