Thursday’s Hardball not only featured A-block panelists and MSNBC host Chris Matthews defending former FBI Director James Comey for violating DOJ policy to leak to the media, but Matthews floated to his B-block that possibility President Donald Trump could be suffering from dementia.
Matthews also compared Trump to Idi Amin, Julius Caesar, and Benito Mussolini, who’s like “an eight-year-old with crayons” who must be stopped, so that’s quite a stretch from dementia to a brutal, strategic dictator.
Right off the bat, Matthews was psyched to tease the segment (even though the “limited cognitive ability” line came from an anonymous source describing Mattis’s thinking in The Atlantic):
Coming up, former Defense Secretary James Mattis reportedly found President Trump to have — this is amazing stuff — limited cognitive ability. This is what you talk about in a dementia case, limited cognitive ability and here is what you talk about in a confessional: dubious character. That’s in a new report that describes Mattis’ reasons for resigning as Secretary of Defense and his grave concern about some of this President, well, this President.
After the break, Matthews reiterated those claims and exclaimed, “wow!” Going moments later to NBCNews.com’s Heidi Przybyla, he argued that those leaving the administration “leave behind circumspect, but recognizable problems” that go to Trump’s mental state.
“They do say things like — well, cognitive ability is what you talk about in a person being studied for dementia. It’s a serious problem. Do you recognize reality? What day is it, sir? That kind — that sort of thing,” he added, to which Przybyla hyped are “things...being said off the record or on background” (so anonymously).
So, we have the tiresome charge of dementia against the President. But then Matthews dragged out the claim that Mattis could be like Brutus standing up to Casear (click “expand”):
MATTHEWS: But who was the tragic hero of Julius Caesar. It was Brutus. Brutus was the great man. He was the one that brought down Caesar, who had become a tyrant and yet who looked good? He didn’t look so good. That’s the problem. Let me get back to something that you’ve raised. If there is a duty to warn us of cognitive problems, character problems, which we — maybe we, the citizens, don’t see it, as your journalists, hasn’t that been raised, the curtain on that, in the last two weeks by the baffling, cartoon behavior of this President?
PRZYBYLA: It does seem to be escalating.
MATTHEWS: With nobody around him to be adult care providers.
PRZYBYLA: It does seem to be escalating and yet that job is being put on people like you and I, who are making the same observations that any American who is watching this play out can make...[A]t some point, I think, you know, instead of a single Brutus, what has to happen here is there has to be a daisy chain, or there has to be a decision to hold hands and do this together[.]
To close out the segment, Matthews unloaded more descriptors to Demos’s Heather McGhee, observing that “I see a President running the country, the greatest country in history maybe, with crayons” who behaves like “an eight-year-old” with crayons saying things like “I want Greenland,” “I want to make money down in Doral,” and “I like this guy Boris Johnson” (whom Matthews believes is putting the Magna Carta in danger).
So, we have a possible sufferer of dementia, a modern day Caesar, and an “eight year old with crayons.” Tack on another two when Matthews said that Matthews would be a Mussolini supporter if he were still alive and, to top it all off, “is [like] Idi Amin” (which has been used before):
You know, when they found Idi Amin, the guy running Uganda, finally, they found he had toys in his room and he was actually spending his time playing with toys. Anyway, I love my history. Anyway, thank you. Even when it’s weird like that.
Oof. So, here again was another case study of how the liberal media want to have it both ways with their Trump hatred. At one point, they claim he’s the dumbest person ever to become President while, at the same time, he’s a conniving, maniacal, dictator.
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on August 29, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s Hardball
August 29, 2019
7:15 p.m. Eastern [TEASE]
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Coming up, former Defense Secretary James Mattis reportedly found President Trump to have — this is amazing stuff — limited cognitive ability. This is what you talk about in a dementia case, limited cognitive ability and here is what you talk about in a confessional: dubious character. That’s in a new report that describes Mattis’ reasons for resigning as Secretary of Defense and his grave concern about some of this President, well, this President.
(....)
7:20 p.m.
