Fresh off accusing Ted Cruz of being a political bigamist, MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews stated Thursday night that Cruz has put on a “Baghdad Bob performance this week” for failing to concede the Republican presidential nomination to Donald Trump while also displaying “political narcissism” in responding to former Speaker John Boehner’s Lucifer analogy.
Leading into Matthews linking Cruz to an infamous Saddam Hussein spokesman, former RNC chair Michael Steele lectured viewers that the campaign “was over for awhile now in many respects because Trump was able to establish momentum that no one else could break.”
Matthews then leapt back in to blurt out that there was “this Baghdad Bob performance this week by Cruz and his people” akin to “the fall of Baghdad was not really recognized by the spokesman for the government there.”
“You know, I don’t see Cruz — I think Cruz, this marriage of the week he was coming up with. It was for a couple of days, he's married to Kasich. Now, he’s married to Fior — fior — Carly Fiorina. It looks so pathetic,” whined Matthews.
Jay Newton-Small of Time magazine followed by doing her part as a member of the media to advance the narrative that “there’s no more race,” so voters in remaining states are inclined to flock to Trump:
Cruz is just trying everything can, cycle to cycle, to stop the inevitable, the stories that Donald Trump’s sewn it up. He’s got in the bag and the biggest — then, all the voters in the remaining states just automatically go to Trump, right? If there’s no more race, everybody votes for Trump[.]
Trotting out a war analogy, Matthews ruled that Cruz was “fragged, if you will, to use a Vietnam expression, by a fellow member of the establishment because Cruz out there in front for the establishment.”
Upon showing Cruz’s response to Boehner during a press availability on Thursday morning, Matthews turned to The Washington Post’s Robert Costa and in the process, committed his daily instance of irony with this one calling Cruz a narcissist [emphasis mine]:
You want to display, Robert Costa, of a narcissism — political narcissism. There’s a guy saying the Speaker of the House, all those years, elected by every member of the House and the Republican Party and serving at the head of it for years, doesn't know him and therefore, there's something not to be taken seriously about the guy. Boehner doesn't know — I'm sorry. Doesn't know Ted Cruz. Therefore, he's a nobody. What a weirdly revelatory about the psychology — the psyche of Ted Cruz[.]
The relevant portions of the transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on April 28 can be found below.
MSNBC’s Hardball
April 28, 2016
7:02 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me go to you Robert. You're in South Bend, your academic home out there. I'm looking at the list here. Trump's got three governors. They're pretty right wing guys. Rick Scott, Paul LePage up in Maine, Chris Christie — he’s not right-wing, but he’s his buddy now and about a dozen congresspeople and Senator Jeff Sessions. Has the — has the gate broken yet? Are they into the fort, the Trump people?
THE WASHINGTON POST’s ROBERT COSTA: The gate’s certainly broken with many parts of the Republican establishment. At Trump's foreign policy speech yesterday in Washington, I was there and I saw many pillars of the conservative establishment walking up to Paul Manafort and Corey Lewandokski, Trump’s top lieutenants and trying to just exchange some pleasantries and get to know them. That’s the scene right now, especially among the Washington GOP elite, they see on the horizon a Trump nomination.
MATTHEWS: Michael Steele, former chair of the party. Is it over?
MICHAEL STEELE: Yeah. It was over for a while now in many respects because Trump was able to establish momentum that no one else could break and as long as he could sustain it and despite the hiccups in Wisconsin, starting with Iowa, he was able to continue with his message. Sometimes off beat. Sometimes riffing out of —you know, getting himself in trouble, but still there was a consistency to him that kept his core base with him and all he had to do was add to it which is what he's done in big ways in the polls last week and going into Indiana.
MATTHEWS: Well, this Baghdad Bob performance this week by Cruz and his people. You know, like the fall of Baghdad was not really recognized by the spokesman for the government there. You know, I don’t see Cruz — I think Cruz, this marriage of the week he was coming up with. It was for a couple of days, he's married to Kasich. Now, he’s married to Fior — fior — Carly Fiorina. It looks so pathetic.
JAY NEWTON-SMALL: I mean, really. Cruz is just trying everything can, cycle to cycle, to stop the inevitable, the stories that Donald Trump’s sewn it up. He’s got in the bag and the biggest — then, all the voters in the remaining states just automatically go to Trump, right? If there’s no more race, everybody votes for Trump and they’re really is no more race, right? So, cycle by cycle he's just fighting tooth and nail to make sure that nobody is saying that Trump has got it, right? This exact story is his worth nightmare.
MATTHEWS: Well, he's just been fragged, if you will, to use a Vietnam expression, by a fellow member of the establishment because Cruz out there in front for the establishment, well anyway, he was called Lucifer by the former Speaker John Boehner. He responded to the Lucifer charge, he said it was really an insult to — oh, I love this — to all conservatives.
(....)
MATTHEWS: You want to display, Robert Costa, of a narcissism — political narcissism. There’s a guy saying the Speaker of the House, all those years, elected by every member of the House and the Republican Party and serving at the head of it for years, doesn't know him and therefore, there's something not to be taken seriously about the guy. Boehner doesn't know — I'm sorry. Doesn't know Ted Cruz. Therefore, he's a nobody. What a weirdly revelatory about the psychology — the psyche of Ted Cruz, to say my biggest put down of somebody is I haven't met them.
