On Thursday’s MTP Daily, MSNBC anchor Chuck Todd falsely sneered that President Trump was “making up” a story about military absentee ballots cast for him being thrown in the trash by election officials in Pennsylvania. Todd even accused the President of “gaslighting the country.” However, on Friday morning, NBC’s Today show reported that the story was not only completely true but being investigated by the Justice Department.
At the top of his 1:00 p.m. ET hour MSNBC show on Thursday, Todd played a soundbite of Trump breaking news about the trashed ballots: “They found six ballots in an office yesterday in a garbage can, they were Trump ballots – eight ballots in an office yesterday in a certain state. And they were – they had Trump written on it, and they were thrown in a garbage can.”
Immediately following the clip, Todd launched into a partisan rant free of facts:
Look, we followed up. We tried to see this evidence. What the President claimed there was alarming, wasn’t it? We should note, when we asked the White House for information to back up this claim about Trump votes being thrown in the trash, they sent us a report that did not back up his claims one bit. He’s making this up, folks. He’s gaslighting the country.
After that false declaration, Todd’s NBC colleagues on Friday’s Today show admitted that what Trump said was true, with correspondent Garrett Haake telling viewers:
Meantime this morning, new details on a Justice Department investigation into potential mail-in ballot fraud in Pennsylvania, stemming from nine military member ballots in Luzerne County that had been discarded. Investigators finding the ballots had been improperly opened by the election staff. Seven of the nine ballots were cast for President Trump.
However, the reporter then immediately tried to dismiss the clear example of voting irregularity:
Election staffers say they opened the ballots by mistake because the envelopes looked similar to those used for absentee ballot requests. The President using the investigation to take aim at the process....The announcement of a federal investigation with partial details this close to an election is, in and of itself, unusual. But so far that investigation is indicating that this was a single isolated mistake and not the kind of widespread fraud the President sometimes talks about.
Appearing on CBS This Morning, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows brought up the Pennsylvania case: “We now know that we have a Department of Justice investigation into ballots that were discarded from veterans in Pennsylvania. That’s very troubling. Anyone who sends in a ballot, to find them discarded.”
Co-host Anthony Mason rushed to brush aside the disturbing incident: “The case in Pennsylvania you referred to involves just nine ballots. And according to the Department of Justice, they did not specify any particular crime or allege any wrongdoing at this point.” Meadows called out the attempt to downplay the problem: “Well, to suggest that an investigation that just got going in the last 24 hours has not found any wrongdoing would be a rush to judgment that you wouldn’t want to make, I wouldn’t want to make.”
ABC’s Good Morning America showed what it thought of the story by ignoring it completely.
It’s interesting that any story that goes against the leftist media narrative is immediately disregarded and deemed irrelevant. Todd was so deep in the tank for Democrats that he preemptively called the President a liar, even as the anchor himself lied to his viewers.
Todd’s phony MSNBC tirade on Thursday was brought to viewers by Uber Eats, the coverage on NBC’s Today show on Friday was brought to viewers by Verizon, the coverage on CBS This Morning was brought to viewers by Toyota. You can fight back by letting these advertisers know what you think of them sponsoring such content.
Here is a transcript of Todd on September 24:
1:04 PM ET
(...)
DONALD TRUMP: They found six ballots in an office yesterday in a garbage can, they were Trump ballots – eight ballots in an office yesterday in a certain state. And they were – they had Trump written on it, and they were thrown in a garbage can. This is what’s going to happen. This is what’s going to happen. And we’re investigating that. It’s a terrible thing that’s going on with these ballots. Who’s sending them? Where are they sending them? Where are they going? What areas are they going to? What areas are they not going to? You know, when they get there, who’s going to take care of them? So when we find eight ballots, that’s emblematic of thousands of locations, perhaps.
CHUCK TODD: Look, we followed up. We tried to see this evidence. What the President claimed there was alarming, wasn’t it? We should note, when we asked the White House for information to back up this claim about Trump votes being thrown in the trash, they sent us a report that did not back up his claims one bit. He’s making this up, folks. He’s gaslighting the country.
(...)
Here is a transcript of Haake on NBC’s September 25 Today show:
7:11 AM ET
(...)
GARRETT HAAKE: Meantime this morning, new details on a Justice Department investigation into potential mail-in ballot fraud in Pennsylvania, stemming from nine military member ballots in Luzerne County that had been discarded. Investigators finding the ballots had been improperly opened by the election staff. Seven of the nine ballots were cast for President Trump. Election staffers say they opened the ballots by mistake because the envelopes looked similar to those used for absentee ballot requests. The President using the investigation to take aim at the process.
DONALD TRUMP: So we have to be very careful with the ballots. The ballots, that’s a whole big scam.
HAAKE: The announcement of a federal investigation with partial details this close to an election is, in and of itself, unusual. But so far that investigation is indicating that this was a single isolated mistake and not the kind of widespread fraud the President sometimes talks about.
(...)
Here is a transcript of the September 25 exchange between Mason and Meadows on CBS This Morning:
7:11 AM ET
(...)
ANTHONY MASON: I want to start, as Ben [Tracy] reported in his piece, the President said again that he’s not sure this election can be honest. Why does the President refuse to commit to a peaceful transfer of power?
MARK MEADOWS: Well, I think he commits to a peaceful transfer as long as it’s a fair election. And I think that even the lead-up into this was talking about that very subject. We now know that we have a Department of Justice investigation into ballots that were discarded from veterans in Pennsylvania. That’s very troubling. Anyone who sends in a ballot, to find them discarded. What we want to make sure is that every vote counts. But that only the vote from one voter to the ballot box is what gets counted, and nothing less, nothing more. And so that’s what he’s referring to, that’s what we’re committed to. We’re seeing some very problematic rulings by judges in certain states across the country. Hopefully we’ll be able to make sure that this election goes off like every other election and that the winner on November 3rd will certainly be the new president, sworn in on January 20th.
MASON: The case in Pennsylvania you referred to involves just nine ballots. And according to the Department of Justice, they did not specify any particular crime or allege any wrongdoing at this point. But the President continues to say the November elections will be rigged. What evidence, if any, does he have, and what does the White House plan to do about it?
MEADOWS: Well, to suggest that an investigation that just got going in the last 24 hours has not found any wrongdoing would be a rush to judgment that you wouldn’t want to make, I wouldn’t want to make. But we have reports – we have reports from The Washington Post during the primary of over 500,000 ballots that were problematic in the primaries. And so that’s a substantially larger number that we look at. Should we allow votes to come in and be counted a week after November 3rd? I don’t believe so. That’s what we’re talking about. Let’s make sure that the systems that we’ve had in place for decades, indeed centuries, are the same systems we have in place now. But we have activist judges trying to change the election laws, and those are not going through the legislature. That’s very problematic for the American people. Very problematic for the President.
(...)
