Seemingly running out of things to talk about or ways to spin how much trouble President Trump found himself in, MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews compared the President to a ship captain stuck “in a typhoon” making America a “Third World” country who’s struggling with his mental faculties.
“President Trump is acting like a ship's captain in a typhoon. He braces himself with accusations against all around him. He calling the Russia investigation a witch hunt, the federal government a villainous deep state, the media, the enemy of the people. There’s something nervous in all this, an edge of fear not seen in the American White House since the last dark, dank, dog days of Watergate,” Matthews declared in his open before an aside about Washington’s record-breaking wet weather.
As if he could have taped this monologue at any point since the Special Counsel’s appointment, Matthews ruled that Trump’s “[s]et on a collision course with the Special Counsel’s prosecutors” and responded by “waging an increasingly desperate battle as we’ve seen, but the harder he fights, the more ensnared he becomes.”
Yeesh. Talk about grasping for straws (unless you’re in California).
During the Hardball Roundtable segment, Matthews resurrected a past comparison between Trump and The Caine Mutiny character Captain Queeg. He then channeled CNN’s Brian Stelter by declaring that “there’s something going on here” inside Trump’s mind because “[h]e’s worried about the typhoon around him of people coming at him and he’s attacking everyone.”
Fake Republican and Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin agreed, dubbing the President “a desperate man” who’s “completely out of control.”
“I think he’s turning us Third World. This is the kind of stuff that other countries would have elections. They’re not really elections they have to hold. Do we dare and ask for the results of the election? Oh no, because someone won’t like it,” Matthews later added
Closing out the show with his daily “Trump Watch” commentary, Matthews circled back to Trump’s stability, diagnosing him as someone who’s “increasingly growing frantic” with “actions...those of a man facing some unclear but imminent danger.”
Here’s more of Matthews’s diatribe. Do your best and try to follow him (click “expand” for more):
There’s a sense of desperate nervousness about him, as if the big woeful attack is coming and there’s nothing really he can do to stop it. I say this because of his own attacks are now going in all directions. It is a witch hunt that’s coming at him from the Justice Department Special Counsel. It is the deep state that is out to get him. It’s the fake media that’s advancing to report the verdict. He acts and speaks and tweets as if all the forces of nature and society are converging upon him. What can a serious observer make of this weird behavior by the figure elected to head the country in 2016? Is it paranoia? Has the man we see on camera or the man tweeting so desperately at the crack of dawn lost touch with reality? Or has he finally, after all these wild months, realizing what he’s unleashed? That all the accepted measures of truth and justice are now aligning and to his near and present horror about to strike with a stark power he’s before had to confront. I suspect this, for him, is the stark and awful truth.
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on August 2, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s Hardball
August 2, 2018
7:00 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Caught in the swamp, let's play Hardball. [HARDBALL OPENING CREDITS] President Trump is acting like a ship's captain in a typhoon. He braces himself with accusations against all around him. He calling the Russia investigation a witch hunt, the federal government a villainous deep state, the media, the enemy of the people. There’s something nervous in all this, an edge of fear not seen in the American White House since the last dark, dank, dog days of Watergate. Good evening, I am Chris Matthews in steaming, swamp-like Washington, which has just been drenched with its heaviest July rainfall in three quarters of a century. It is wet in this town and steaming. Set on a collision course with the Special Counsel’s prosecutors, President Donald Trump is waging an increasingly desperate battle as we’ve seen. But the harder he fights, the more ensnared he becomes. Case in point is the President's cavalier tweet in which he explicitly calls on the Justice Department yesterday to terminate the Russian probe all together. “Attorney General Jeff sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now.” It is one of the most overt efforts that the President has taken to date to shut down the probe, raising new questions about whether he’s obstructing justice in broad daylight. Trying to protect the President, Trump's allies are trying to downplay the significance of his tweeting, saying that Trump was only expressing his personal opinion.
(....)MATTHEWS: I think he is getting into a frenzy. I’m thinking of Captain Queeg, you know? I’m beginning to think, you know, there’s something going on here. He’s worried about the typhoon around him of people coming at him and he’s attacking everyone.
JENNIFER RUBIN: That’s right. I think he is desperate at this point. He is not the master of his own ship. He sees the polls. He sees a very good likelihood he’s in the last few months of a Republican congress. When that changes, all bets are off. He sees a trial that is proceeding down the emoluments trail. That means his wealth, his hotels are on the line. He sees horrible reviews for his meeting with Vladimir Putin, which he thought was a great success. And he sees Robert Mueller, who simply won’t go away, all the antics, all the smears, it doesn’t matter to Robert Mueller. And Trump can't do anything about it. So what is he doing? He lashes out and you can that it’s instrumental that he’s doing it in order to pump up his base. But I think this is a desperate man.
MATTHEWS: Agree.
RUBIN: And I think he’s getting to the point where he’s completely out of control.
(....)
MATTHEWS: I think he’s turning us Third World. This is the kind of stuff that other countries would have elections. They’re not really elections they have to hold. Do we dare and ask for the results of the election? Oh no, because someone won’t like it.
(....)
MATTHEWS: Trump watch Thursday August 2nd, 2018. President Trump's behavior is increasingly growing frantic. I’m sure I’m not the only one to notice this. Each day, his actions are those of a man facing some unclear but imminent danger. There’s a sense of desperate nervousness about him, as if the big woeful attack is coming and there’s nothing really he can do to stop it. I say this because of his own attacks are now going in all directions. It is a witch hunt that’s coming at him from the Justice Department Special Counsel. It is the deep state that is out to get him. It’s the fake media that’s advancing to report the verdict. He acts and speaks and tweets as if all the forces of nature and society are converging upon him. What can a serious observer make of this weird behavior by the figure elected to head the country in 2016? Is it paranoia? Has the man we see on camera or the man tweeting so desperately at the crack of dawn lost touch with reality? Or has he finally, after all these wild months, realizing what he’s unleashed? That all the accepted measures of truth and justice are now aligning and to his near and present horror about to strike with a stark power he’s before had to confront. I suspect this, for him, is the stark and awful truth.
