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Chuck Todd under fire for ‘aiding and abetting’ Antifa

August 22, 2017 | | Print Article

NBC’s Chuck Todd was accused of “aiding and abetting” violent leftists by giving an Antifa sympathizer a platform on the air.

Todd came under heavy fire for his “softball” treatment of the radical anti-fascist group on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” following a similar stance on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily” last week. Todd introduced a debate about the group’s use of violence to shut down free speech.

Dartmouth Professor and Antifa supporter, Mark Bray,  justified the group’s “self-defense” tactics as a “legitimate response to white supremacist and neo-Nazi violence.”

Todd excused the group as “a far-left political movement that argues it’s necessary to confront hate groups sometimes with force,” completely downplaying and ignoring the assaults on police officers, Trump supporters and, most recently,clashing with “Unite the Right” rally goers in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“You seem to be a very small minority here who is defending the idea of violence, considering that somebody died in Charlottesville. Why do you defend confronting in a violent way,” Todd asked Bray. He did not push back against the group’s definition of fascist or how violence is justified to shut down the free speech of anyone who disagrees with them.

Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center, slammed Todd for giving Bray and the violent group a platform – twice.

“Violent leftists have broken into the mainstream and Chuck Todd is guilty of aiding and abetting. It is abhorrent that NBC and Todd believe it acceptable to normalize extremist groups like Antifa which use terror to silence their opposition,” Bozell said in a tweet Monday.

Todd had the chance to “correct his mistake” after the weekday show, Bozell said, but pointed out that Todd “chose to again allow a radical to promote domestic terrorism with little push back.”

The conservative media watchdog called on NBC to ” cease giving legitimacy to supporters of this violent left-wing movement immediately.”

Todd’s other guest on Sunday, Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, did note the group’s violent tactics and pointed to the First Amendment.

“I think it’s a spectacularly bad idea to give one group of people the right to silence another group of people,” he explained.. “It’s contrary to our values embodied in the First Amendment. It’s likely to drive the people who are trying to censor underground where they may resort to illegal means to express themselves like bombs.”

“There’s a big difference between confronting fascism and confronting other forms of violence,” Bray responded, and continued mostly unchecked by Todd for the rest of the segment.

Todd never did mention the violence and chaos perpetrated by the group which, earlier this year in Berkeley, Calif., prompted the cancellation of an appearance by former Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos. During Saturday’s “Boston Free Speech Rally,” an Antifa thug dragged an elderly woman when he grabbed the flag she was holding.

Twitter users blasted Todd for his lack of a spine, and obvious bias, during his segments on the radical leftist group.

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Frieda Powers
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