Chris Matthews compares Trump to Michael Corleone when asked if POTUS sees himself as a ‘good guy’
WASHINGTON, DC: Chris Matthews just compared Donald Trump to a mob boss.
The veteran TV host drew a line straight from the president to 'The Godfather’s Michael Corleone, wondering if he really sees himself as a “good guy.”
Chris Matthews' latest Trump meltdown
The former MSNBC firebrand made the comparison Tuesday night, November 11, on 'The Beat' with Ari Melber, where he stopped by to promote his new book 'Lessons From Bobby: Ten Reasons Robert F Kennedy Still Matters.' But before long, the chat turned from Bobby Kennedy to Trump, Mediaite reported.
“Does Trump think he’s a good guy?” Melber asked.
“God help us, because he doesn’t understand the truth," Matthews said.
Melber jumped in with a nod to one of Trump’s more controversial TV moments. “I mean, you ask him about [Russian President Vladimir] Putin killing people and he says, well, you know, we kill people too,” the host said.
"What is he? Is he Michael Corleone?” Matthews asked, invoking Al Pacino’s mafia boss character from Francis Ford Coppola’s timeless trilogy.
Melber called out the “whataboutism” that's apparently baked into Trump’s rhetoric. “The whataboutism that infects these debates,” Melber said, “is Trump tries to move the barrier down, say, oh, well, they do it. They do it. They always do it.”
Matthews didn’t disagree, but admitted he’s still mystified by Trump’s magnetism with his base. Even inside his own family, the support for the president leaves him scratching his head.
“There’s a horrible thing about his ability to get people to agree with him. I don’t quite get it. I have family members like this, in-laws like this. I do not get it, I argue enough,” Matthews confessed.
When Melber asked if Trump’s style is “grating” to the public, Matthews claimed that the president’s divisiveness is about to hit home this holiday season.
“I don’t lead them in their thinking,” Matthews said of his relatives, “but I’ll tell you, everybody knows that you walk into a Thanksgiving dinner this year, a couple weeks now, into a minefield.”
Chris Matthews says Trump 'trashed' a sacred American tradition
In a Washington Monthly op-ed promoting his new book, Matthews called Trump's refusal to concede the 2020 election to Joe Biden the most damaging act of his career. “This may have been Trump’s worst crime against the American constitutional system,” Matthews wrote in the piece. “It definitely gets to the heart of it.”
The former 'Hardball' host accused Trump of putting his ego above the country, arguing that his tantrum over losing to Biden “tore up the rulebook” that every American president before him respected.
“The honest transfer of presidential authority is one of this country’s highest traditions,” he told readers. “American citizens are proud to have elections that are carried out honestly, and proud to have this transfer of power seen by the world.”
First lady Jill Biden and President Joe Biden welcome U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Melania Trump to the White House ahead of inauguration ceremonies on January 20, 2025, in Washington, DC (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)Matthews contrasted Trump’s defiance with presidents past, including Jimmy Carter, George HW Bush, and even Al Gore, who famously bowed out after the 2000 Florida recount.
“In his selfish interest, Donald Trump chose to undercut that tradition," Matthews declared.
