Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel criticized Chuck Todd of NBC News and called him a Democratic activist after the “Meet the Press” presenter asked him if President Trump is “afraid” of upsetting Vladimir Putin because of Russia’s electoral interference in 2016.
“Do you think the president is afraid of angering Putin, because maybe Putin helped him win the election? And he doesn’t want to make him angry by 2020?” Todd asked former national security adviser John Bolton on Sunday.
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“I honestly don’t think there’s any evidence of that,” Bolton replied.
Special Adviser Robert Mueller ended his yearlong investigation in Russia into whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials during the 2016 election without finding evidence last year. Many of Todd’s colleagues, like Rachel Maddow, had spent years pushing the theory.
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Todd was criticized on social media for implying that Putin helped Trump, and wants him to do it again in November.
“Completely embarrassing for NBC’s Chuck Todd,” wrote GOP Rapid Response Director Steve Guest.
“This is not journalism, it is Democratic Party activism,” McDaniel captioned a clip of the question.
Sunday’s question was not the first time that Todd was accused of anti-Republican bias. Earlier this year, he offered an on-air apology after he faced criticism for what was described as a deceptively edited clip by Attorney General William Barr about his defense of the Justice Department’s push to drop the case against the former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
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Todd was also criticized last year for saying Republicans have “an incentive structure to pronounce the wrong information” related to Russia in a Rolling Stone press interview that upset critics on both sides of the aisle.
Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