MATTHEWS: Retired four-star general and former Secretary of Defense James Mattis is breaking his silence and sharing some of his thoughts on the Trump administration. In an interview with The Atlantic, he says he had “no choice but to leave” the administration because he “just couldn’t connect the dots anymore.” Privately, according to friends and aides who spoke to The Atlantic, it went much deeper than that. They say Mattis “found the President to be of limited cognitive ability, and of generally dubious character.” We’re going to put those two thoughts together, lacking in cognitive ability and a character problem. Wow.
(....)
7:22 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: I want to start with Heidi on this and my question is, it does seem the adults leave, and they leave behind circumspect, but recognizable problems. They do say things like — well, cognitive ability is what you talk about in a person being studied for dementia. It’s a serious problem. Do you recognize reality? What day is it, sir? That kind — that sort of thing.
HEIDI PRZYBYLA: Okay, but those things are the kind of things being said off the record or on background.
MATTHEWS: Or their friends.
PRZYBYLA: Not attributable directly to them. They are not coming out to the American people and hitting them over the head. We have not seen that and so the question now, even with Mattis, and even with — in his book, the furthest he goes is really not that far. He just suggests that he could no longer take it. He doesn’t speak in detail about it, so the question is whether all of these officials who were supposed to be adults who are now gone, like McMaster, like Tillerson, John Kelly, are going to hold hands together and come out and give us more specifics of what they witnessed specifically about his cognitive abilities or specifically about really scary situations that they may have witnessed with the President and his judgment.
(....)
7:26 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: But who was the tragic hero of Julius Caesar. It was Brutus. Brutus was the great man. He was the one that brought down Caesar, who had become a tyrant and yet who looked good? He didn’t look so good. That’s the problem. Let me get back to something that you’ve raised. If there is a duty to warn us of cognitive problems, character problems, which we — maybe we, the citizens, don’t see it, as your journalists, hasn’t that been raised, the curtain on that, in the last two weeks by the baffling, cartoon behavior of this President?
PRZYBYLA: It does seem to be escalating.
MATTHEWS: With nobody around him to be adult care providers.
PRZYBYLA: It does seem to be escalating and yet that job is being put on people like you and I, who are making the same observations that any American who is watching this play out can make, but not — we’re not on the inner circle and you know, when this is happening publicly, there is so much more to the story that’s also happening behind the scenes and, at some point, I think, you know, instead of a single Brutus, what has to happen here is there has to be a daisy chain, or there has to be a decision to hold hands and do this together, because —
MATTHEWS: Well, they’re there.
PRZYBYLA: — this administration and Trump has also shown that he’s capable of destroying any one person. You have seen people who have come out and now Comey is viewed, for instance, as a sacrificial lamb by a lot of Republicans.
MATTHEWS: Heather, I will now say something that will probably bother people, but I think it’s true. We have a President who — and I’m not a Trump hater. Personally, I’m not a Trump hater. It doesn’t work with me, that hating thing, but I see a President running the country, the greatest country in history maybe, with crayons. I want Greenland in crayons. It’s like a kid with a — an eight-year-old with crayons. I want to make more money down in Doral. I like this guy Boris Johnson, who just suspended the Parliament, the mother of all parliaments, just rid of the Parliament. Its Magna Carta is at stake here and he says, I like this guy’s style. This is an eight-year-old.
MCGHEE: It’s an 8-year-old and —
MATTHEWS: If Mussolini was around today, he would say, I love that guy’s chin, the way it sticks out. I mean —
MCGHEE: — that’s right and he’s casting his Cabinet and his staff from television. That is the best way to think of it. The worst way to think of it, which is what I do, is, I think about the actual eight-year-olds that he is putting through hell with his policies at the border, with his domestic policies around health care and immigration.
MATTHEWS: Oh, yes, real kids at the border.
MCGHEE: I mean, they’re real kids, right? They’re real kids and then there’s an eight-year-old, as you’re saying, sort of in the White House absolutely saying, I want everything when I want it, when there are actual families and children that are being hurt by his policies.
MATTHEWS: This guy is Idi Amin. You know, when they found Idi Amin, the guy running Uganda, finally, they found he had toys in his room and he was actually spending his time playing with toys. Anyway, I love my history. Anyway, thank you. Even when it’s weird like that.
