The media’s desire to make themselves the main character in the story reached the Platonic level on Wednesday as CBS correspondent Scott MacFarlane joined former moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, Chuck Todd, on his appropriately named podcast: The Chuck Toddcast. According to MacFarlane, he was diagnosed with PTSD after the first assassination attempt against President Trump, not because of the shooting, but because of the reaction of Trump supporters. Meanwhile, Todd thought this was a completely reasonable thing to claim.
MacFarlane recalled, “For those of us there, it was such a horror because you saw an emerging America. And it wasn't the shooting, Chuck. This was—I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got put on trauma leave, not because, I think, of the shooting, but because, you could, you saw it in the eyes, the reaction of the people. They were coming for us. If he didn't jump up with his fist, they were going to come kill us.”
A PTSD diagnosis requires a month of symptoms, not two days. Nevertheless, Todd responded with his own memories, “I was on a plane to Milwaukee… And the plane's Wi-Fi didn't work… and we touch down, and everybody's phones come on, and you just—everybody starts looking at each other, not saying a word for total fear of just anything being misconstrued, not anything. And there was, look, I share your concern. Just a little thing. I was—literally first thing I was going to do after landing on Saturday was go to the Nats-Brewers game, and I said, ‘I'm not going. I'm not going to be seen going. I'm not, I'm not doing that. This is not the moment for this.’"
