Chuck Todd, NBC News Political Director, and Rachel Maddow, MSNBC host, call for a pause during a Democratic primary debate hosted by NBC News at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Art, Wednesday, June 26, 2019, in Miami. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

A couple of weeks ago, MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow joined the growing chorus of left-wing media outlets calling on all cable news networks to stop airing the White House Coronavirus Task Force daily press briefings, fearing not doing so would “cost lives”:

Maddow: If Trump is going to keep lying like he has been every day on stuff this important, we should, all of us, stop broadcasting it. Honestly, it's going to cost lives. pic.twitter.com/tMvyrE3YTK

— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) March 21, 2020

While MSNBC hasn’t stopped airing them, it has been cutting them short since Maddow’s plea, and on Tuesday, MSNBC anchor and Meet the Press host Chuck Todd actually gave a ridiculous disclaimer before that day’s task force press briefing started:

During MSNBC’s MTP Daily on Tuesday, anchor Chuck Todd actually interrupted the beginning of the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing to deliver a pompous disclaimer to viewers and warn that “these briefings have a tendency to veer in a lot of different directions, not all of them are informative or relevant in the midst of this crisis.”

“So we will listen as the President talks and we will make sure we’re giving you a fact check and putting what he says in context on the other side,” the Meet the Press moderator proclaimed as President Trump was starting to speak at the podium. Continuing to cut off the briefing, Todd listed questions “that we are looking to get answered.”

He assured his liberal audience: “If it veers too much off, we will break in – we will break off and come back here.”

Watch:

Todd’s disclaimer comes just days after he asked a question of 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden about Trump that was so outrageous even Biden characterized it as “too harsh”.

What Todd is actually saying here is that MSNBC reserves the right to filter the press briefings if Trump begins talking about relevant things Todd and MSNBC don’t want you to hear, much in the same way their partners in crime CNN absurdly cut away from “My Pillow” CEO Mike Lindell on Monday as he was about to talk about how his company was going to be producing up to 50,000 masks a day for healthcare workers to help combat the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.

As I wrote in recent column, the media are going in the direction of seletively airing or not airing them at all of because one of their worst nightmares is coming true:

President Trump has become an effective messenger in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, and people are tuning in to hear more. Instead of having to wait to read a journalist’s spin on his press briefings in tweets or in news stories later, people can watch and hear him for themselves in real time and draw their own conclusions without the media filter and slant.

This is precisely why some in the MSM including Todd want to cut the briefings off at a certain point, not air them at all, or interject periodically with so-called “fact checks.”

Because the media can’t control the narrative if they don’t restrict a person’s ability to watch the briefings and decide for themselves how to digest the information.

(Hat tip: MRC TV)