NBC’s Todd to Senator on Voter Fraud Probe: ‘How About Moon Landing? Are You Going to Hold Hearings on That?’

NBC News’ Chuck Todd battled Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) during a Sunday interview on “Meet the Press” over Republican claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Partial transcript as follows:

JOHNSON: I didn’t criticize Democrats when they were talking about potential hacking of voting machines. But now it’s quackery? Now it’s conspiracy theory? That’s the problem, Chuck. There’s a double standard here, and we are not being transparent, and we are dismissing the concerns of tens of millions of Americans. Again, I didn’t, I didn’t light this fire. This fire was lit over four years ago. And we’ve destroyed the credibility, you have destroyed the credibility of the news media by your bias. And of course people like James Comey, Andrew McCabe, John Brennan destroyed the credibility of the FBI and our justice system as well. We have an enormous problem in this country. It’s unsustainable. And the only way you solve it is with information, and transparency, and hearings, and investigations —

TODD: Let me ask you this. Then why didn’t you hold hearings about the 9/11 truthers? There’s plenty of people who thought 9/11 was an inside job. So you’re basically saying is —

JOHNSON: I mean, Chuck —

TODD: You are basically saying if there’s enough people who believe a conspiracy theory —

JOHNSON: I could have held hearings on all kinds of things. I held hearings on —

TODD: How about the moon landing? Are you going to hold hearings on that?

JOHNSON: What I would like to hold hearings on, you know, what I was talking about: Why did we not spend hundreds of billions of dollars exploring early treatment? Why did we vilify doctors who had the courage to treat Covid patients, practice medicine, try and find available, cheap repurposed drugs to do so? Why — I’d love to hold hearings on that. There are all kinds of things that I’d like to hold hearings on. You have to kind of pick and choose based on priorities. Right now, we have this election. We’ve got tens of millions of Americans that think this election was stolen. We need to get the bottom of it. Again, what’s explained, we need to explain it, get that off the table. We also have to acknowledge there were some real problems here.

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