← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Americans Revolt Over High Prices Under Trump
00:41:26
MSNBC's Ari Melber reports on the affordability crisis in the US, with recent polling showing that 66% of Americans say Trump has fallen short on his campaign promise to tackle inflation and cost of living. Vanity Fair's Molly Jong-Fast and Democratic Strategist & Pollster Cornell Belcher join.
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- [00:00]
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Audience Member / Voter
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Molly Zhang
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Ari Melber
Welcome to the beat, everyone. I'm Ahri Melbourne. I wish you a happy Veterans Day as we honor service in America. Top news story tonight begins with a very telling moment. Your going to see it right now. As a Republican congresswoman's Iowa town hall boiled over with voter anger regarding health care costs that even led to heckling when the Affordable Care act was passed.
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Audience Member / Voter
Lower cost.
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Ari Melber
On the Affordable Care act or the Unaffordable Care act, there was minimal.
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Chris Matthews
What's your plan?
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Audience Member / Voter
It's minimal number of people.
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Chris Matthews
How much are you?
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Ari Melber
That is the sound in one place, anecdotal, but it's backed by a lot of data I can show you tonight. It's the sound of talking points from the right wing running into Iowa voters. A place where Trump, of course, has done very well repeatedly. Not just some super liberal place stocked with Democratic talking points, but if you deny people health care funding, if you deny people the programs that support their ability to get care, and then you run around saying things like the unaffordable health care bill because you think that's a neat play on words right now you're going to run into angry voters. We saw that a week ago Tuesday in the voting. We're seeing it now. And Americans are clear on this issue. 66% say Trump has fallen short or broken his vows on the key campaign promise to bring down costs. Over 70% say they know their grocery costs have gone up, just like utilities. Most blame Trump. I'm going to leave this up for a second. When you see the 59% blame Trump. By definition, that includes people who voted for Trump. They were hoping for better. They might have liked what he said last year, but they blame him here on planet Earth in Reality Land because he's done very little to bring down the prices. He doesn't even hold events or talk about it, let alone do anything about it. We know this is part of the anger that drove The Dem sweep. I have more on that coming up tonight. As for what people are going through, and this is the shift in the polling. You can see Trump now in the Biden land of where Biden was when he was ultimately deemed a kind of a failed president at the end or drove out of the race by his own Democratic Party. Well, that's where Trump is. Trump may have a better knack for social media. He may have a voice that's a little louder and stronger. The SNL impression may be a little different, but when it comes to how people feel about them, well, Mr. President, early in your term, welcome to Biden year four land. It's not pretty. Here's where the public is in their own words. I have to work two jobs right now and I feel like I can't even afford, you know, what I'm trying to pay for. Look at the price I paid for this just a year ago.
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Audience Member / Voter
Welcome to that.
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Molly Zhang
Just don't make sense.
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Ari Melber
Spending money on the price of beef is, is, wow.
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Audience Member / Voter
These grocery store prices got me thinking. Thanksgiving about to be spaghetti. The way that groceries are grocering, the.
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Chris Matthews
Way that gas pack prices are gassing.
- [03:55]
Ari Melber
350 a gallon, bruh.
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Audience Member / Voter
I don't know if I'll be able.
- [04:00]
Ari Melber
To sort of survive this. Real people feeling priced out of their lives, even holiday spending. They're acutely aware that these are the problems Donald Trump vowed to fix on day one, only to start governing on a long list of other items, from the controversial White House demolition and renovation to publicly admitting an unlawful demand for revenge indictments, to, to personally trying to pocket hundreds of millions of dollars from crypto to a plot to seize taxpayer money from the doj. If you listen only to Trump fans or some of what's discussed in sort of the MAGA media universe and podcast, they'll say nobody cares about this and nobody cares about that and it's okay. And look what he, quote, gets away with. Well, he didn't get away with it on Tuesday. Number one, that's just covering the facts. And number two, do you really want your president to be trying to get away with stuff in his second term when he has, as Obama put it, no more races to run. Now, the sentiments you heard from people there helped power the sweeping Democratic victories. The things Trump is more focused on that I just listed off have nothing to do with lowering grocery prices. And here we are exactly one week later from the Democratic sweep. And boy, a lot can change in politics in a week, especially in election week. The voter's message and anger is not going away. In other words, what hurt Trump last week is hurting him this week and every week going forward until something changes or perhaps people don't see a better alternative. In politics, it's always what you have and what's the alternative? At least for the time being. Democrats from the far left to the center in Virginia seem to hold up one big message. Trump is a failure. He's also corrupt. We don't want kings in this country and we will do what he is not. Focus like a laser on affordability and lower prices for you. Maybe throw in some health care while they're at it. Those are the messages. We know what voters picked on Tuesday. I want to get right to it. And bring in New York Times contributing opinion writer Molly Zhang, fast and pollster Cornell Belcher, Democratic strategist who work with brilliant Corners research and has worked for many Democratic campaigns. Welcome to both of you. Cornell, what do you see there in the sort of national mood?
