NBC News’ Chuck Todd pointed out Sen. Ron Johnson’s hypocrisy when he expressed concern for supposed media bias in covering incidents related to Hunter Biden, as the Republican senator from Wisconsin dismissed inquiries regarding Jared Kushner’s billion-dollar loan from the Qatari government.
“It seems to me if you’re concerned about what Hunter Biden did, you should be equally outraged about what Jared Kushner did,” Todd said to Johnson during Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” referring to recent movements from Senate Democrats to investigate the loan taken by former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law while he worked on Middle East policy for the U.S. government.
“I’m concerned about getting to the truth,” Johnson responded, avoiding taking a stance on Kushner’s actions. “I don’t target individuals.”
“You don’t?” Todd retorted. “You’re targeting Hunter Biden multiple times on this show, Senator. You’re targeting an individual.”
Johnson attempted to take the reins in the conversation by condemning the media bias. “Chuck … part of the problem — and this is pretty obvious to anybody watching this — is you don’t invite me on to interview me,” Johnson said. “You invite me on to argue with me.”
He went on to say that he is trying to “lay out the facts that certainly Senator Grassley and [he] uncovered,” referring to a 634-page report on Hunter Biden published by right-wing group Marco Polo, that has been “suppressed” and “censored.”
As Johnson continued by saying conservatives understood the media bias at work with uncovering the report whiles liberals did not, he further said that “part of the reason are our politics are inflamed is we do not have an unbiased media.”
“I’m all for a free press,” he said. “It needs to be more unbiased. There’s misinformation on both sides but the censorship and suppression primarily occurs from the left.”
Todd effectively shut down the conversation, saying, “Look, you can go back on your partisan cable cocoon and talk about media bias all you want. I understand it’s part of your identity.”
You can watch Todd and Johnson’s conversation in the clip at the top.