Chris matthews quotes

My audience is much more center right, or centrist.

I'm trying to put the ridiculousness to bed. The president of the United States is the president of the United States.

I never know what all of these guys are thinking, but Marco Rubio sounded desperate, like, We've got a leak in the dike, we got to stop this thing.

I don't sense an [Barack] Obama party. I think politics is transactional for him.

Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is, 'We are above that now. We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something.' I mean, in a way, Obama's standing above the country, above - above the world. He's sort of God. He's going to bring all different sides together.

I'm center left, but I think - most things, left on some, center on some, right on very few.

I used to love hand raising.

People in a state like Pennsylvania, especially in the middle of the state, as you say, want the focus on repairing the state. Pennsylvania is a mess in terms of infrastructure. They don`t want to blow up bridges over there. They want to build them here.

I know one thing: There are a billion Islamic people in the world today, and there will be about 2 billion by the time we're dead. They're not going to give up their religion.

I think, any politician, you have to hold them to their word. And conservatives run on fiscal conservatism. .

I still think a reasonable question is, would we be better off with [Muamar] Gadhafi and Bashar al-Assad still in there and Mubarak still there and Saddam [Hussein] there than the crap we have got looking at us now?

Once having said no to Donald Trump, Mitt Romney can't go back and say, I changed my mind, I'm bowing to the pressure from you.

Any jackass can talk about bombing Iran.

While Jeb Bush finds himself mired in the muck of an intramural fight in his own party over his remarks about the Iraq War, Hillary Clinton is sticking to the low-key strategy, and it looks like it`s working.

Just come in there and stand before a live crowd, thousands of people at an Ivy League School, like Eleanor Roosevelt said, always do what you're afraid to do.

Republicans woke up Sunday with an undeniable reality. Donald Trump's the clear front-runner now for their party's nomination. Trump, celebrated, of course, his big win in South Carolina.

I do think that Hillary Clinton risks looking like she's imitating Elizabeth Warren when she starts doing it. She'll look like Elizabeth the second. And nobody is electing anybody a second of anything.

Why are some people like Chuck Schumer, who`s probably going to be leader of the Senate, why is he switching from a big city financial center pro-trader to being an anti-trader? Is that because of upstate New York? What`s going on? I can`t figure this out.

If you think what you see on TV is prejudiced, it is. Follow your instincts.

Paying tax is not a punishment. It's a responsibility.

How is this any different than the big boat argument of people when it came to African-Americans after the Civil War, decided, 'Put them on a boat and send them back where they came from?' You know, he says it in polite language, but that's what Romney's been saying, 'Get home where you came from, start all over again.'

I'm so glad we had that storm last week.

What happens to conservatives when they get near the White House? How come they only seem to be talking the good talk at, say, the Senate level, when they don't have to run the show?

The problem is there are people in this country - maybe 10%, I don't know what the number, maybe 20% on a bad day - who want this President to have an asterisk next to his name in the history books, that he really wasn't President....They can't stand the idea that he is President, and a piece of it is racism. Not that somebody in one racial group doesn't like somebody in another racial group. So what? It is the sense that the white race must rule. That's what racism is. And they can't stand the idea that a man who is not white is President.

The fact that younger people are more inclined to socialism may well come with the fact that so many young people's first experience with capitalism is as a debtor.

Every party and every movement tends to need a hero.

I don't know why his lawyers didn't tell him, 'You don't have to answer any questions about your private life, Mr. President. Let them sue you. Take the heat. You don't have to answer.'

We are trying to pick the next president, not review the birth of the current president.

Being a little older is not going to win election. Being a little younger might, especially if the older candidates, Hillary Clinton included, can`t make the case that they have learned something that the younger crowd doesn`t know.

I don't believe he had a responsibility to even answer that question - you have no responsibility to answer personal questions that people have no right to ask you.

Once it was suggested that Saddam Hussein might give his weaponry to terrorists, or might use weapons himself in the region, then it became hard for the Democrats to say, 'Well, that can't happen.'

While we may not mind being used, we resent deeply being made to feel discarded.

The overall campaign launch is designed to break through the clutter and reach out to consumers. At the end of the day, consumers are the ones who benefit from the convenience and value never before seen in a free checking account.

The Republican Party`s reacting now to the news of [Donald] Trump`s dominance in different ways. For some, they are pushing resistance.

We in America count on the profit motive to get people to do the right thing. That's our basic American notion when it comes to business.

When I hear Rand Paul, who is much younger, saying wars are verkakte, I agree with him.

I tell my staff, we're riding a tour bus around, and we're going to stop and look at some weird stuff - but we're taking our viewers around safely. They're just looking out the window at it. I'm trying to create a sense of comfort for my center audience.

Just look at who won the third debate between Bush and Gore. I knew Bush won, because people liked him more. People just didn't like Gore. But all the journalists thought Gore won big, he cleaned the guy's clock.