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Audience Member / Voter
It's a dark period, Ari. And quite frankly, I've been looking back on data going back to 2008, remember when we actually were in a full out recession and many of the matrix and many of the attitudes that Americans have are very much in line to where we were when the economy completely collapsed and we were losing what, a hundred thousand jobs a week or so. And particularly with the middle of the electorate. R.A. you showed those numbers. But we like to pay a lot of attention to those independent voters. And in CNN's polling it's even worse where independent voters, 67% of independent voters, say Trump's policies have made the economy worse. So it's not just that is not that he's doing nothing, but they feel that he's actively, his policies are actively making things worse. And I think that helps explain why, why while voters aren't necessarily crazy and in love with Democrats, they still are preferring Democrats and breaking Democrats way over Trump and Republicans. Right.
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Ari Melber
You mentioned the 08 crash. I mean the consumer confidence index is down around those levels, which again is striking because as you point out, it shows that maybe it's a overall fatigue having gone through Covid and the rebound and now have AI job risks and a lot of other things. Maybe it's all sort of congealed in a different way. But nobody thinks as bad as it is that we are in the financial crash of 08, at least not yet, not right now. But that tells you where the pain is. And politicians and the Republicans who run the White House and the Congress can underestimate that. At their peril. James Carville is known as a pollster with, or a campaign operative with less hair than you but more experience. So, you know, take it. Take it or leave it. Depends what you want, what you prize. This is how he summed it up briefly last night.
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Chris Matthews
Understand, this was about affordability. It was a big issue and, you know, it was if the economy, stupid. But I think corruption and cruelty also had a lot to do with this. I think it was just a revulsion. I think people saw the gratuitous cruelty.
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Ari Melber
Where does that factor in?
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Audience Member / Voter
No, I think that's absolutely right. I think we could oversimplify and bust in the media. We tend to oversimplify things as though there's only one variable at play, but clearly underlying. Look, you know, she, you know, both, both Spamberger and Trill ran up scores among minority voters that Ari I haven't seen since Obama and I didn't think a Democrat would do, and we had tremendous turnout. That wasn't simply about, you know, Democrats talking about affordability.
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Ari Melber
Right.
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Audience Member / Voter
It had a lot to do with it. But there's something bigger and larger angst piece going on here when, when, when people see in their own communities, ICE taking, tearing away, tearing apart families and going into the daycares and schools, something fundamentally not right about that. Even right here in Washington, D.C. where we have, you know, God bless our National Guard. They didn't ask to be put in this political place. But you have, you know, the armed forces marching through the cities of our country. You know, there's more here than just affordability. There's a bit wet blanket thrown over America. And it's about a lot of different things about the very nature of America right now, just not just the cost of things.
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Ari Melber
Molly?
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Molly Zhang
Yeah. You know, I think it's really good point, this idea. There's so much unprecedented stuff here. It's hard to even like, you know, a big X factor is the tariffs. We have never been tariffed at this rate in modern life, so we don't really know what any of this is going to look like. But certainly the ice, the National Guard, the mood of people having, you know, in D.C. a lot of people know, people who've been disappeared, you know, who've been sent to these facilities in Louisiana, who've been deported to countries they never were from. I mean, this stuff is really unprecedented, you know, and I do think, and even like the East Wing, you know, things that seem aesthetic are actually a really big deal. And so I do think it's a combination of all These things that has really created an atmosphere where, you know, Donald Trump, you have voters who are genuinely, you know, just dismayed.
- [10:39]
Ari Melber
Yeah. And, and against that, Cornell, you have a kind of pushback that, that just doesn't seem to land for people. Donald Trump has been caught lying more than any other politician in history. The Washington Post has a whole, you know, department. And they track it and it's sort of. People become inured to it, normalized. It's also fair to say that other politicians try to spin the hand they have. We heard Biden officials, as you know, try to downplay prices and inflation. They didn't say, we get how bad it is. We wake up every morning, think about, thinking about it. They kind of, by year four, were saying, it's a lot better. Don't you see? It's better. It's better. It's better. People didn't feel that way. What's funny is, you know, how often do you say, oh, there goes Donald Trump, just like Joe Biden, you know, that's what we all say. Maybe not on every issue, but on this problem. And maybe, you know, better educated historians than I could come up with all the comparisons of why people in power get like this, but here they are trying to look everyone in the face with the numbers we just showed and the election we just lived through. And here is the treasury chief. Take a look. We're comfortable that inflation has come way.
