MSNBC firebrand Chris Matthews deplored Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before a joint session of Congress Tuesday, accusing the prime minister of conspiring with U.S. lawmakers to steal power from President Obama.
“This man from a foreign government walked into the United States legislative chamber and tried to take over U.S. foreign policy. He said, ‘You should trust me, not your president on this. I am the man you should trust. I’m your true leader on this question of U.S. geopolitics. To protect yourself, you must listen to me and not to this president,'” the cable news host said.
“It was a startling situation: To allow someone to come in, knowing that that was going to be their message in the chamber of the U.S. Congress, this was a decision made by [House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio] and certainly complied with by Netanyahu and his ambassador,” Matthews said.
The Israeli prime minister during his address before Congress urged U.S. lawmakers to reconsider the deal currently being arranged with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. Netanyahu warned that the consequences of a nuclear Iran could be grave for both Israel and America.
Matthews was deeply unimpressed with the prime minster’s urgings.
Netanyahu and his team “went into the U.S. congress to take over U.S. foreign policy today from the president. It’s a remarkable day when the leaders of the opposition in Congress allow this to happen,” Matthews said.
“Think it through: What country in the world would let a foreign leader come in and attempt to wrest from the president control of U.S. foreign policy?” he asked. “That’s what the applause was about today. That was what the battle of applauses was about: To take power away from the president. So we’ll see, it may succeed and we may see that there’s going to be a lot more legislative intent here in terms of any treaty, a stronger push by congress to insist on a vote up or down on any treaty.”
Clearly, the cable news host added, “that was what was going on here.”
