On Sunday, Chuck Todd, moderator of Meet the Press, appeared on NBC’s Today to provide some political cover for Hillary Clinton following revelations that she used only a private email account while serving as Secretary of State.
Speaking to co-host Erica Hill, Todd maintained that this most recent controversy “doesn’t really hurt that much among Democrats. With the Clintons, some of this stuff is built in with Democrats. They've had transparency issues for decades and it's not something that has impacted their popularity over the years.”
After Todd did his best to downplay the impact Hillary’s email scandal may have among Democrats, the Meet the Press moderator played up how “candidate Obama used it effectively to defeat Hillary Clinton back in '07” but didn’t mention that his promise of having a transparent administration was a joke:
[T]hat comment by President Obama, that was not exactly a whole defense of what Secretary Clinton did. He was basically saying, well I'm going to praise her time here, I'm glad she's disclosing everything she's doing. But notice he didn't judge the decision to have this private email server, which I am convinced that had they asked for permission for it, it wouldn't have been granted by the Obama administration.
While Todd did concede that the “investigations are going to be active and I think it's going to be a thorn in her side all through until November of 2016” but nowhere in his analysis did he find it disturbing that the Clintons’ history of transparency problems was so easily accepted among Democrats. Instead, he did his best to promote the idea that among Democrats the email scandal was not so scandalous after all.
See relevant transcript below.
NBC’s Today
March 8, 2015
ERICA HILL: President Obama speaking now this weekend about that email scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton. Take a listen.
BARACK OBAMA: Hillary Clinton is and has been an outstanding public servant. She was a great Secretary of State for me. The policy of my administration is to encourage transparency.
HILL: Chuck Todd is moderator of Meet the Press and joins us this morning. Chuck, good morning.
CHUCK TODD: Good morning Erica.
HILL: So the president was asked about the emails there. He addressed the situation. Hillary Clinton was at a Clinton Global Initiative event over the weekend and did not address the emails at all. As we hear this, though, and you see what the president said, how is it that someone as Secretary of State for four years and no one notices she's using a different private email, not a government-issued email? Has that been tackled in Washington at this point?
TODD: You know, and I actually talked to a whole bunch of Obama officials from that first year in 2009 and I asked them, did you guys get any heads up? Did you know she was setting up a private email system? This is not about a private email account and that’s what people need to realize. It’s not about having a Yahoo.com or Gmail account. They set up an entire private email system. And it appears to be the only motivation is to control the disclosure process. So they followed the letter of the law, but did they follow the spirit?
And what I found remarkable Erica in that comment by President Obama, that was not exactly a whole defense of what Secretary Clinton did. He was basically saying, well I'm going to praise her time here, I'm glad she's disclosing everything she's doing. But notice he didn't judge the decision to have this private email server, which I am convinced that had they asked for permission for it, it wouldn't have been granted by the Obama administration.
HILL: So then moving forward, how does this affect potential presidential aspirations?
TODD: Well, look I think it doesn’t really hurt that much among Democrats. With the Clintons, some of this stuff is built in with Democrats. They've had transparency issues for decades and it's not something that has impacted their popularity over the years. Though I could argue candidate Obama used it effectively to defeat Hillary Clinton back in '07. But where this has an impact, Erica is that Republicans on Capitol Hill feel vindicated and they’re going to keep going. These investigations are going to be active and I think it's going to be a thorn in her side all through until November of 2016.