- [11:52]
Tyler Redicure
Down, even though it's been increasing for.
- [11:53]
Legal Analyst
Five straight months as of September.
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Ari Melber
Well, I guess if you look at it from January, there's ups and downs and seasonals. The issue of affordability. My rent's too high. I can't afford to buy a house. Groceries are too expensive. You think they're just misperceiving what's happening in their lives? I think that they, that they're in that. We inherited an affordability crisis. We inherited a mess. It was the worst inflation 40 or 50 years. Cornell, you can give a grade on that messaging.
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Audience Member / Voter
It's D, right? D minus at best. Here's the problem. And with a little sort of nod to the bond administration, I think Obama administration at least was making the point that, look, we're moving in the right direction and it's not where we want it to be. But certainly our policies that we put in place are beginning to move in the right direction. And you look at the economic numbers and especially the job numbers, we're beginning to move in the right, right direction. As, as the, as the host in the first clip you saw fact check them. They're just flat out lying. Right. The election numbers aren't going down. They're big. They've been going up. And so they're trying to spin it. And, and here's the thing. If you look inside the data and look around sort of direction of the country and even sort of the direction of the economy, you do see RA differences between those who are very favorable towards Trump and those who are not very favorable towards Trump. And even more so when you look inside numbers and who are frequent Fox viewers.
- [13:25]
Ari Melber
What I'm gonna do is thank Cornell. Molly, I got something else for you in a second. But you walked us through a lot of this. It makes sense when you laid out like that. And the data has problems, as you say, for the incumbent Republicans if it stays like this a year out from the midterms. Thank you. I'll be back with Molly and the trillionaire era in 90 seconds. Welcome back. We just covered the voters who are speaking out on high prices in this economy, and that's just what they're going through. Then there's the wealth gap. Tech boom, Wall street bull market raging on. And this gap is not just about political messaging. In fact, if there were no elections on Tuesday and none of this had taken flight in sort of the public debate, income inequality would still be surging, driven both by the stock market gains and choices in US Law and regulation, which currently reward the wealthy far more than most democracies do. And that's something that lawmakers can decide on. In the US Right now, the richest people are richer than ever. Literally. That's not rhetoric. That's what's happened in the year 2025, because the richest own far more stock than everybody else. And those richest people are smashing records this year, as you can see, for the top 1%. Now, back in the Reagan era, we talked about millionaires. That was the big rich milestone tonight. I can tell you that in a sign of capitalism in some kind of overdrive, the controversial new Tesla payment plan puts Elon Musk on a path to become the world's first trillionaire with a T. The company just voted for a plan for a potential payout that if he meets certain marks, would be the largest ever granted to any single person. Keep in mind that Tesla, which has been lauded as a good company in certain ways, well, they pay the regular workers about $50,000 a year. This kind of wealth makes Musk more rich and powerful than entire countries. If he hits the mark, a trillion is larger than the whole economy GDP of Poland or of Argentina or of Sweden. I mean, it's wild. There's very few ways we can really try to use words to encapsulate what it means for Tesla to tell Elon Musk he can become a trillionaire. Here's how he reacted to the vote from his company stockholders. Thanks, guys. First of all, I'd like to just give a heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported the shareholder votes. I super appreciate it. He super appreciates it. Now this is happening. And again, we sometimes are so focused in news and political news on the elections and then what's driving them. But all of this is happening anyway. It's happening even if Elon Musk was not Donald Trump's buddy, even if he didn't take a rightward turn. This is the macro economy. And so while you have a political conversation about messaging, affordability and ideology and some saying, well, Democrats shouldn't go too far left and all that, and there's nuance in all of that, because not every city or country is going to tax the same way. But the wider thing going on very clearly are these unprecedented rewards for the ultra rich at the expense of others. And that's in the face of what regular people went through in the COVID economy, the new risk of AI to their jobs to some people in line for food this year. So all of this cuts deeper than just an ad campaign or poster about affordability, which has become an important thing and also a political buzzword. Indeed, it has stoked a revolt which has now come to the nation's financial capital, the home of Wall Street, New York City. And remember, many people come to New York City precisely to make it in a capitalist town. It is not just some cliche of a Berkeley burnout at the coffee shop. These are ambitious young people who come here, and some of them stay people who tend to enjoy making and spending money. They are not the sort of first obvious place to pitch a democratic socialist campaign, unless they've been going through what I just told you about. And now they've turned to a young Democratic socialist who was literally unknown in the city a year ago. When Zoran Mamdani faces pushback on taxing millionaires, he insists they can still afford just 2% more. As he told us in our election eve interview, I continue to think that having the top 1% of New York City who are making more than a million dollars a year, having them pay 2% more for an economic agenda that would trans every New Yorker's life, including their own, is something that is worthwhile. Back with Molly. We turn to that because it's so much broader than any one election. Minting trillionaires. And this level of inequality is actually not something we've ever lived through.
