Chris Matthews Calls Out Trump For Governing Through Spectacle After ‘Beating Up’ Zelensky ‘On Television’: ‘It Is Mussolini!’
Ex-MSNBC host Chris Matthews called out President Donald Trump for governing through spectacle, comparing him to 1920s Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and using TV to either direct his will on the cabinet or leverage his unquestioning MAGA faithful to side with his positions.
The take came after Trump publicly shared details on Truth Social of a “productive” cabinet meeting in which he limited the powers of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting DOGE initiative on Thursday, while backing Musk’s wider mandate, and reaffirmed the final call on job cuts across government departments lay with cabinet members.
Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough noted the move as a change in position on Musk as Trump attempts to “feel” his way through implementing his efficiency drive.
In response, Matthews, appearing on Friday’s show, noted that Trump was “doing all this on television” to indicate what he “thinks” and “redirect” his cabinet in a public manner that allows him to leverage his influence by giving access to his most loyal supporters.
The veteran broadcaster cited Trump’s use of televised events to push claims that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” and, just last week, by publicly “beating up” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in front of news cameras.
He’s doing all this on television. If you noticed, he calls the TV cameras in for the cabinet meetings he’s doing. He’s redirecting his cabinet officials, redirecting Musk.
I’ve watched this guy use television like nobody’s ever done. When he went up the other night on Tuesday night, talked to the American people and said, “We’re paying Social Security checks to people who are 160 years old.” Anybody who reads an obit page knows that’s not true. Anybody knows we’re not spending money on 20 million people out there getting free checks. That kind of fraudulence is unbelievable.
But he’s telling the MAGA people out there: ‘They’re stealing your money. Don’t trust these people in Washington. These are bad people. They are the deep state.’
He did it. You know, he talked about the election being stolen. Nobody in America will tell you which states were stolen from him. All the MAGA people—get them in a corner and say: ‘Tell me which states were stolen in 2020.’ They can’t tell you.
He just told them that. He just said they were stolen.
And with Zelensky on television, he said it was ‘great television.’ I’ll never forget that: ‘It was great television’ – where he beat up this guy on television. He and JD Vance, and they just did it in public.
So we all know what Donald Trump thinks of Zelensky. He’s teaching us.
He’s teaching us: don’t trust Social Security, so he can go after it. Don’t trust Ukraine because he’s going to go after Ukraine and diminish that country and its size and its importance. All because this is what Trump thinks and that’s what it’s about.
It is Mussolini. It’s about believing the leader in what he says verbatim. And that’s what Trump does on television. And he’s using us to do it using the medium.
Watch above via MSNBC.
