Chris Matthews freaked out over James Comey’s testimony in front on Congress on Thursday, assailing Donald Trump as worse than Richard Nixon and sneering that the current President isn’t “used to the fact that he’s constrained by the Constitution.”
Using a liberal curse word, the Hardball host compared Trump unfavorably to Nixon: “Go back to Watergate. And one big difference in Watergate in terms of the language used. John Dean said there was a cancer on the presidency and President Trump said there is a cloud over the presidency. Different mind sets.”
He added, “Nixon and his people were thinking about the institution of the presidency. Whatever you think of Nixon, he was trying to protect his presidency. Trump is trying to defend his butt personally against bad PR.”
Worse than Nixon? For a liberal, that’s a pretty serious charge. Earlier, Matthews psychoanalyzed the President, declaring that Trump is untethered by the Constitution:
I don't think he's used to the fact that he's constrained by the Constitution, by checks and balances, by a free press and by, basically, a public service out there. I'm not sure he's ready for that.
A President who hates the Constitution and is worse than Nixon? It’s a bit different than Matthews’s opinion of Obama.
It was back on February 12, 2008 that the MSNBC host gushed, “I have to tell you, you know, it's part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often.”
A transcript is below:
MSNBC Live
6/8/17
1:59pm ETCHRIS MATTHEWS: I do think, whatever happens with the Russian instigation, we have a president who is very different and these hearings make it very clear he's a different animal, politically, then we've seen politically than any before. He's trying to shape the White House, shape the United States government and this country basically to him. He's trying to get us to his style of government where he's the boss and the bureaucracy is under him. The press is under him. The courts are under him. He's trying to get us used to that all the time. I don’t think he's used to the fact that he's constrained by the Constitution, by checks and balances, by a free press and by, basically, a public service out there. I'm not sure he's ready for that.
What we've seen today is Comey trying to explain “this man's behavior from the day we first conversed was against everything I’ve understood about the way the Constitution works. I wanted to lay that out for you especially in that very in that very gothic meeting in the green room on the state floor of the White House when we sat alone at an oval table and he asked for my loyalty and he thought he had gotten it.”
2:01
MATTHEWS: Go back to Watergate. And one big difference in Watergate in terms of the language used. John Dean said there was a cancer on the presidency and President Trump said there is a cloud over the presidency. Different mind sets. Nixon and his people were thinking about the institution of the presidency. Whatever you think of Nixon, he was trying to protect his presidency. Trump is trying to defend his butt personally against bad PR. It's the cloud versus the cancer. Nixon really wanted to be a good president. He wanted to succeed in his public policy which was pretty moderate, actually, politically, even liberal in some cases. He wanted the institution of the presidency, while he was running it, to succeed. Trump wants to protect himself personally and that was all about it in these conversation with Comey as I read them.