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Molly Zhang
No, I mean, it's the closest to the Gilded Age, right? It's closest to that period. But we've never had someone like Elon Musk go into the government, become a special government employee, practice reverse philanthropy with money that was taxpayer dollars moving it around, right. Canceling NIH grants, doing the kind of stuff that is not, you know, the job is the job of Congress and not of the executive branch to begin with. And to get that job because you are a presidential donor is completely unprecedented. So, yes, there's a lot of politics in this and also there's a lot of betrayal, you know, of the Republican base too.
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Ari Melber
And the trillion is hard to. It's hard to get your head around. We have what, a trillion dollars buys over 30 million Camrys. Think about it that way. Billion iPhones or 109,189 billion Big Macs. And McDonald's famously does they track how many they sell. They have those old signs, remember, billions of billions served against the backdrop of say, a company like Amazon, which like Tesla has done well. They have the so called Top 7 Tech Stocks and they say, well, this creates wealth for everybody. And sometimes it does. The stock market is a great thing for a lot of people's retirement if they can afford to be in it. But here's the Amazon headline. They're now targeting 30,000 job cuts. If they go forward after the recent 14,000, these could be the largest layoffs in history. So it's hard to sort of see why the tech boom is supposed to work for everyone if it doesn't even help the people working at Amazon.
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Molly Zhang
Well, and I don't think it is supposed to work for everyone. And Mondame is really a response, right? This is a candidate who was a very good candidate, who ran really well, but he also was able to message on affordability. Just like Spanberger, just like Sheryl. He was like laser focused. I remember watching him in the polls. Someone came and said, well, a journalist said, well, Donald Trump says he's handsomer than you are. And he was like, I'm laser focused on affordability. And honestly, that's because there is a big sentiment in this country that it is not fair that the cap, that completely unfettered and unchecked capitalism is not the move anymore. And in fact, Mandani put Lina Khan in his cabinet. And Lina Khan is one of the sort of Great thinkers when it comes to antitrust. And her whole, you know, her whole gestalt is this belief that company, that capitalism needs some guardrails, that we have to have some kinds of, of rules, you know, a little bit, you know, we're not saying socialism, we're just saying that, you know, there needs to be progressive taxation and there needs to be, you know, this is a country that, where there needs to be some help for people who have less.
- [21:19]
Ari Melber
Yeah. And I think the, the anger in 24 against Biden over the economy was, was this tracking thing. It got a little louder, but it, it really exploded on the election where people said, wow, it got these groups and yeah. So some people said, oh, those groups are now part of the MAGA coalition. The MAGA was quick to claim, oh, well then I guess we got young people, Latinos, et cetera. Well, we're a week out of Tuesday where a lot of those people swung back. And so it doesn't mean the Democrats are great or can take this for granted, but it does suggest that's an inflationary. You know, we talk about general swing voters, cause they haven't made up their mind about anything. And everyone says, who are these people? Well, we clearly have a subset of inflation swing voters who don't care that much about red or blue. And they're swinging on that. And to state the obvious, which is part of our job, the richer you are, the less you notice inflation 100%. I mean, every so often there might be a price that you, you notice theoretically. But when you look at, I'm putting the political headline up, the flip side of America's price crunch is also paltry play checks inflation climbing faster than after tax pay for lower and middle income households. And that's just math. Because if you're making less and you go to check to check, a 3%, a 4 or 5% matters. If, if you're making whatever, millions, then it's only a theore. And so it seems like some of the elite class, including clearly the MAGA folks at the elite level for sure miss this. No.
- [22:44]
Molly Zhang
Trump is the richest cabinet ever. Okay? They're billionaires. So like, obviously they're not gonna be sensitive to this stuff. But yes, voters are furious. And that's what we're seeing, and that's what I think Democrats have to be really mindful of, is that they can maybe win. But you know, it's not 2016. You can't just say orange man bad. Like you really need to solve people's problems. People are hurting people There is a real inflation problem and Democrats have to have a plan for that, which they do have, much more than Republicans. But still, it's not a fait accompli.
