From Fox News: Chuck Todd says he’ll never be able to shake the belief that former President Joe Biden’s team purposefully set him up to fail against Donald Trump during last summer’s campaign-altering presidential debate.
During the latest episode of “The Chuck Toddcast,” the ex-NBC anchor told The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich that he’s sure that Biden’s inner circle scheduled the first presidential debate last year in June so that the former president would look bad and the party would ditch him in time to run his replacement.
“Look, I will go to my grave believing that the debate was intentional for that,” the host said.
Biden’s disastrous performance in last summer’s presidential debate is widely seen as the death knell for the former president’s re-election campaign. Less than a month after the spectacle, where Biden looked weak and cognitively challenged, he announced his withdrawal from the campaign and endorsed then-Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the nominee.
The Daily Caller, who first reported on Todd’s comments, provided additional context:
“I will go to my grave believing that the debate was intentional … [Biden Senior Adviser] Anita Dunn and [Biden Campaign Chair] Jen O’Malley Dillon will deny it till they’re blue in the face, and if I were in their shoes and I did it, I’d deny it until I was blue in my face, okay? … There was no other reason,” Todd said. “This idea, ‘Well, we needed to shake up the race.’ In late June? Who shakes up a race in late June? … They knew when the nomination was going to be and they knew they needed to deal with this with an opportunity to make a change if it was necessary.”
“I have always believed this. And again, I know it’s not fair to Jen and Anita … they may be listening now cursing us … if you didn’t do it, then you should have. Like, I endorse what you did,” he added. “Because it was pretty clear from [CNN anchor Jake Tapper’s] reporting and [Axios reporter Alex Thompson’s] reporting in the book [‘Original Sin] that the Biden circle was never going to admit the problem and that the only way you were going to force a change was sunshine. This is not about reporters reporting more shit. No, this was about people seeing it for themselves.”
WATCH BELOW:
🚨NEW: Chuck Todd says he’ll *always* believe Biden’s team SABOTAGED him with early 2024 debate🚨
“I will go to my grave believing that the debate was intentional.” @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/wjJqAfWlAs
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) June 19, 2025
In a separate podcast, Todd admitted President Donald Trump will end up being the “unprecedented” historical figure of his lifetime.
Todd noted that June 16 was the 10-year anniversary of Trump descending the escalator at Trump Tower and announced his candidacy for president.
“You might say he’ll just be a chapter in the history books, but I’d argue he’ll be a long chapter.”
“He’ll be longer than most modern presidents because Trump didn’t just change his party; he changed the job, he changed the expectations, and he’s changed the culture. And that’s probably the biggest impact he’s made.”
“In fact, Donald Trump’s impact on American politics and society is unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. It’s greater than Obama… it’s great than Clinton… it’s greater even, than Reagan.”
WATCH THIS:
🚨NEW: Chuck Todd credits TRUMP with being *unprecedented* historical figure in his lifetime🚨
“You might say he’ll just be a chapter in the history books, but I’d argue he’ll be a long chapter.”
“He’ll be longer than most modern presidents because Trump didn’t just change his… pic.twitter.com/6JpCU43PAC
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) June 19, 2025
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