CHUCK TODD: Obama radicalized the far right; it was the same thing. The far right viewed Obama as some left-winger when Obama was basically a degree more liberal than Bill Clinton.
CHRIS CILLIZZA: Temperamentally a moderate, right? Probably liberal on policy, but temperamentally a moderate.
CHUCK TODD: What policy was he that liberal on, Chris?* It’s one of the biggest–
CHRIS CILLIZZA: It was because he was black.
CHUCK TODD: Thank you. The only reason people think he was liberal is because he’s black.
Like it’s this, he governed more closely to George W. Bush than Donald Trump.
* Almost 20 years later, and NBC News alumni still pretend to still be baffled by Obama’s worldview and politics: Tom Brokaw on the eve of the 2008 presidential election: “We don’t know a lot about Barack Obama and the universe of his thinking about foreign policy.”