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Ari Melber
It's funny you said that you can't just win on saying Orange man bad because there was a great politician, rfk, rest in peace, who campaigned on saying I'm against more than just the man. But on behalf of actual policy and Molly, thank you for being here. That is our sort of preview to looking at the RFK agenda with Chris Matthews. When we come back. Are you ready to get spicy? These Doritos Golden Sriracha aren't that spicy.
- [23:46]
Molly Zhang
Maybe it's time to turn up the heat.
- [23:49]
Ari Melber
Or turn it down. It's time for something that's not too spicy. Try Doritos Golden Sriracha spicy but not too spicy.
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- [25:02]
Ari Melber
We.
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Audience Member / Voter
Had Abigail Spanberger win and we had Zohran Mandami win. There are fights that are going to have to be fought but that deep down there is something core in us that we have in common that is extraordinary.
- [25:20]
Ari Melber
Barack Obama touting unity across the different Democrats who won just a week ago today. The party finding energy and some new faces who inspire people with their own ideas, not simply drafting on the substantial energy against Trump. That is a theme once tapped by another Democrat seen at the time as liberal, sometimes arguably too liberal. Robert F. Kennedy. His 1968 presidential campaign tried to energize the left against the Democratic establishment. But he also talked about the goal of being about more than opposing any one man.
- [25:56]
Chris Matthews
I do not run for the presidency merely to oppose any man, but to propose new policies. I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and because I have such strong feelings about what must be done.
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Ari Melber
Words that, like any great political argument, might echo on for generations. Chris Matthews is a longtime chronicler of the Kennedy family, the veteran MSNBC anchor so known to our viewers. Longtime political journalist, he joins us right now to talk politics, the election wins, and his new book, Lessons from Bobby 10 Reasons Robert F. Kennedy Still Matters. Congrats on the book. Thanks for being here.
- [26:38]
Chris Matthews
It's been great to be here on the beat.
- [26:40]
Ari Melber
On the beat, yes. Great to see you.
- [26:42]
Chris Matthews
Perfect place to talk about Bobby Kennedy.
- [26:44]
Ari Melber
Tell us why.
- [26:45]
Chris Matthews
Well, because you talk about unity, you talk about the left, but I tell you, the picture that comes to mind with me is the Acela route, right now New York to Washington. Along that route, the body of Bobby Kennedy was carried to arlington Cemetery from St. Patrick's Cathedral. And along the route where an interesting vibe of people, 20,000 African Americans, came out to the 30th street station to sing together spontaneously the battle of Hymn of the Republic. And intermittently among the between the cities of Trenton and Newark. And all were white people, working white people, poor, poor white people standing in salute. I mean, when you see these pictures, you go, what made the guys are in salute? And then they had in many cases their family in birth order standing there in salute, and you go, wait a minute. Two different communities, two different groups of people totally believing in Bobby Kennedy. How did he do that? Because he tried to do that. You know, he would. He would travel through Gary, Indiana, during the Indiana primary with Richard Hatcher, the first African American mayor, on one side of him in an open car, and Tony Zale, the former middleweight champion, on the left side, a white hero. He wanted to make a message. He wanted me. I'm here for both communities. And he did something very interesting. Think about a tough liberal. He desegregated Ole Miss. You watch those football games today, you tell those fans out there, tell them, do you know Bobby Kennedy integrated this school? He did that. It's not just for the academics, it's for sports and everything. Same thing with Wallace, George Wallace University, Wallace, he would integrate this with angry white people screaming at him.
- [28:31]
Ari Melber
So when you, when you look.
- [28:32]
Chris Matthews
So he did that, and he did it at the same time. He was for law and Order. He would campaign on the issue of law and order because he believed that you're not going to have liberalism with people breaking the law.
- [28:42]
Ari Melber
You say tough liberal. He was also ascendant. And we saw in that campaign, before he was tragically murdered, that he was addressing what had curdled in the 60s. There was a meanness and there was a fear, and yet he still would evoke compassion. It was what you're saying, that it's not uncool. We see these debates today, to care about another person. You know, if you go on the Internet, you get the impression that you're a sucker. If you're a compassionate person, it's almost like they're trying to make it uncool. I want to play briefly what he said about that also in 68 on compassion.
- [29:19]
Chris Matthews
I do believe that the American people are generous and compassionate, and I believe that we can do much better than we've done over the period of the last few years.
- [29:31]
Ari Melber
What did you find on that side?
