Appearing on Tuesday's Andrea Mitchell program on MSNBC, NBC White House Correspondent Chuck Todd said the White House was surprised by the negative reaction to the deal with the Taliban which released Bowe Bergdahl. Todd said the White House expected criticism of the decision to release five Taliban terrorists in exchange for Bergdahl, but they expected "euphoria" and a "rally around the flag" from the release of the only POW remaining in Afghanistan.

Mitchell commented that the "jubilation in the Rose Garden on Saturday" turned into "a lot of criticisms from Democrats and U.S. Allies to me and others off camera and the President playing defense." Todd agreed but said the "playing defense" went way beyond the President. Todd also reported that the statement by General Dempsey this morning was a reaction to the criticism of the exchange:

Todd: Big shift in 48 hours frankly. And it’s not just him, but Secretary Hagel, who is now in Brussels, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey, who then took to Facebook today to say that that the accusations about Sergeant Bergdahl will be something, he’s innocent until proven guilty but made it clear he wouldn't get any special treatment. There would be an investigation to try to quiet down that end of the criticism. Absolutely from where we were Sunday and what you mentioned about Susan Rice said about Bergdahl to the questions about why these five, why were they released -- and by the way we haven't even gotten to the questions about what this does mean for the future of Gitmo, what this does mean for rest of the detainees sitting there? If we're treating them as this is a prisoner exchange as it has been called by both Chuck Hagel and the President, does this mean this is also part of winding down the war and this is how Gitmo is essentially going to get shutdown? Is there going to be a return of these quote/unquote don't call them "prisoners of war," prisoners of war? And so all of those questions -- and what's been interesting, Andrea, what's caught the White House off guard here, they were expecting Gitmo criticisms of the detainees that were chosen. They did not expect this criticism of the attempt to go get Bergdahl in the way that it was done. And that appears to be what's caught them off guard, and that's why they look like they are on their back feet on this one.

Host Mitchell interjected that they "thought that the Military would rally around them, that that would give them the protection ... "

Todd: Right, there would be some sort of, as you said, rally around the principle of "leave no man behind." If you take one of the quotes from the Pentagon spokesperson today that appeared in "The New York Times," it was interesting when he said, “when somebody goes overboard in a navy ship, it doesn't matter whether they were pushed or fell or something else happened, or they jumped themselves, the boat turns around and goes and gets them.” That wasn't necessarily what they were saying on Sunday. On Sunday they thought there would be some euphoria around this, the only POW remaining in Afghanistan, there would be a rally around the flag. That didn't happen. They were surprised that they haven’t received more criticism around the situation around Gitmo and the issue of which detainees are up for negotiation. And then you heard the President basically admit that congress wasn't consulted and at the same time saying but they were sort of consulted, they knew this was on the table.