NBC News’ Chuck Todd challenged Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) during a Sunday interview on “Meet the Press” over the senator’s decision to join other GOP senators in objecting to the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College win on January 6.
Johnson said, “I’d ask all your listeners ask you, ask our critics to actually read the letter. One of the points we make is we are not attempting to thwart the democratic process. We’re acting to protect it. The fact of the matter is that we have an unsustainable state of affairs in this country where we have tens of millions of people that do not view this election result as legitimate.”
He added, “We’re suggesting let’s set up a commission as they did. I know it’s a long time ago, 1877— but let’s take a look at a bipartisan commission to organize all the allegations.”
Todd said, “We are now locked into a destructive vicious circle, someways you’ve outlined, which is you made an allegation that there was widespread fraud, you have failed to offer specific evidence of that widespread fraud, but you’re demanding an investigation on the grounds that there are allegations of widespread fraud. So essentially, you’re the arsonist here. President Trump is the arsonist here. You started this fire, and now you’re saying, ‘Whoa, look at this, oh my God, all these people believe what we told them.’ Because you didn’t have the guts to tell the truth, that this election was fair.”
Johnson said, “The mainstream media dropped any pretense of being unbiased and actually chose sides during this election.”
After Johnson brought up the Hunter Biden probe, Todd interjected, “Senator, I’ve had enough of hearing this.”
Johnson said, “I’ve had enough of this too.”
Todd said, “You have spent much of your time in the last two years carrying a lot of this crazy, conspiratorial water for President Trump.”
He added, “Why didn’t you hold hearings about the 9/11 truthers? There’s plenty of people who thought 9/11 was an inside job. What you’re basically saying is if there’s enough people who believe a conspiracy theory… how about the moon landing? Are you going to hold hearings on that?”
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