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Chris Matthews
Well, I gotta tell you something. There are a couple speeches he gave. One the night that Dr. King was killed, and he went into a black neighborhood, a tough neighborhood. He was warned, don't go in there. The police are not coming in with you. No police escort, no shotgun guard. You're going in alone. And then he had to go in. And he asked the guy, because I got this from NBC, he's asking who's with him. His host. As he stood on the flat front of the truck, he said, do they know yet? Now, people have to think about this. This isn't a time when you didn't have social media, you didn't have cell phones. People didn't get the buzz. They didn't find out what was going on until the news came on. And he had to tell these people in their face, a white guy's just killed your hero. I mean, just think about that moment. And having the personal is the right word. Confidence, moral confidence, the ability to say, they trust me enough to hear this from me. And he said, my brother was killed by a white guy. And it was always. And I heard that at the time, I said, this is kind of a weird thing. Chris is killed by a white guy. What's that mean? He's a white guy. It wasn't a racial issue, but he was trying to find some way to identify, to say, look, I know what this is feeling like. I know what rage is like. And nobody was more enraged than he was when his brother was shot.
- [30:40]
Ari Melber
And the scourge of violence, which that Type of violence is a rejection of us having a civil and peaceful democracy. Right. It's, it's run throughout the history. I want to read you right here. I worry about our country's direction. I refer to the government, but also to the weakened opposition. We are divided, you say, and adrift. But we still have the instinct to spot the bully on the playground. We can feel the difference between right and wrong. So can the US Again be the world leader and valiant ally we grew up believing ourselves to be? Are we ready and willing to once again be the world's good guy? Do you see any shift on that score since Tuesday in the election? No.
- [31:19]
Chris Matthews
Well, yeah, but sure. I love Mikey Sherrill. I mean, you could see it's like your face. I mean, she was a happy person in her job. She was happy that she's a politician like Bobby was happy to be being a good guy. I mean, in the book, I say America will be great again when it's good. We're the good guys. You know, we were the good guys in World War II, let's face it. We still love the, what's our favorite movie? Most Americans, World War II movies, because we were the good guy. We want to go back and watch it again. And, and I think it's so, it's so important to us to be the good guys. And I, I think about.
- [31:56]
Ari Melber
Does Trump think he's a good guy?
- [31:59]
Chris Matthews
God help us. He doesn't seem so because he doesn't understand the truth.
- [32:03]
Ari Melber
I mean, you ask about Putin killing people, and he says, well, you know, we kill people, too.
- [32:07]
Chris Matthews
I mean, his, what is he, is he Michael Corleone?
- [32:10]
Ari Melber
But his greatest, the whataboutism that infects these debates, and I want to hear from you on this is Trump tries to move the barrier down, say, oh, well, they do it. They do it. It's always they do it. Whether it's what he says are the bad version. Comey. The Democrats. Yeah. Is that grading on the public?
- [32:27]
Chris Matthews
I wish it was. I, I, I don't like in the bubble elitism. I don't like people saying, oh, we're better than the people, that a lot didn't go to college or something. They don't, they don't have our sophistication. Well, there's a horrible thing about his ability to, to get people to agree with him. I don't, I don't quite get it. I've family members like this, in laws like this. I, I do not get it. I, I argue enough, but I'll tell You.
- [32:53]
Ari Melber
You have MAGA family members.
- [32:54]
Chris Matthews
Oh, yeah.
- [32:55]
Ari Melber
They never watch hardball.
- [32:56]
Chris Matthews
No, that's not the issue. I don't need them in their thinking. But I'll tell you, everybody knows that you walk into a Thanksgiving dinner this year.
- [33:03]
Audience Member / Voter
Yeah.
- [33:03]
Chris Matthews
A couple of weeks now, into a minefield.
- [33:05]
Ari Melber
Oh, politics is eating the culture. I mean, that's. Yeah. Let me show you. Since you talk to people for real, and I mentioned you've been covering this, this family, and you bring a lot of background to it. When RFK Jr. Was running for president, this longtime Democrat and people were waking up to his shift, we had him at this very table. And in one of the less political moments, I just asked him, because he's a candidate, you know, fair game, how did this all affect you, what you grew up with? And he kind of. He talks about how he didn't yet still at this point in his life have an answer for that terrible tragedy, how it affected him. Take a look. You mentioned that you've tragically lost family members to gun violence. How does it affect you, if you can share.
- [33:47]
Chris Matthews
You know, I have. I have to think about that. And oddly, I should have an answer to that because it's something, you know, that I, you know, I. That affected me greatly. Well, I don't get that. When he, when his dad was killed, probably by sir and Sirhan. That's what the evidence suggests in the, in the, in the kitchen of the American, of the Americana Hotel. And he went to the hotel, to the hospital. He was 14 years old. That man we just saw there at 14, and he goes into this hospital and he said, everybody he was recognized crying in tears. This thing affected him. He should have. Well, he could answer that question. Your dad's been killed. But your reaction. I have never gotten over the Jack Kennedy killing. I was in college and I spent the whole day, listen to Walter Cronkite. I just couldn't get over it.
