Chuck Todd: White House 'Private Sector Velocity' Claim 'Indictment of Government As a Solution'

On Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd noted that "the most interesting thing" in an Obama administration progress report on the malfunctioning HealthCare.gov website was the claim that "The team is operating with private sector velocity and effectiveness." Todd proclaimed that statement to be "an indictment on the whole idea of government as a solution."

Moments later, his fellow NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell fretted: "...now they are at risk of losing the credibility of government as an agent of change for a generation."

Here is a full transcript of Todd's December 1 comments:

(...)

CHUCK TODD: David, the most interesting thing in this report, right, page one-- it's page three of the report, it says here that, "The team is operating with private sector velocity and effectiveness."

DAVID GREGORY: Yeah.

CHUCK TODD: Okay, that is an acknowledgement that, "You know what? If this was a government operation for a long time and it failed, now we're bringing in the private sector folks." I mean, that is an indictment on the whole idea of government as a solution, frankly, when you look at [unintelligible].

(...)