Wednesday night, MSBNC host Chuck Todd took Rep. Alexandria Ocaiso-Cortez (D-NY) to task for likening detention facilities set up along the United States’ southern border to house asylum seekers waiting for hearing dates to Nazi concentration camps.
Hours later, Chuck Todd has paid a handsome price for his criticism.
As The Daily Wire’s Ryan Saavedra noted Wednesday evening, Todd appeared on MSNBC to correct Ocasio-Cortez and, in no uncertain terms, chastized the freshman congresswoman for downplaying the seriousness of the Holocaust in order to score political points on immigration.
“She just did the people there a tremendous disservice,” Todd said. “Be careful comparing them to Nazi concentration camps because they’re not at all comparable in the slightest.”
“She tried to make a distinction between concentration camps and Nazi death camps,” Todd continued. “But Congresswoman, tens of thousands were also brutalized, starved, and ultimately died in those concentration camps.”
Todd correctly noted that immigration detention facilities are “not at all comparable” to “Nazi concentration camps.”
“Some Democrats have been reluctant to condemn her remarks, they don’t want to get criticized on Twitter,” Todd added. “Why are we so sheepish calling out people we agree with politically these days?”
“[Ocasio-Cortez] said she didn’t use those words lightly,” Todd concluded. “Well, neither did I.”
“If you want to criticize the shameful treatment of people at our southern border, fine. You’ll have plenty of company. But be careful comparing them to Nazi concentration camps because they’re not at all comparable, in the slightest,” Todd said.
Ocasio-Cortez responded to Todd by claiming she never intended to compare border patrol detention camps to Nazi death camps, but her earlier comments and later retweets put that assertion into question. Ocasio-Cortez used the phrase “never again,” which is commonly associated with discussion of the Holocaust, and referred to President Donald Trump as a “fascist,” clearly implying that he was like Adolf Hitler. Ocasio-Cortez also cited some of her Congressional colleagues, including Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who substantiated Todd’s claim that Ocasio-Cortez was referring to camps like Auschwitz, and not mere caged-off holding facilities.
But if Todd was seeking to put an end to the “concentration camp” discussion, he failed utterly. Instead, Ocasio-Cortez’s defenders, who spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday explaining precisely how their pet politician was historically correct to both Ocasio-Cortez’s critics and accomplished Holocaust historians, turned their guns on Chuck Todd.
Oh @chucktodd ….this is so bad. Yet another person more upset by @aoc than by the detention camps themselves.
— Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports) June 19, 2019
The world could do with A WHOLE LOT LESS #ChuckTodd … the less the better.
— John Moffitt (@JohnRMoffitt) June 20, 2019
Clip is painful to watch. What is the point of @chucktodd?
— David Rothschild (@DavMicRot) June 19, 2019
A handful of critics accused Todd of carrying water for the Trump administration, a pastime Chuck Todd would, no doubt, be surprised to hear he engages in.
Anyone ELSE getting tired of Chuck Todd using @MSNBC to audition for trump’s open Press Secretary gig?
Seriously…this clown has destroyed the credibility of Meet The Press. https://t.co/QYmZIcfTJX
— BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) June 20, 2019
I could carve a better man than Chuck Todd out of a banana https://t.co/elGHGexh6O
— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) June 19, 2019
Some even blamed Todd for blocking solutions to totally random progressive issues apart from the detention of illegal immigrants at the southern border.
Chuck Todd’s comments are untimely and insensitive, they are concentration camps…he is in fact an apologist for this administration’s crimes….dont expect him to call out the apartheid perpetrated on the Palestinians either he’s to busy towing the corporate line! https://t.co/4eNKvOiD1q
— Pitt mommy (@pitt_mommy) June 20, 2019
Others just flat out accused Todd of enabling the coming genocide. Or something.
@chucktodd you seriously this eager of a TOOL for
Step 6 (propaganda turning the populace against non-whites —our lovely @AOC included)
AND
Step 7 (announced action to relocate 1,400 child prisoners to Fort Sill, a WWII internment facility)
That’s ONE STEP before massacres. pic.twitter.com/8Txx3yTn4Y
— Kim (@kim) June 20, 2019
Oddly enough, as Ocasio-Cortez has now designated three full days to defending her definition of “concentration camps,” legislators from both parties have been working on a temporary solution for the crisis conditions at the border. The Senate has at least two bills — both jointly authored by Republicans and Democrats — authorizing a temporary influx of around $4 billion to the Department of Homeland Security specifically for the care and feeding of asylum seekers.
Ocasio-Cortez has not noted any interest in a legislative solution to the matter, despite being in a prime position to author one. Instead, late Wednesday night, Ocasio-Cortez registered opposition to any further funding of DHS, meaning that, if she has her way, the border crisis will continue.