Chuck Todd is defending a segment on Sunday's "Meet the Press" that featured black prison inmates discussing their regrets over past gun violence.
While some have praised the video, many more social media users complained it had no place in a debate about the tragic deaths of nine African-American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina at the hands of an alleged white supremacist.
As part of its coverage of the Charleston church massacre, Todd introduced a video featuring convicted murderers at the infamous Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York, talking about how they never meant to kill anyone when they grabbed a gun.
"The circumstances you are about to see are very different from the racist violence in Charleston," Todd explained. "In this case, the inmates are African-American that you're going to hear from. But their lessons remain important."
He continued: "And we simply ask you to look at this as a color-blind issue that's about just simply gun violence."
After the video played, Todd turned to his panel of guests for reaction. New York Times columnist David Brooks suggested the video echoed the sentiments of many disaffected young men.
"You got so many young men who feel psychologically weak. And then the gun is the source of power. It's all they got," Brooks said. "We even saw this in this Charleston's kid's photo of him with the guns."
