While trying to explain the divisiveness during the upcoming 2024 presidential election, former CNBC and MSNBC host Chris Matthews took aim at an unexpected target: the cast of “Saturday Night Live.”
The former host of “Hardball With Chris Matthews” took to “Morning Joe” Tuesday to explain that “rage” is a powerful tool during today’s election cycles. He then want on to say that “people who didn’t go to college have a pretty good rage on their hands,” and noted “rural rage” as being especially applicable to many supporters of former President Donald Trump.
“They are so angry at the liberal establishment, the coastal elite,” Matthews said. “They look at people on television and say, ‘Oh, those people on “Saturday Night Live,” those snarling rich kids. I know who they are. They’re all trust-funders. They don’t have to worry about us.’ And the regular guys go, ‘There they are, snarling and making fun of us again.’ Every time we make fun of Trump, we’re making fun of them.”
He added that the identity such supporters seem to share with Trump is “a weird thing.”
Matthews went on to compare the current cultural war to fighting terrorism.
“We think if we just put the army in or Israel just puts the IDF in it’s going to solve the problem. It never solves the problem because you enrage people,” Matthews said, noting that the United States’ armies enraged people in both Iraq and Afghanistan. “We enraged the enemy to where they’re more fiery than ever, and they hate us more than ever. Armies don’t make peace, and we think they do.”
Matthews also likened this voter unrest to the report that many White House staffers protested the Israel-Hamas War. In mid-December, several political appointees and Biden administration staffers held a vigil calling for President Biden to support a permanent cease-fire in Gaza.
“I don’t think it’s right versus wrong. I think it’s very complicated,” Matthews clarified about the ongoing war. “But they think they’re rooting for the young people of the world against the establishment of the world, just like the rural voter in Pennsylvania thinks they’re voting against the establishment of the world.”
“This is really tricky, this election,” Matthews concluded.
Watch the full “Morning Joe” clip in the video above.
