NBC’s Chuck Todd: ‘The Presidential Race Is Over’

Chuck Todd, political director of NBC News, reported during Saturday’s broadcast of NBC Nightly News that the presidential race is “over,” that Donald Trump has lost to Hillary Clinton, and the Republican Party can only minimize the damage at best.

Todd cited Republicans to whom he had spoken.

“Right now you have every Republican now deciding it’s every Republican for themselves,” Todd said — adding, somewhat contradictorily, “It’s ‘save the party.’ It’s ‘save the Senate majority and the House majority.'”

He continued: “Every Republican I’ve talked to that isn’t in Trump Tower has essentially said the presidential race is over.”

Todd also told the Today show that Trump’s comments about groping women — recorded surreptitiously on a live mic in 2005 as he joked with Access Hollywood anchor Billy Bush — are unrecoverable, and could destroy the entire Republican Party.

At no point did Todd cite polling data to support his claims, which appeared to be his own analysis, reported at the top of the news hour. On MSNBC earlier in the day, Todd had also opined that the GOP nominee had “lost the moral authority to lead.”

Todd did not compare Trump’s words, for which the candidate apologized twice on Friday, to Bill Clinton’s conduct in office, which Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has been accused of enabling by attacking women who accused him.

Several prominent Republicans distanced themselves from Trump, and others withdrew their support, perhaps having in mind the controversy over comments by Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) in 2012, who fumbled a question about abortion by talking about what he called “legitimate rape.”

Democrats linked Akin to every Republican in races across the country, using women’s outrage to help defeat Republican nominee Mitt Romney and hold a majority in the Senate.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, is available from Regnery through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.