MSNBC's Chuck Todd: Fox News harassment firings were the 'canaries in the coal mine' for the #MeToo movement

An MSNBC panel on Sunday discussed just how impactful the "snowballing" stories of sexual assault and harassment in arenas of power have been for the country — and how we got there.

Rather than revelations that former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly had settled multiple sexual harassment claims, host Chuck Todd noted, it took the groundbreaking New York Times exposé on Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein to open the #MeToo floodgates.

"For some reason," Todd noted, the firings of O'Reilly and Fox News head Roger Ailes, "which were sort of the canaries in the coal mine," didn't have the same effect as Hollywood and liberal political figures being outed.

Earlier in the segment, BBC "World News America" host Katty Kay described the "snowball" effect the Weinstein allegations created, where in the last few months of 2017, sexual harassment became tolerated less and less.

While some women worry that there will be "backlash" against them, Kay noted that "everybody agrees, if we can make safer workplaces and if we can bring men with us on board on that project so that they don't feel victimized, they don't feel like they're the object of revenge, then we'll be better off."

"Politically, you're seeing this reflected in the number of women running for office at stratospheric levels," Kay concluded.

Watch below, via MSNBC: