Chuck Todd Attempts To Explain Why He Believes There Was No ‘Cover -Up’ Of Biden’s Fading Health

Former NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd offered an explanation during a Friday podcast for why he believes former President Joe Biden’s White House did not intentionally conceal his decline.

Todd, on “Matt Lewis Can’t Lose,” cited Chris Whipple’s new book, “The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House” and suggested he agreed with the book’s conclusion that there was no deliberate Biden “cover-up.” He said he believed Biden’s aides were unaware of his decline due to “benign ignorance” and “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” (RELATED: Kamala Campaign’s Latest Reported Scapegoat For Failure: Her Chair Height)

WATCH:

“You know how you read something and you’re like, that feels more accurate than anything I’ve heard? [What] Whipple says is: look, there was no Parkinson’s diagnosis that was covered up, right?” Todd said. “This is not — people want to [ask], ‘Is it a cover-up?’ And the answer was: it’s not necessarily a cover-up. What it was, was sort of benign ignorance. In that, everybody could claim, ‘Well, my interactions with him — he’s still the same guy,’ right?”

“And a combination of that and Trump’s behavior made them not see how damaging Biden might be to the public. Because they were comparing it — well, hey, yeah, we’ve got the forgetful guy, but Trump, right?” he continued. “There was always this ‘but Trump.’ And the way Whipple seems to characterize it is that it was discounted because of the Trump discount, right? Essentially, right?”

Todd also speculated that Biden’s decline might have been more apparent to his staff if he had faced off against former Republican South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley rather than Trump.

“If you’re 80 years old and you’re standing next to an 80-year-old, you think you look pretty good in the mirror,” he said. “You’re 80 years old and you’re standing next to a 50-year-old and you suddenly go, ‘Who’s the old guy standing next to the 50-year-old,’ right? And that, I think, contributed to the benign ignorance on this story.”

“Yes, everybody could see that Biden was slowing down, but it didn’t seem like a threat because the candidate on the other side was Donald Trump,” he continued. “And this is where a version of Trump Derangement Syndrome may have impacted the clear thinking of Biden’s behavior and potential performance.”

Todd also asserted on “Piers Morgan Uncensored” Wednesday that legacy media outlets deliberately softened coverage of Biden’s decline to avoid appearing pro-Trump.

“The only thing I can chalk it up to is this, whatever you want to call it, this fear that some members of the media had sometimes — that they would be perceived as helping Trump if they somehow diminished Biden,” he said. “Right? That it was some sort of zero-sum game. And I think this has been the fundamental mistake that many members of the traditional press have done.”

Corporate media spent years dismissing voters’ and Republicans’ worries about Biden’s mental acuity until his calamitous June 2024 debate against Trump. 

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.