Many Donald Trump voters cast their votes for the president because he’s “authentically inauthentic” and serves as a “middle finger” to the mainstream news media, according to NBC’s Chuck Todd.

The “Meet the Press” host made those remarks during a recent interview of former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, who found herself in the national spotlight in 2013 for her efforts filibustering a bill to regulate the Lone Star State’s abortion clinics.

Ms. Davis suggested to Mr. Todd that both her failed 2014 gubernatorial run and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential loss can be chalked up to both women failing to trust their instincts about reaching out to voters and instead relying too much on paid strategists and numbers-crunching data analysts.

“I survived politically and did well politically, always, because I trusted my gut, and I didn’t have all of those people around me to tell me what I didn’t know. And it turns out, I think, that people have a sense for the folks who are authentic, and they’re looking for authentic.”

“Let’s face it: I think a lot of people would say they felt like they voted for Donald Trump because they felt like there was something authentic in him, right?” she added. “He wasn’t policed by kind of the campaign messaging.”

“I used to use the line he was authentically inauthentic,” Mr. Todd replied. “Meaning though the people that supported him knew, yeah, some of it’s a bunch ehhh. … My favorite Trump voters that I ran into and I said, you know, why do you support Trump, he says, ‘He’s my middle finger to you. I know what he is, you know, I know he’s kind of a blowhard. I know he sort of fakes his wealth.’ They knew the negative character stuff. It didn’t matter, they thought, well, I know who that guy is. He doesn’t pretend he’s somebody he’s not.”

You can listen to the full interview online at Soundcloud or via podcast platforms like iTunes or Spotify.

Sign up for Daily Newsletters Manage Newsletters

Copyright © 2020 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.