Chris Matthews: Someone Has To Start Talking To People, Explaining to Them Trump Is Not a Jesus

BRZEZINSKI: “This man’s daily plan, Chris, is to hurt people, is to tear them down for himself, to fight for himself on — on Easter. Think about the message, Joe Biden sent. The message perhaps if you went to church, over Easter, you might have heard one that was similar about Easter being a day of renewal, a day, where you have a solemn moment to look at your relationship with God. And I’m just curious, with this man whose every day is a miserable March toward what God fearing Christians would call hell, OK, by his actions, why is this lost on people who love Jesus and follow the message of Jesus?”
MATTHEWS: “Well, I think a couple of things. I was thinking back to when Ronald Reagan, the once beloved Republican leader, and now in second place to Donald Trump, apparently, back when he was shot and nearly killed in 1981, the leader of the opposition who was the speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, went to see him in the hospital, George Washington Hospital, and he knelt down next to Reagan, and they prayed the 23rd Psalm together, ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd.’ This presidential candidate, Donald Trump, is saying, ‘I am the shepherd. I’m him. I’m God.’ It’s astounding to me. It’s astounding to me that he can talk like this. It’s blasphemy as it Maureen Dowd said in ‘New York Times’ yesterday. That’s how he talks. Now, I just saw some numbers. I’ve been away for a couple of weeks in Vietnam teaching over there. But I have to tell you a couple of things that finally come to my mind. One is, when I was up there in New Hampshire, my 10th primary up there, I saw a lot of really poor people waiting in line for two hours to see Donald Trump, really poor people, white people in most cases. And I said, ‘What’s going on here? And I don’t know if these are the cross tabs relate or why it relates, but they really want this guy to be their president again. And then I saw the Florida Atlantic University poll that came out in March. And it pointed out that the only economic group in the country that likes Trump is under 50,000, a year, not 50 to 100, not above 100, only people below 50,000. I can’t put it all together. But maybe people are hard up, people have a grievance against society, because society has been tough on them. White, Hispanic, of black, all kinds of people below 50,000 a year are for Trump. Somebody’s got to get that into their heads that that’s what’s going on here. And somebody’s got to start thinking about why Trump is appealing to those people who are hard up. And people like in the White House like Ricchetti and Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn, somebody in that big, smart group of anonymous people have got to start thinking about who they’re up against. Trump has been able to wire himself into people of basic needs, they live out, they’re not rich, they’re not going to go into Florida to get the tax break. They’re not like that crowd, but that crowd really is out there too. That crowd is going to benefit from these four people. The people looking to get a tax break from Trump. They’re going to get — they’re going to benefit from that. The people below, the lower economic groups, they’re — they’re just going to get left out. And it’s so clear. So Democrats have got to get to the people. They’ve always rooted for the people at the bottom, the people with true grievance, they’ve always said word for those people. They got to start rooting for them somehow, obviously, and that means Biden has got to start talking to them. And it’s not happening yet. Trump’s talking to them. As somebody once said of FDR, I didn’t know him, but he knew me. Trump knows those people. When he was up there in New Hampshire, I heard him say something. My people have figured I should come to this area, Laconia, because there’s a lot of poor people. And he said, it’s the way he —“
BRZEZINSKI: “Right.”
MATTHEWS: “— remember — remember back in 2016, when he beat Hillary, he went to Erie. And he went to Wilkes-Barre, the Luzerne County. He knew where he’s — Hillary was stuck down in Philly. He knew where he was going. I think people like David Urban, who was running his campaign last time, they know where to advance him. They’re going to go out there and advance him to the right places. And I’m telling you, it’s fast — I don’t know if the Democrats have really thought through this campaign of what they’re up against. This guy’s calling himself God. God. That sounds strange.”
BRZEZINSKI: “Yeah. Hello.”
MATTHEWS: “Yeah. And if he can get away with that, then he is truly a cult. And people got to be taught — I mean, thought through it with them. Somebody’s got to start talking to people and saying, ‘This guy is not for real as a secular leader. He’s not Jesus.”