- [34:45]
Ari Melber
Well, part of what he shared there, which sounded very honest and vulnerable, was that he, he should have some cohesive answer now that he's in advanced stage in his life, but he doesn't. It was a pain that he hasn't resolved.
- [34:55]
Chris Matthews
Well, I knew him back before this thing.
- [34:57]
Ari Melber
Yeah.
- [34:57]
Chris Matthews
And I don't really, I don't want to get into the internicing, whatever the family issue here, because the family doesn't talk about him really. They just really don't.
- [35:05]
Audience Member / Voter
Yeah.
- [35:06]
Chris Matthews
And I. He was an environmentalist for. For real, you know, taking on GE and Jack Welch and everything. He was trying to clean up the Hudson River. I mean, he, he was real and he, and he was tough and he could be arrogant about it. And, and now this with the vaccination thing I went through with, I'm going through with my doctor who I really like, and my doctor who spent his whole life teaching people to get vaccinated. When you go to Africa in the Peace Corps, you know, when young black kids, they want it to hurt when they take the vaccination, then when they get the shot, they want it to hurt because they want it to work. They believe in it. What are you going around spending words that doesn't work?
- [35:42]
Ari Melber
No. And crazy person and him running the health agencies is an amazing thing. All right, I'm moving you beyond your book before I lose you, because we do this with a lot of folks who come around here. Take a look back. A lot of our, our viewers remember you. Here you were when Obama had really cemented the coalition and one reelection with Rachel Maddow. Let's take a look.
- [36:03]
Tyler Redicure
Rockefeller center here in New York City.
- [36:05]
Ari Melber
Is festooned in red, white and blue.
- [36:07]
Tyler Redicure
As it is once every four years.
- [36:09]
Ari Melber
For election night, I'm Rachel Maddow at MSNBC headquarters in New York City, along with Chris Matthews.
- [36:14]
Chris Matthews
The old cliche headline was Democrats in disarray. Democrats disunited. It was a joke. You didn't have to write the headline. You can think of nothing else you'd write that. And now the Democratic Party goes into this election today united. That appointment of Hillary Clinton, whether it was based on generosity or deal making or Machiavel, whatever it was based on is the sine qua non of this campaign.
- [36:36]
Ari Melber
You've had quite a ride that keeps going. What advice do you give people coming up in politics today? You got more channels than ever. You got more podcasts than ever. You got more newsletters than ever. But you came up the old fashioned way. Coming out of government, being a writer and then being a guy in Hardball who told it like it was. What's your advice to you?
- [36:53]
Chris Matthews
Well, I'd say writing a column's a good start. I mean, writing columns is a way of getting ready to talk on television. And I think telling the truth, I stoke to that. I mean, this thing about taking sides all the time and always be on the left or always be on the right. Yeah, there's sometimes it's complicated. This whole thing with the government shutdown, it was complicated. You can say what you want about Fetterman and all those guys, but they had to face the fact if there's a Plane crash next week. Who's going to be responsible? Because you keep the government open, your part responsible. And do you ever think the Republicans in a million years are going to accept Obamacare? They're never going to sign the line. They're never. They hate John McCain, a war hero, because he signed. He said, I'm going to defend Obamacare. It's a real thing. And maybe they. They didn't count on.
- [37:35]
Ari Melber
So no partisanship. And you got to be willing to accept it. There's sometimes no, but I mean in how you do the job.
- [37:40]
Chris Matthews
I'll tell you one thing. If you get the right issue, like Cronkite did when he said. Walter Cronkite when he said, we are not going to win this war in Vietnam.
- [37:48]
Ari Melber
Yeah.
- [37:48]
Chris Matthews
We have to accept the fact it's going to be a brutal stalemate and until we cut the deal, we need to compromise. And I think when I, when I spotted that war in Iraq, I saw it, I said, this thing's wrong. I don't believe Cheney. I don't believe any of it. I don't believe the arguments being made, the freedom agenda. We're just killing people by the hundreds of thousands. And I thought we had to draw the line there. And I, and a lot of Democrats didn't do that. John Kerry, Bob, you know, people like Ed, Mark, people supported that war. I said, why, why, why are you in bed with this war? Why are you chickening out? They're afraid to look weak, I guess. I don't know what it was. Your job's to look wherever way you look. And I'd like to. Bobby, you know, Bobby had to take on Lyndon Johnson. He had to take on Giancana, these crooks. He had to take on these frightening killers in a rackets committee, you know.
