He’s not too sorry. Just a day after offering an on-air apology for comparing socialist Senator Bernie Sanders’s Nevada win to the Nazis, the staunchly anti-communist Chris Matthews on Tuesday ripped into the socialist’s deputy campaign manager, Ari Rabin-Havt, highlighting newly unearthed comments where Sanders said he wanted to “puke” over John Kennedy’s anti-Castro comments in 1960.
The Hardball host fumed, “Castro has not just been playing defense and you know this, Ari! He brought in medium-range nuclear weapons that could hit every U.S. City except Seattle. He is our enemy. He has been our enemy.”
Matthews lectured the young political aide on the brutal Cuban regime: “According to the Cuban archive, a nonprofit which promotes human rights in Cuba and estimated an estimated 5,600 Cubans died in firing squads. Another 1200 have been killed in extrajudicial assassinations. It estimates that 78,000 may have died trying to escape that island. It’s not a free country.”
The MSNBC host demanded to know what Sanders will say to Cuban Americans in vote-rich Florida:
Over a million Cuban-Americans in Miami. What will senator — Senator Sanders say to them when he says you've lost your country, it was stolen from you, who claim to be a Democrat and then said, “Oh, yeah, by the way, I'm a Marxist and I'm loyal to the Soviet Union.” We were all rooting for him as kids. Bernie knows this. We all rooted for Castro when he came in. He said I'm a democrat. I'm going to overthrow that terrible regime and become a democratic leader of that country and he lied to us.
Matthews, unlike others on MSNBC who have strategically worried about Sanders doing badly in November, seems genuinely offended by an embrace of socialism and praise for dictators. On February 7, he excoriated:
[T]hose of us like me who grew up — who grew up in the Cold War and saw some aspects of it after visiting places like Vietnam like I have, seeing countries like Cuba, being there, I've seen what socialism is like. I don’t like it. Okay? It's not only not free. It doesn’t freaking work. It just doesn’t work.
On Tuesday, Rabin-Havt attempted to explain that Sanders only likes Castro’s attempts at promoting literacy. As Rich Lowry said in the New York Post:
No, literacy programs aren’t a bad thing, but they usually don’t require seizing power in a violent revolution, jailing and killing political opponents, expropriating private property or outlawing the free press.
A partial transcript of the Hardball segment is below. Click “expand” to read more:
MSNBC's Hardball
02/25/2020
7:03 p.m. EasternCHRIS MATTHEWS: I'm joined now by Ari Rabin-Havt, Deputy Campaign Manager for senator Sanders' campaign. Ari, how you going to react to this? Because he is a double-down kind of guy, your candidate. He doesn't change direction. What kids like about him, especially is that big word, authenticity. He has said — we’ll show you a couple more that will probably surprise you. But he has said nice things about the Castro regime.
(....)
MATTHEWS: Let him talk for himself. NBC news reports that in 1986, remarks at the University of Vermont, Sanders said, “I was very excited and impressed by the Cuban revolution. Adding he became sick to his stomach when heard that John F. Kennedy, the president then — he was the candidate for President then — discussed ways to overturn that revolution in the ‘60 presidential debate with Richard Nixon. Quote. This Bernie. “I actually left the room because I was about to puke.” Well, according to the Cuban archive, a nonprofit which promotes human rights in Cuba and estimated an estimated 5,600 Cubans died in firing squads. Another 1200 have been killed in extrajudicial assassinations. It estimates that 78,000 may have died trying to escape that island. It’s not a free country.
(....)
MATTHEWS: Castro has not just been playing defense and you know this, Ari. He brought in medium-range nuclear weapons that could hit every U.S. City except Seattle. He is our enemy. He has been our enemy.
RABIN-HAVT: Yes. And nobody is suggesting that Bernie Sanders is pro-Castro. Bernie Sanders pointed out one aspect of the Castro regime. Which by the way, President Obama also pointed to in a speech.
MATTHEWS: Over a million Cuban-Americans in Miami. What will senator — Senator Sanders say to them when he says you've lost your country, it was stolen from you, who claim to be a Democrat and then said, “Oh, yeah, by the way, I'm a Marxist and I'm loyal to the Soviet Union.” We were all rooting for him as kids. Bernie knows this. We all rooted for Castro when he came in. He said I'm a democrat. I'm going to overthrow that terrible regime and become a democratic leader of that country and he lied to us.
RABIN-HAVT: Bernie Sanders opposes authoritarian regimes, be it in Cuba, be it in North Korea.
MATTHEWS: So what would he say to Cuban-Americans?
