MSNBC host Chris Matthews continued his criticism of socialism on Tuesday, attacking independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Matthews initially chided the other Democratic candidates for not taking aim at Sanders’s belief system, saying, “Nobody just says the obvious: ‘Bernie, you’re full of it. None of this is going to get passed. You’re going to be a miserable president, frustrated from the first day because you’re not going to get Medicare for All. You’re not going to get free college tuition for public universities. You’re not going to get payoffs of all student loans. None of this is going to happen, and you’re just going to sit there and stew in it,'” Matthews said. “So, why don’t they bring that up? I do not understand why they don’t bring that up.”
He later added that Democratic candidates are “pandering” to Sanders supporters to garner necessary support in the general election.
“They’re just pandering to the Bernie people, and you know what pandering gets you? Nothing,” Matthews said. “They’ve got to get out there and say, ‘I disagree with socialism. I believe in the markets. I think he’s wrong. I think he’ll never get it done, and this country will never go that direction, and, by the way, we’ll lose 49 states.'”
Matthews cited how far-left supporters of Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern were “dancing in glee” when he was nominated in 1972 but noted that President Richard Nixon accomplished an overwhelming 49-state victory in the general election. “That can happen again. So clearly, that’s what I see. It could happen again,” Matthews said.
Matthews has ardently opposed Sanders as the possible Democratic nominee for president, saying the party has yet to figure out its core ideology. In early February, he said Sanders’s campaign is reminiscent of Fidel Castro’s communist regime in Cuba. Matthews added that the socialist has failed to persuade him that his ideas reflect a European-style social safety net.
“You know, I have my own views of the word ‘socialist,'” Matthews said. “They go back to the early 1950s. I have an attitude about them. I remember the Cold War. I have an attitude towards Castro. I believe if Castro and the Reds had won the Cold War, there would have been executions in Central Park, and I might’ve been one of the ones getting executed, and certain other people would be there cheering, OK? So, I have a problem with people who took the other side.”
