Chris Matthews on Tuesday seemed to compare Joe Biden to fictional movie boxer Rocky Balboa fighting against Apollo Creed. (Donald Trump in this comparison.) Appearing on Deadline: White House, the Hardball host talked up Biden's working class appeal: “On Saturday, coming up the 18th, [Biden is] going to the Rocky steps at the Philadelphia art museum, the essential blue collar guy from south Philly. Italian Stallion, the one that never got his shot, finally gets his shot at the title against Apollo Creed.”
Matthews marveled, “That's the working class dream of the guy in Philly.” (Film fans might point out that Rocky loses in the first film.) Host Nicolle Wallace somehow suggested of the man who has spent almost his entire working life in government: “Biden also speaks the language of economic despair. I think they can all do it. I'm not saying this is a message exclusively available to Biden. But it's innate to Biden. He went to Pittsburgh and said the stock market is roaring.”
Bloomberg opinion executive editor Tim O’Brien cheered Biden for not being a “hoax.” She then slammed Trump as a “hoax”:
WALLACE: The Trump brand is the hoax.
TIM O’BRIEN: Yes.
WALLACE: I think Democrats need to take back the hoax.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: He wasn't a scholarship kid.
WALLACE: Trump is the hoax.
A partial transcript of the segment is below:
Deadline: White House
5/15/19
4:41 p.m. EasternNICOLLE WALLACE: Biden also speaks the language of economic despair. I think they can all do it. I'm not saying this is a message exclusively available to Biden. But it's innate to Biden. He went to Pittsburgh and said the stock market is roaring. He acknowledged some of the economic reality and said to the room, do any of you feel it? And the room went crazy.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: They are all steelworkers. But also on Saturday, coming up the 18th, he's going to the Rocky steps at the Philadelphia art museum, the essential blue collar guy from south Philly. Italian Stallion, the one that never got his shot, finally gets his shot at the title against Apollo Creed. That's the working class dream of the guy in Philly.
4:44 PM ET
TIM O’BRIEN (Bloomberg opinion executive editor): The other thing is in the 2015, 2016 campaign years, Donald Trump had this hoax on the public, he was self-made and cared about average Americans. We know he was not a self-made man. He was a guy who was born on third and said he hit a triple. We also know by his policies that he doesn't care about bettering the lives of working class and middle class Americans. Joe Biden is an authentically self-made person. He does speak to the needs of the working class Americans and speaks about it from his bones. There is no hoax there. And Trump is petrified.
WALLACE: You have just landed on what I think is such an opportunity for Democrats, for whomever the nominee is. The Trump brand is the hoax.
O’BRIEN: Yes.
WALLACE: I think Democrats need to take back the hoax.
MATTHEWS: He wasn't a scholarship kid.
WALLACE: Trump is the hoax.