- [38:38]
Ari Melber
Yeah.
- [38:39]
Chris Matthews
And it's not easy. Politics is not supposed to be simple. What do you got there?
- [38:43]
Ari Melber
It's a beat lighter for you.
- [38:44]
Chris Matthews
Thank you. Well, it's a great show. What I like about you now, I'll tell you why you're good, because you're logical and you're trying to deal with facts and the law. And when this president gives orders to Kim Bondi, Tim Bam Bondi, Pam Bondi, and he goes out and she goes out there and indicts James Comey, indicts Letitia James wrong. Attorneys general should get their orders from the Supreme Court. Yeah. Bobby Kennedy integrated Ole Miss. The governor of Mississippi said, you cannot let that boy. He used that word. You cannot let that boy into Ole Miss. Oh, yeah, well, he did it. James Meredith. And they have a statue of James Meredith there. He did the same thing with Alabama. University of Alabama.
- [39:30]
Ari Melber
I appreciate your kind words. And as you know, you know how this works.
- [39:34]
Chris Matthews
I'm talking about the SEC now, but I'm telling you why.
- [39:36]
Ari Melber
But you know how this works. I learned. I learned some of this from Chris Matthews. Eventually we take the commercial break.
- [39:41]
Chris Matthews
The book, thank you sir.
- [39:43]
Ari Melber
Is lessons from Bobby. 10 reasons Robert F. Kenny Still Matters. You can look up Chris Matthews anywhere. Books are sold online. Still ahead of pop star Slamming Ice and a top DOJ official on the Big Lie. When we come back.
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Ari Melber
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Ari Melber
Are you. Are you.
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Drive more app downloads only on TikTok. Head over to get started.TikTok.com TikTok ads Democrats won big on Tuesday. But remember they also won big in 2020 and then had a fight on their hands after the election because Trump tried to steal it. Now Voting rights are under attack in a new way. All eyes on the Supreme Court, which is reviewing how states count mail in ballots that might be cast before the election but arrive in the mail afterward. Of course, it's the government that delivers the mail. So this is one where typically the votes are still counted. But a Mississippi appeals court ruling said post Election Day ballots were not to be counted. That would change a lot. Mississippi, excuse me, Mississippi. One of 16 states that takes mail in ballots postmarked on or before Election Day. And while we hear a lot of political talk about ballots in the mail, remember, this is old stuff. There are states that flipped to only doing voting by mail because, like other activities in real life, a lot of shopping and other stuff, you don't have to leave the house if you don't want to. And it was a way of modernizing, if I'm simplifying. Republicans found that they do worse when more people vote. So in some states, they have tried to attack mail in voting. Donald Trump made a big deal out of it. He's attacked it historically in multiple races. Then there's the voter fraud issue. But mail is not a problem any more than in person, because most normal people, if you think about it, don't risk going to jail over going to cast a single ballot. Indeed, a lot of people don't vote at all. This is the rate of fraud. It's close enough to zero that you can't really barely count it. Trump also has been very clear about how he feels about people who do try to steal elections. If it's for him, he likes it. As these new pardons came out this week, allies involved in these various plots, including lawyers who have been disbarred or punished because they went beyond zealous advocacy, which you're totally allowed to do. You can file a lawsuit saying, please recount. Maybe Trump won't. What you can't do is commit voter fraud or election fraud. Remember, I just showed you how they say they're against fraud. Well, these people were caught pursuing fraudulent schemes, from fake electors to other things. To be clear, not all were convicted, but these are the people he is giving a federal embrace to right now. In fact, they have stalled cases at the state level where Donald Trump's new pardons won't affect them at all, despite what one Trump DOJ official embarrassingly, basically claimed by misstating the law.
- [44:00]
Legal Analyst
There's a broad argument that the pardon can apply to state charges that I leave to others for fighting it out. But there is, in the history of the country of course, you go back in time at the very beginning, the charges a pardon operated against any crime against the United States. At the period early on, you were pardoning local charges too. That's a different debate. I don't think right now we win that in the courts.
- [44:21]
Ari Melber
The argument he refers to is legally false. So either he doesn't know that, which is embarrassing for anyone working at doj, or as he might have alluded at the end, he knows that he said he would lose in the courts because states aren't controlled by the president. That's why you have a governor and a president and these federal pardons have nothing to do with states. We will be right back when I'm going to show you why a pop star is speaking out against ice. Thanks for watching the Beat with Ari Malbert.
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Tyler Redicure
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