After being away for two weeks that included a vacation to New Zealand, MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews was in rare form on day two of his return, questioning the dress habits of Republican men on the House Oversight Committee for not being as formally dressed as he’d like and wearing scowls.
Then later in the show, Matthews and liberal celebrity loon Rob Reiner complained about the lack of control news outlets have over the American people compared to the 1970s when there were only three network news outlets.
The bizarre dress code part came in a question to freshman Democratic Congresswoman and frequent cable news guest Katie Hill (watch out, Adam Schiff) (click “expand”):
You're on Oversight. Explain something about the dress code on your committee. The right-wing Republicans, the Tea Party types show up like they're working for CNBC in the morning. Why do they show up with the white shirts on? They don't unbutton their collars. They don’t roll up their sleeves. They wear that sort of dress code of the MBA graduate. What are they — and they had nasty looks on their faces. They were really angry. What's the story on their sort of sentiments? Why do they hate anybody who criticizes Trump?
Talk about being a hypocrite. Perhaps Matthews should look at himself in the mirror from time-to-time and consider how a member of the Kennedy family (whom he worships) wasn’t exactly all buttoned up (try Ted Kennedy). And unless he’s been living under a rock, having no jacket or tie and wearing plain shirts has been how Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) rolls.
To Hill’s credit on the dress code part, she avoided that and stuck to providing liberal talking points about House Republicans refusing to tighten the screws on the Trump presidency, that pleased Matthews.
In the next block, Matthews was joined by Reiner and The Washington Post’s Robert Costa to cast there less-than-genuine fears about the state of the right. And so, Reiner fretted that, unlike in Watergate, Trump hasn’t had to deal with Democrats running both the House and Senate but instead has had a Republican Congress and “state-run TV” at Fox News.
Again, no word about what he thought about outlets like CBS or MSNBC during the Obama administration.
The Fox-bashing led Matthews to reminisce about how, during Watergate, most Americans got their news from the same show in the Walter Cronkite-hosted CBS Evening News and so there are more outlets to give differing perspectives today (click “expand”):
MATTHEWS: Let's talk about that because back in those days, you and I are roughly the same age. I think I'm a bit older than you.
REINER: Yeah, little bit.
MATTHEWS: Little bit. Let's talk about this. Because back in Watergate days, ‘73, ‘74, the Republicans who voted for Nixon, almost half the country, more than half the country, he won a majority, were watching Cronkite every night. They were watching a middle of the road — you may have been a liberal in his private life, but he’s basically a straight reporting and they hearing that straight news on Watergate every night.
REINER: That’s right.
MATTHEWS: And Eric Sevareid.
REINER: And they were also watching on television —
MATTHEWS: Not Hannity.
REINER: — exactly and they were watching on television this thing unfold.
Let this serve as the latest example of how the left has been mortified at the notion of the First Amendment and diversity of thought being applicable to anyone but themselves. It must be frustrating to not be in control of what you choose to tell the American people.
Reiner responded by stating without evidence that the 81 groups and people were subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee “because there’s that much criminality”, and how the percentage of Americans believing that the President and his team are criminals will “be 100 percent by the time” Democrats are “finished.”
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on March 5, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s Hardball
March 5, 2019
7:11 p.m. EasternCHRIS MATTHEWS: You're on oversight. Explain something about the dress code on your committee. The right-wing Republicans, the Tea Party types show up like they're working for CNBC in the morning. Why do they show up with the white shirts on? They don't unbutton their collars. They don’t roll up their sleeves. They wear that sort of dress code of the MBA graduate. What are they — and they had nasty looks on their faces. They were really angry. What's the story on their sort of sentiments? Why do they hate anybody who criticizes Trump?
CONGRESSWOMAN KATIE HILL (D-CA): You know, I — I think that there's this — there's just this sentiment that they have to protect the President and that anybody who is, is questioning whether the executive branch is — is — is doing what they're supposed to be doing is partisan and that's just not the case. I mean, I mentioned this in the committee hearing, but I come from a half Democrat, half Republican family. My district is pretty well evenly represented between Democrats and Republicans and independents and this isn't about this is about partisanship. This is about whether the person in the White House is breaking the law, whether they are coordinating with outside foreign entities and whether we as the American people are the priority and we're being kept safe and so the fact that Republicans who are supposed to be this party of national security, they seem to have forgotten that and they're also supposed to be the party that really wants to curtail the executive branch and maintain constitutional authority. Again, that's all gone by the wayside and I think that that shows you exactly why they're trying to protect the President, is because they're afraid of what he's capable of doing to their base, and they're afraid of getting unseated, but I think they're going to end up on the wrong side of history on this, I've got to tell you.
(....)
7:24 p.m. Eastern
ROB REINER: If you remember, if everybody compares this to Watergate, they always do — but Watergate, when Nixon won in ‘72, there was a Democratically-controlled congress and there was the indication that a crime was committed, a break-in to the DNC. Two years of investigating by Democrats exposed all of that criminality. Trump comes to office with a Republican majority, who protects them. He has that plus state-run media and Fox News, which completely keeps driving home the idea that Trump is okay, that everything's okay. I — right now, you have a Democratically controlled house. Not Senate, but House. With that Democratically-controlled House, you are now, for the first time, going to be investigating the President. But you've got headwinds, because you still have that, you know, that state-run TV.
MATTHEWS: Let's talk about that because back in those days, you and I are roughly the same age. I think I'm a bit older than you.
REINER: Yeah, little bit.
MATTHEWS: Little bit. Let's talk about this. Because back in Watergate days, ‘73, ‘74, the Republicans who voted for Nixon, almost half the country, more than half the country, he won a majority, were watching Cronkite every night. They were watching a middle of the road — you may have been a liberal in his private life, but he’s basically a straight reporting and they hearing that straight news on Watergate every night.
REINER: That’s right.
MATTHEWS: And Eric Sevareid.
REINER: And they were also watching on television —
MATTHEWS: Not Hannity.
REINER: — exactly and they were watching on television this thing unfold. The American public will see all of this unfold and when you talk about 81, you know, inquiries that Jerry Nadler’s making, it's not a fishing expert [sic] — expedition, it's 81 because there's that much criminality. I mean, they’re looking at a lot of criminality. That's going to be laid out. Right now you’ve got 64 percent of America thinking that Trump has committed a crime and that’s going to be 100 percent by the time they're finished. They may not all accept it, because you’re still going to have the state-run media.
