Longtime Hardball host Chris Matthews used a segment of his weekday MSNBC program on Wednesday, May 10, to slam President Donald Trump’s firing of Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey, going so far as to call the incident “a little whiff of fascism.”
The liberal anchor stated that he had “never seen a faster reaction by Democratic senators that I heard in the last hour or so,” claiming that the termination has caused them to “want a special prosecutor now more than ever.”
After noting that former President Richard Nixon “was smart” to fire Independent Prosecutor Archibald Cox on a weekend in 1973 and led to the immediate resignations of the attorney general and deputy attorney general for refusing to fire him, Matthews claimed that Trump “knows how to read headlines ahead of time,” and the “headlines worldwide are going to be bad for him.”
The MSNBC host then stated that the firing by the Republican president “has hurt their case” regarding advancing the GOP’s agenda before asking guest Robert Costa, a national reporter for the Washington Post, for his thoughts on the matter.
Costa responded:
For the last few minutes, I’ve been talking to my sources at the White House, and I have to tell you, based on my reporting, the White House is very quiet right now, not sending out officials or cabinet members to defend this decision, to articulate the reasons why.
They’re standing by the letter from the president right now, which I think is a different way than this White House has approached controversial moments such as this.
“We’re also watching this administration really go against how Congressional Republicans are responding to this,” he noted. “A lot of Congressional Republicans I’m talking to feel like they were taken by surprise.”
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There were whispers that this was maybe in the works for the past week, but now this puts the Republicans on the Hill in a tough spot,” Costa explained “How do they more forward with their investigations in light of this?”
Matthews then told Susan Page, the USA Today Washington Bureau chief, “I think it’s very hard for a Republican senator in any kind of reasonable district or state that might go either way to defend this firing.”
“I think the firing of [Acting Attorney General] Sally Yates, who was fantastic yesterday,” the liberal host added. “People are wondering about that. There does seem to be a ‘machine-gun approach’ to getting rid of anybody who might investigate ... the president.”
Trump’s “explanation, which is that he’s firing him because of things he did in the past, certainly doesn’t pass the “small test” for Democrats,” Page stated, “and this will be a test for Republicans who control those Congressional investigations.”
“Do they pursue them with renewed vigor?” she asked. “Do Republicans join Democrats in demanding that there be a special counsel? Democrats can’t do this. Republicans could join with them and become a much more potent force for pushing for a counsel on this.”
“And what happens at the FBI?” Page inquired. “Does the FBI investigation continue with a lot of vigor or does this slow things down?”
Matthews then asked Clint Watts, a former FBI agent, “What do you think among the professionals, is this going to turn them off? It may turn off the next FBI director because he knows which way things are going at the White House.”
“For sure,” Watts replied. “What can you trust? I mean, what we saw tonight is the rule of law does not matter. It’s the rule of political power. You know, we hear President Trump say ‘America first.’ Tonight, President Trump put himself first.”
“A little whiff of fascism tonight, I think it’s fair to say,” Matthews stated.
“Absolutely,” Watts said in agreement.
“A little whiff of ‘I don’t care about the law; I’m the boss,’” the liberal host added.
Watts then continued:
If you listen to Director Comey’s testimony last week, he said the reason that he did these press conferences is he was trying to stay above the political fray … and wanted an independent assessment of the FBI ... to go to the American people so that they can know for themselves.
What he’s seeing now is whether it’s Democrats last summer or now a Republican president, if you don’t bow to their power, you are then thrown under the bus.
The FBI director’s resignation letter “has been in the works for probably weeks or months,” he noted. “And they’ve also probably been waiting for Comey to make a mistake so they could fire him for cause.”
However, “President Trump tried to reach out to Director Comey, try to bring him under his influence,” Watts stated. “I don’t think Director Comey went for it.”
The director’s termination is “a nervous reaction from a president who sees the walls coming down,” the former agent speculated with maybe a little whiff of liberalism.
