NBC News host Chuck Todd drew criticism after he read an op-ed on air that compared Bernie Sanders supporters to Nazi “brown shirts.”
"Hey I want to bring up something that Jonathan Last put in The Bulwark today. “We've all been on the receiving end of the Bernie online brigade—here's what he says: He says 'no other candidate has anything like this sort of digital brownshirt brigade. I mean, except for Donald Trump.'"
"I know everybody's freaking out about his, but you saw the MAGA rally that's prepared around here," Todd continued. "There are people coming from three or four states on that, that's real... This is like Bernie."
“The question no one is asking is this, what if you can’t win the presidency without an online mob?” he asked. “What if we live in a world where having a bullying agro social online army running around popping anyone who sticks their head up is either an important ingredient for, or a critical marker of, success?’”
Sanders team slams Todd:
“MSNBC seems very frightened that ordinary voters, many of whom use the Internet, may actually get to participate in deciding who wins the presidency ,” wrote Sanders adviser David Sirota.
“That's how our Jewish candidate's supporters are being described on the MSM. The contempt shown for ordinary people is really something,” wrote Sanders press secretary Briahna Joe Gray.
#FireChuckTodd trends:
The hashtag #FireChuckTodd quickly trended after he made the comment on Monday.
"As a fellow Jew who's aware half of Bernie's family was murdered in the holocuast, he knows better," wrote Democratic congressional candidate Jen Perelman. "We're not Nazis. God, the MSM makes me sick & we're just getting started."
"In addition to #FireChuckTodd -- #WhyDidYouHireChuckTodd?" questioned journalist Aaron Mate.
