WH’s Peter Navarro, NBC’s Chuck Todd Battle Over Washington Post — ‘Fake News Most of the Time’

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Chuck Todd got into a heated exchange with White House trade adviser Peter Navarro while discussing a Washington Post report on White House chief of staff John Kelly.

Todd asked, “Have you heard of John Kelly threatening to resign, Mr. Navarro and can you say whether the president still has confidence in him?”

Navarro responded, “Every day of his adult life John Kelly’s gotten up in the morning to serve America. He’s a great man, a courageous man. He serves the President. He has the President’s ear. He runs the West Wing well. That’s all I know, that’s all I see. What you don’t see about him sometimes is his delight and humorous side. He’s a pretty funny Irish guy sometimes, but he has the confidence of the president, and he’s getting the job done. When you read stuff in the Washington Post, frankly, that’s fake news most of the time.”

Todd said, “I think that expression is a pretty unfair thing about a major news organization. That’s a cheap shot.”

Navarro shot back, “Mr. Todd that is not a cheap shot. Because if you look at the newspapers that I read every day across the spectrum, The Washington Post, in my judgment, tends to attack the President more than any other newspaper in its news stories. You can do anything you want in your editorials, sir, but you cannot do that in your news stories.”

Todd added, “The term fake news is not exactly a way to hold up the First Amendment especially when the Russian government just this morning using that phrase.”

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