Amid all the media feeding frenzy about whether President Joe Biden should step aside for a younger candidate, veteran political analyst Chris Matthews is swimming against the tide.
Matthews, who hosted “Hardball” on MSNBC from 1997-2020, appeared on “Morning Joe” on Thursday, Matthews predicted that Biden’s “elite” critics are going to be proven wrong and “pay for it.”
Matthews’ appearance came before Biden’s Thursday night press conference following the NATO summit at which the president again emphasized that he had no intention to quit the race.
It’s interesting that Matthews, a former aide to House Speaker Tip O’Neill , and MSNBC Lawrence O’Donnell, a former aide to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, are among Biden’s staunchest defenders on MSNBC.
Matthews was presented the results of Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll that did indeed find that most Democrats, by a 56 percent to 42 percent margin, believed that Biden should end his reelection campaign after his poor debate performance.
But the Post reported that Biden and former president Donald Trump are in a dead heat in the contest for the popular vote, with each candidate receiving 46 percent support among registered voters in a two-way race. Those numbers are nearly identical to the results of an ABC-Ipsos poll in April. The latest poll results also found that 92 percent of Democrats said they intend to vote for Biden.
And Matthews had this to say about Biden’s political standing among Democrats.
“Right now, he’s got the poor people, he’s got minorities, he’s got Hispanics, he’s going to put out labor, he’s going to hold that base of the Democratic Party, which he will need in November,” Matthews said.
“And I’m telling you, people are going to end up rooting for him in October, because he will have a comeback,” he added “And then this elite-fashioned attack on him, they’re going to pay for it. But in the end they are going to end up voting for him.”
Matthews comments about Biden’s “elite” critics came days after actor George Clooney, a major donor, wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times saying Democrats needed a new nominee because the 81-year-old Biden was too old. Other Hollywood liberals, including Rob Reiner and Michael Douglas, expressed similar sentiments, as did a small number of Democratic lawmakers.
Matthews said Biden is much more likely to listen to first lady Jill Biden than someone like Clooney.
“Now who’s he going to listen to -- Jill or George Clooney?” Matthews asked. “I’m telling you it’s personal.”
And he predicted:
“I think Biden will be the little guy that will be the Democrat in this race, the true Democrat, and he’s going to get people to turn for him in October. It’s going to be stunning. He is not quitting. He is not built to quit.”
Matthews did criticize Biden’s White House and campaign staff for keeping him in a “witness protection program” and not making the president more accessible to the press.
“You have to expose people. You have to let them look at you, let you see them with all the flaws you’ve got … because they they decide they like you. The reason people like a politician is that they discover him or her. They learn who they are and they see through all the flaws and say he’s a good guy.
“Trump is a bad guy. That’s got to matter in the voting booths. … You look at the way he treats people, women and everybody. The way he treats his Cabinet members. he throws them out the window. He fires them with abandon.”
Here are highlights from Thursday’s “Morning Joe” show. The Matthews segment begins at the 33-minute mark.
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