A day after MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews and a band of like-minded lefties suggested that President Trump’s A Salute to America was un-American and an attempt to turn the country into the former Soviet Union, Matthews returned Wednesday to predict Trump supporters there would have Confederate flags (instead of American ones) and could cause violence on the National Mall.
To begin the show, Matthews correctly stated that the Fourth of July “celebrate[s] the high human standards of our Founders” before reading this famous excerpt of the Declaration of Independence to assert that the President’s violating it with his event: “We hold these truths to be self of evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator were certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
He added “that this President has decreed that a procession of combat tanks will line the Capital while the President speaks to the nation flanked by the nation's highest ranking military chiefs” and thus “honor not the Declaration of Independence, but our military power and...the grandeur of Donald J. Trump's personal self.”
Then he trotted out his claim that there could be violence:
There is, of course, danger being risked in such a promenade tomorrow. Many who come to Washington will come to champion the President, this President. Others here in Washington on the Mall tomorrow will not be so moved. A country already divided with such malice by this President faces the peril of driving that wedge even deeper between — between us. To hope for violence would, of course, be treasonous. Not to expect it would be naive. The details and costs of Trump’s Marshall spectacle tomorrow have already ignited wide disgust.
Instead of this being a one-off, Matthews doubled down.
Minutes later, he raised this awful prediction with former Congressman Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), fretting that “my fear is a lot of people are going to show up who are pro-Trump” with “Confederate flags flying and their license plates and all kinds of trouble making” to then clash with protesters “in like a storm and you're going have a real conflict out there.”
Also in the A-block, liberal celebrity, Carole King told Matthews that, while she’ll be performing on PBS’s A Capitol Fourth, the President’s event will be “feeding the ego of someone who is arguably the most insecure person on the planet.”
To end the show, he predicted that “I think we’ll get through what Trump has planned for us” like the country has done in times of trial and tribulation even though the President will host an “undemocratic spectacle” and an “abuse” on Washington D.C.
See the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on July 3 below.
MSNBC’s Hardball
July 3, 2019
7:00 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Tomorrow we celebrate the high human standards of our Founders. “We hold these truths to be self of evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator were certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The Fourth of July is there for because of these words, essentially the celebration of American ideals of equality, of national unity, of freedom from a bullying government, of the dignity of the individual person. Yet it is on this Fourth of July and in this city that this President has decreed that a procession of combat tanks will line the Capital while the President speaks to the nation flanked by the nation's highest ranking military chiefs. For the first time in the history of our democratic republic, we are being instructed to honor not the Declaration of Independence, but our military power and this — it must be said, the grandeur of Donald J. Trump's personal self. There is, of course, danger being risked in such a promenade tomorrow. Many who come to Washington will come to champion the President, this President. Others here in Washington on the Mall tomorrow will not be so moved. A country already divided with such malice by this President faces the peril of driving that wedge even deeper between — between us. To hope for violence would, of course, be treasonous. Not to expect it would be naive. The details and costs of Trump’s Marshall spectacle tomorrow have already ignited wide disgust.
(....)
7:04 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS [TO HAKEEM JEFFRIES]: Is there any way of stopping him from using the pictures tomorrow, which are basically — the production is paid for by the American taxpayer, especially the people that go — the older people, the senior citizens who go to these National Parks and pay the 10 bucks or whatever it is to pay. My question is suppose he turns this into a big extravaganza for his ad campaign for next year. Is that legal?
(....)
7:09 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: But what do you think about the fact that he is sort of piggybacking his political show on top of this national thing that you're proud to be part of tomorrow night at the — at the Capitol?
CAROLE KING: His spectacle, tanks and the air show and everything, is feeding the ego of someone who is arguably the most insecure person on the planet.
MATTHEWS: You think it's ego?
KING: Totally and he's insecure that he needs this.
(....)
7:10 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: This is a weird thing because it seems like a helter skelter attempt to scare up some ego juice for the President rather than any long-term planning. My fear is a lot of people are going to show up who are pro-Trump. They're going have their Confederate flags flying and their license plates and all kinds of trouble making. They’ll be a lot of other people who are going to meet in like a storm and you're going have a real conflict out there. Your thoughts?
CARLOS CURBELO: Chris, a lot of people in the government are anxious and disappointed. Why, Chris? Because George Washington gave a great example of what this country is and showed why our founding fathers built an exceptional nation. In the Capitol Rounda, there is a painting that captures the moment when Washington turns over his military commission after being elected president to make it clear that, in this country, the people are in charge and not the military and that in this country, we celebrate the freedom of the people of every citizen, not the power of the government, as — as people do in other countries throughout the world. I think of Cuba, the country my parents fled.
MATTHEWS: Sure.
CURBELO: You see military parades there constantly because the government wants to be at the center of society. Our Founding Fathers didn't want the government to be at the center of society, and certainly not the President of the United States. So a lot of people over the country. But even in the President's White House, and even among congressional Republicans, there’s a lot of consternation about this, because it is a very clean break with an important, 243-year tradition that we're going to see tomorrow and it's not a positive break.
MATTHEWS: Well, why do you think that is, that people that are sort of dictatorish like the Castro brothers, why they would instead of giving people political freedom, which they never gave them, having promised it when I was growing up, everybody thought Castro was going to be a Democrat, a liberal Democrat. He promised to be one. He swore he was not a communist dictator. He swore it. We all heard it. Meet the Press and The Ed Sullivan — I think he did all of these shows, and he didn't do any of that. He lied to everybody. But your thoughts here, I think it is wonderful what you said about George Washington because when George the Third, he asked someone. What is Washington going to do after the war? And he was told Washington is going back to Virginia, his farm, his plantation. And George the Third, you know what he said? Then he'll be the greatest man in the world —
CURBELO: That’s right. That’s right, Chris.
MATTHEWS: — because everybody respects giving up power like that to a democracy.
(....)
7:58 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: I speak now on the eve of this undemocratic spectacle in this city where I work, a city where I have chosen to live my life, a city that I love. I am, as you all know, a student of national politics. My interests are the relationship between the free individual and the government in Washington and the role America should rightly play in the world. I like the way that President Harry Truman talked about we Americans. He called us this country. He didn't mean the government in Washington, but the American people and those splendid moments when we feel and act as one. Some of those moments I have shared myself. I was in college when Jack Kennedy was killed. I was in remote Africa when, 50 years ago this month, Americans crossed the star-filled night on their way to the moon. I shared this country's anger at our leaders’ lies over Vietnam and Watergate, and yes, the petty indignities of the Clinton era and through it all, I have watched the American spirit not only survive, but prevail, where politicians have failed us, the country itself has risen to the challenge, quickened to each new assault on its morale. I have loved this city of Washington that Trump intends to abuse tomorrow since my first visit here with my parents and two of my brothers back in 1954. I'm especially fond now of driving home at night past the monuments of Lincoln and Jefferson and looking across the Potomac to the Lee Mansion, and on it the little twinkle of light guarding the grave of John F. Kennedy. I think we’ll get through what Trump has planned for us here because the good news is that we are all still Americans, and that same spirit that built this great country continues to rip across it today. The same destiny lures us, the same optimistic, rebellious nature drives us that did even in those early, scary days of recreating our republic when our country was small but our soul was large, large enough and gutsy enough to declare to the whole world that all are created equal.
