On Tuesday, the crazy train on MSNBC’s Hardball was firing on all cylinders. Host Chris Matthews was in rare form as he compared President Trump to O.J. Simpson and suggested that journalists (especially newspapers) should be automatically believed because, supposedly, no other group of humanity tells the truth better than journalists.
Less than a minute in, Matthews spouted off with unfortunate wording that Washington D.C. “is a city echoing from a bomb blast” in the form of the President’s campaign being “under criminal investigation for dealing with a foreign adversary” and “condemned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for lying that President Obama had him wiretapped.”
Matthews spun that Trump’s “naked to his enemies” with no credibility left on the world stage, adding: “With the aroma of the FBI investigation of his Russian ties engulfing the White House and the condemnation of his false claim about wiretapping hanging over him, its a fact that the President has squandered the credibility that comes with the office.”
As for the comparison to the controversial and jailed former NFL star, Matthews brought up Simpson while speaking to American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp:
Let's me ask you, Matt, would you drop that if you were him? I mean, at some point, you have to drop something. He keeps saying — I know Spicer’s got a terrible job. Spicer’s saying, well, some day he'll release it. You know, I remember O.J. saying he's going after the real murderer. Nobody believed it. No matter what you thought about the LA police, you didn’t think there was somebody’s looking for out there. Nobody believe that.
Matthews’s rambling incoherence arose to an even more pathetic degree 40 minutes later on the subject of journalism.
“I've always believed that our basic journalism and major papers — metropolitan papers and wire services is to be believed because it is put together by editors and reporters who are trying, to tell the truth as best a human being can do it,” he explained to his Hardball roundtable.
When The Huffington Post’s Peter Emerson quipped that he agrees even though Trump’s “undermining” the media’s credibility (instead of, you know, the other way around), Matthews ruled: “I know. They’re — anyway — not with me.”
It’s safe to say few (if any) readers of this site need to be told just how insane Matthews’s statement is about the credibility of newspapers.
A scan of the stories written on NewsBusters about The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today provide glaring examples of how, on a daily basis, their stories mislead viewers whether it’s labeling of conservatives, gross distortions, or stories that are covered/not covered.
Here are the relevant portions of the transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on March 21:
MSNBC’s Hardball
March 21, 2017
7:00 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS MATTHEW.S: Good evening. I'm Chris Matthews in Washington. Well, this is a city echoing from a bomb blast. We have a President’s campaign under criminal investigation for dealing with a foreign adversary. Historian Douglas Brinkley says “there’s a smell of treason in the air.” The President is now naked to his enemies, condemned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for lying that President Obama had him wiretapped. And who in the world’s going to believe him now? With the aroma of the FBI investigation of his Russian ties engulfing the White House and the condemnation of his false claim about wiretapping hanging over him, its he'd a fact that the President has squandered the credibility that comes with the office
(....)
7:09 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: Let's me ask you, Matt, would you drop that if you were him? I mean, at some point, you have to drop something. He keeps saying — I know Spicer’s got a terrible job. Spicer’s saying, well, some day he'll release it. You know, I remember O.J. saying he's going after the real murderer. Nobody believed it. No matter what you thought about the LA police, you didn’t think there was somebody’s looking for out there. Nobody believe that. So —
MATT SCHLAPP: Nobody likes being under investigation. But the fact is that the trump campaign is under investigation. The FBI is looking at Russia’s involvement —
MATTHEWS: But what about the charge of wiretapping by Trump?
SCHLAPP: Well, what I —
MATTHEWS: Tell me which part of this is true. He said, Trump said in his tweet, which you can have — will be permanent, by the way, these tweets are never going to go away,
SCHLAPP: Yeah, they’ll never go away.
MATTHEWS: He can’t revise them, he can’t redefine them. He said President Obama wiretapped me, sick.
(....)
7:49 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: I've always believed that our basic journalism and major papers — metropolitan papers and wire services is to be believed because it is put together by editors and reporters who are trying to tell the truth as best a human being can do it.
PETER EMERSON: I agree and he's undermining it.
MATTHEWS: I know. They’re — anyway — not with me.
