Kristin Welker Is The Chuck Todd Of Chuck Todd Replacements
Ugh.
Let’s address something real fast before it gets stale. Although, “Meet The Press” is on every week, so maybe this is always fresh, or maybe it’s always stale, as it were.
Kristin Welker is bad at her job. Yes, the person who was chosen to fill both sides of Chuck Todd’s clown shoes is, in fact, bad at it. Indeed, it’s remarkable to us how quickly our mind’s eye has changed, when we picture “lazy hack journalist,” how Welker has fully replaced Chuck Todd’s chipmunk-in-headlights-after-getting-hit-by-hickory-nut idiot face. But she’s done it.
YOU KNOW WHO SHUT THE FUCK UP? CHUCK TODD!
This weekend, Welker explained to us that Donald Trump allegedly tried to overturn the 2020 election. Allegedly. Clearly, she just didn’t want to get ahead of her skis and say something she couldn’t defend. As if we hadn’t all watched it happen right in front of us, over the course of months, on Twitter, in news reporting, on live TV on January 6 as the human genital warts who worship him scaled the walls of the Capitol at his urging, screaming “Hang Mike Pence!” in order to stop Vice President Mike Pence from allowing the electoral votes from the states to be counted.
Let’s watch this video of the journalist hard at work, shared by Aaron Rupar.
“ … Mister Trump’s claim that he’s immune from prosecution for ALLEGEDLY trying to overturn the 2020 election … “
Mister Trump. Allegedly.
That wasn’t an ad lib, it was on the teleprompter. Allegedly.
Rupar encourages us to watch that video juxtaposed with Welker’s breathless coverage of the garbage Robert Hur report, which we read in its entirety instead of having interns do it for us — allegedly — so we know firsthand what a pathetic, try-hard piece of shit it is. We know that Special Counsel Hur desperately wanted to charge President Joe Biden with a crime, but he couldn’t find evidence of one that would stand up in a court of law. We know how it reads like it was designed by scientists to snake directly up Fox News hosts’ butts and tickle their giggle spots, with its fluffy insinuations about Biden’s feeble brain, but utterly lacks empirical data.
We know how Hur was — reluctantly, it seemed — forced to explain at length why the crimes Trump is charged with (the document stealing crimes, not the allegedly election-stealing crimes) are far more serious than any pissant BS he could string together about Joe Biden.
When we wrote about that report, we wrote that “Oh, the both-sides-gasm is going to be messy. But her emails but her emails BUT JOE BIDEN’S DOCUMENTS SPLOOOOOOOOOOOOOGE.” To be completely 100 percent fair and truthful, we were thinking about Chuck Todd when we wrote that, because it’s easy to forget he’s gone to the Rainbow Bridge or whatever.
Ryan Goodman from Just Security compiled this thread on Welker’s coverage of the Hur report, starting with this screengrab:
What are the ellipses in that graphic hiding? How hard are they working? Goodman explains the context, before the words about Joe Biden “willfully retain[ing] and disclos[ing] classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen”:
Hur report says only "evidence" of that. Plus Hur says it was not sufficient evidence. Hur says he also found evidence that Biden did NOT do so, and Hur says he cannot refute innocent explanations.
Oh. Well yes, it does say that, as we also know, because we read it, using the noodle God gave us.
Goodman shows how “Meet The Press” claimed Biden had actively and willfully given classified information to his ghostwriter, next to screengrabs from the Hur report saying that “the evidence falls short of proving that Mr. Biden did so willfully.” That’s on page 245, but he includes receipts from pages 10 and 248 too. “The evidence does not show … “ “The evidence does not establish … “
“Meet The Press” did not fucking read.
Goodman also shared the interview from that week’s show Welker did with Mitch Landrieu, which was captured and tweeted by Rupar. Unbelievably, Welker said the report was “quite firm in the fact that [Biden] mishandled classified documents, he just wasn’t indicted and criminally charged.” At which point Landrieu cut her off completely. “No no no no no no no no, I’m not going to accept that premise.”
And he explained why, from a legal perspective and, really, from a journalistic perspective, because nobody else in the camera’s frame was doing that.
It went on:
WELKER: He did say that classified documents were mishandled, and he said that national security could have been jeopardized …
LANDRIEU: Yes, but Kristin, he didn’t say “national security,” no ma’am, I’m sorry, he didn’t say national security was compromised …
WELKER: He said it could have been! …
LANDRIEU: … But it was not. And the facts and the law suggested that the president was not engaged in criminal activity, to be distinguished between the former president, who right now has 91 felony counts pending against him, in four different cases, so let’s just keep the facts right, and let’s not make false comparisons between the two, which unfortunately people do a lot of these days.
If Mitch Landrieu is not busy could he please move into the television and sit at the bottom of “Meet The Press” and loudly say “THAT’S BULLSHIT” and explain why, every time Welker pulls a Chuck Todd?
Just kidding, we wouldn’t wish that on our worst enemy and we like Landrieu just fine.
Evan Hurst on Twitter right here.
@evanjosephhurst on Threads!
I have profiles those other places but I think I forgot how to log on.
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I'm old enough to remember when Lawrence Spivak hosted Meet The Press and he NEVER pulled punches on Republicans. When he left Bill Munro carried on that hard hitting tradition. But then Roger Mudd got the hosting job and Meet The Press slowly turned into Meet The Presstitute. Still remember how Mudd endlessly slimed Gary Hart in 1984. After Mudd left every host has been more of a GOP stenographer than the one before.
People still have a misplaced love for Tim Russert. I remember when Russert was one of the Four Horsemen demanding Clinton's removal from office over the stained blue dress along with Tweety Matthews, Maureen Dowd and Michael Kelly. All 4 of them endlessly trashed the Clintons and kissed Dumbya's ass.
Russert said he gladly accepted help from the GOP in setting up Democrats with his "gotcha" questions while he gave pass after pass to Republicans.
After Russert each succeeding host of Press the Meat has been even more of a GOP cheerleader.
Let’s remember that the PAB was found by a court of law (in Colorado) to be an insurrectionist. Not allegedly.
Also found by a court of law (in New York) to be a rapist. Not allegedly.
Also found by another court of law (in New York) to be a fraudster. Not allegedly.