Chuck Todd

At the minute you work with the other side, well, you immediately are seen as a traitor or a turncoat.

And then they think, whoa, if I don't speak out now.

Before, while there's still a chance that they really believe this person is too irresponsible to have power.

I mean, that is insanity that we have done this because none of us would want to be treated that way individually.

Right.

We all actually have we're all usually pretty proud of the relationships that we have in our personal lives because they are diverse.

So I think you've got to be careful when you're questioning the timing of accusations.

In some ways, the political campaign season, the primary campaign is exactly when we should be having these conversations.

They're unique there.

We all have, you know, the family members that we all don't we don't agree with and all these other things.

We're trying to find out who these people are.

And yet.

Do they have the character to handle the job?

We then hold the political parties and members of it to a standard that does create this caricature element to it that I think almost it's what it does is what I think it does is it turns off the volume, meaning people will just stop listening.

Do they have the qualifications to handle the job?

Do they have the knowledge to handle the job?

I did not sexually assault anybody, he's saying.

He's not denying that he had a wandering eye.

And unfortunately, for those of us that have covered Washington for as long as we have, there are a lot of Eric Swalwells out there.

And you can sit here and say, well, it's the system that creates it.