Americans think the economy and ObamaCare are terrible because of Republicans’ “negative advertising” according to MSNBC and The New York Times. Monday night’s Hardball with Chris Matthews held a discussion between the host and Times’ reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin, where they echoed President Obama’s sentiment that Americans only thought badly about the economy and ObamaCare because of the GOP’s negative messaging.
The segment started off with Matthews asking Sorkin about a recent interview he conducted with President Obama where the president tried to defend his economic legacy and blamed negative attack ads for the poor polls surrounding ObamaCare and the state of the economy. Matthews added:
CHRIS MATTHEWS: He once said to me or some of us that the reason ObamaCare had a hard time starting is you had $200 million in negative advertising thrown at it. Does he believe that just repetition [or] a big lie if you want to get really brutal about it, has power?
Sorkin responded emphatically, “Absolutely” adding a completely asinine point about wealthy Americans viewing the economy poorly as proof that they’ve been brainwashed by negative ads, (not anything to do with high tax rates or anything like that!).
SORKIN: Absolutely. He believes that we have heard over and over again that the country is going to hell. We've been told this from frankly both political parties but in particular the Republican party and has he said you absorb it. If you look at polls, by the way, some of the best off folks in America, people making $250,000 and more, if you ask them how the country is doing, they poll, purely on the poll will tell you it's worse frankly than people at lower tiers. So there is no question that the message is a big piece of this.
Guess that’s not surprising from the MSNBC host who once lectured his guests to “be positive” when talking about ObamaCare.
See the full transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on May 2nd below:
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Well, president Obama recently spoke with Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times about his legacy and why he doesn't get much credit for rebuilding America’s economy. “How people feel about the economy Obama told me, giving one part of his own theory “is influenced by what they hear” and he went on “and if you have a political party in this case the Republicans that denies any progress and is constantly channelling to the base that things are terrible all the time, that people start absorbing that.” I'm joined by the author Andrew Ross of The New York Times and on CNBC and co-creator of Billions, A fascinating show on Showtime. Andrew, thanks for joining us.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Thanks, Chris.
MATTHEWS: Let's get to the political part before we get to the numbers. I've heard him say this before about the power of television and negative advertising. He once said to me or some of us that the reason ObamaCare had a hard time starting is you had $200 million in negative advertising thrown at it. Does he believe that just repetition --
SORKIN: Oh, yeah.
MATTHEWS: a big lie if you want to get really brutal about it, has power?
SORKIN: Absolutely. He believes that we have heard over and over again that the country is going to hell. We've been told this from frankly both political parties but in particular the Republican party and has he said you absorb it. If you look at polls, by the way, some of the best off folks in America, people making $250,000 and more, if you ask them how the country is doing, they poll, purely on the poll will tell you it's worse frankly than people at lower tiers. So there is no question that the message is a big piece of this.
MATTHEWS: Well, let's start at the top. Donald Trump. He is a rich guy. People think he knows the economy because he made a lot of money and they think he knows what he's talking about. He does find those iconic things like the loss of carrier to Mexico, they’re dropping perfectly for him to say we've got to keep these highly skilled jobs in this country, they’re not third world jobs, if you will, the jobs you can figure anybody can do with training or require skill and training and pay pretty well. They are the jobs we have to keep, I think and that's the kind of thing I think hurts people's feelings about the future.
SORKIN: I think there’s a couple of things going on. First of all, Donald Trump will tell you repeatedly we're a third world nation which of course, we are not.
MATTHEWS: Of course.
SORKIN; And he says that on the stump regularly. More importantly, there is very much truth to the fact by the way, that there’s people in this country that are hurting, that's absolutely true, but when you're going to measure this man's legacy, when I say this man, president Obama's legacy to whatever degree you think can a president can control or influence the economy, to me at least, and I know to him, you have to do it on a relative basis. You have to say to yourself where we were when this started?What did it look like when we were about to go off the cliff and into the abyss and where are we now.
And by the way what happened during this period. Which is to say, not only are we at 5% unemployment when at one point were were at 10% unemployment. We created all sorts of jobs and even though it may not feel like that all the time and I know there's a lot of people out there that will watch this and say what are you crazy? This country really is going to hell and wages are absolutely an issue but on a relative basis to where we could have been--I know it's a counter factual but that it’s the hypothetical, it’s a counter factual which the president is effectively going to always be playing against because it was his job was to effectively get the country, you know, off the gurney and now we’re sort of in rehab but people don't like that and it's hard to measure that on a relative basis.
