MSNBC’s “Meet the Press” moderator is taking flack after rebuking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) for comparing migrant detention facilities along the southern border to concentration camps.
Chuck Todd argued in a segment Wednesday that the 29-year-old politician, a self-avowed Democratic socialist, did a “tremendous disservice” to the fight for immigration reform when she made the controversial comparison during a recent Instagram Live story.
“You can call our government’s detention of migrants many things, depending on how you see it. It’s a stain on our nation, maybe. A necessary evil to others to deal with an untenable situation, perhaps. But do you know what you can’t call it?” Todd opined before running a segment of Ocasio-Cortez’s Instagram Live story in which she accused the U.S. of operating “concentration camps on our southern border.”
The MSNBC anchor pointed out Ocasio-Cortez later differentiated between concentration camps and Nazi death camps. Todd did, however, go on to say, “Tens of thousands were also brutalized, tortured, and ultimately starved in concentration camps. Camps like Dachau.”
“If you want to criticize the shameful treatment of people at our southern border, fine,” he continued. “You’ll have plenty of company. But be careful comparing them to Nazi concentration camps because they’re not at all comparable in the slightest.”
Todd was far from alone in his criticism of the progressive congresswoman. It is worth noting, though, that most of her critics were Republicans (Todd criticized Democrats for their silence on the issue).
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) rebuked Ocasio-Cortez for comparing the situation along the U.S.-Mexico border to places in which at least six million Jewish people “were exterminated in the Holocaust.”
“You demean their memory and disgrace yourself with comments like this,” Cheney added.
Ocasio-Cortez, though, changed the subject, instead trying to pin the issue back on Cheney, whom she accused of “co-opting the language of the oppressor” because she used the word “exterminated.” Of course, her argument is pretty flimsy, considering both the Auschwitz Memorial and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum use the term “extermination” in their histories of Hitler’s atrocities.
Nevereless, Todd — not Ocasio-Cortez — was punished by the Twitter mob for sharing his opinion this week.
Here’s a sampling of the reactions his comments received:
Todd did, though, have at least one very noteworthy defender: former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.
“Well said,” the former Trump administration official tweeted.