Five years from now, 10 years from now, there's going to be a huge Islamic population in the world, they're going to be nationalistic, they're going to be religious, and they're going to be militant.

All the 'too close to call' announcements are not due to incompetence ... It's caution.

The President Barack Obama said if we get out of this business of trade expansion, we turn it over to the Chinese. This brings us into partnership with 11 other Pacific Rim countries.

Someone needs to talk sense to the president. But these people are not world travelers. This president, much as I like him, had all the opportunities in the world.

How do we know when someone like Hasan is going to make his move and do we know he's an Islamist until he's made his move? He makes a phone call or whatever, according to Reuters right now. Apparently he tried to contact al-Qaida. Is that the point at which you say, "This guy is dangerous?" That's not a crime to call up al-Qaida, is it? Is it? I mean, where do you stop the guy?

I am no longer going to go along with this idea that we're going to keep spending and borrowing and taking over and raising taxes, that I'm going to do everything I can to change things.

President Barack Obama benefits from the shared experience and wisdom of top national security and foreign policy advisers, many of them career professionals.

[Barack] Obama believes you can hold enemy combatants, unlawful enemy combatants at Gitmo without a criminal trial because this is law of war detention.

You can't be loved for long if you're not feared.

I think the Clintons are going to make their decision based on the merits. And their focus, like mine, is on middle class jobs. We`re in a different world than 1994. The China we dealt with in 1994 is a lot different than the China today in 2015.

I`m closer to anybody who believes that we should lead not from behind, but from the front. Rand Paul is one step behind, leading from behind. So, yes, even [Barack] Obama is more aggressive. Obama believes you can kill Anwar al-Awlaki without getting a court order.

I've never heard anybody [of president's candidates] talk about the poorly educated.

We've got to recognize that when we march into Iraq, we're setting up the card tables in front of every university in the Arab world, the Islamic world, to recruit for al-Qaida.

I`'ll make it official. I care about Don Draper and what happens to him and I'm not the only one who does.

President [Barack] Obama's staking his reelection hopes on rebuilding America's middle class. He wants higher taxes on the wealthy, tougher rules on Wall Street, and everyone else to get a fair shot to succeed. Republicans can cry "class warfare" if they want, but as the president put it today, it's about this country's welfare.

My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often.

Hillary Clinton does very well in Pennsylvania generally. I think she connects with the working white people and all kinds of people that normally would have a problem with the modern Democratic Party.

Campaign manager Eli Gold played by Alan Cumming on "The Good Wife" describing an old maxim in politics, don't commit to a decision before you have to. And that rule appears to have worked brilliantly for Democratic candidate front-runner Hillary Clinton, who has avoided taking a position on the president's trade agenda and has remained out of the ugly public spat with the progressive wing of her party. She has also not taken a position on the Iranian - on the talks.

The FBI had a right to review that. And they did and they found Hillary Clinton not in any criminal violation.

When lightning strikes you want to be there, right there in the room. You, not everybody`s going to say yes to you. Just don`t ever say no to yourself, ever.

Rush Limbaugh is beginning to look more and more like Mr. Big, and at some point somebody's going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and he's going to explode like a giant blimp. That day may come.

[Donald] Trump faces the perhaps accumulation of all the wealth in the world on the head of [Marco] Rubio, because Rubio's the last gasp of hawks and establishment Republicans.

I'm not just gonna go after the black Jesse Jackson they all want to make fun of, but I know the wrong people are gonna laugh at that. I don't want to play to that crowd. I don't.

Are Democrats for expanding U.S. trade with the world and perhaps creating new jobs, or are they out to protect existing U.S. jobs?

Be tough, hold a tough line, but don`t be running off into another war, especially since even if you support our troops and you want to have a robust foreign policy, you recognize that we have - we have been overdeploying our men and women, and we have been spilling our blood and treasure, and we need to be more careful.

I wonder... if the Republican Party really wants to be branded right now as the party of tax cuts and torture? I mean that's what they're selling.

The old rule in Massachusetts politics is shape of the field determines the winner. If you have got a whole bunch of hawks, all the way from [Mike] Huckabee all the way across to [Chris]Christie, that covers the spectrum on every other issue, all hawks, all hawks, and one guy out there saying, not me, Jimmy Carter won that way back in `76. I know it`s 1,000 years ago.

Sarah Palin is an empty vessel ready to be filled by ideology that she doesn't even understand, and that is really scary. Nothing is more frightening than an empty vessel in power.

I always thought of him [Jack Kennedy] as a prince, with a charmed life. He was a guy who was sick and in horrendous pain all the time - who would say, "I wish I had a few good days."

The big lie is that the people who make a lot of money were the only ones that worked hard.

If Bernie Sanders hasn't been able to draw a contrast with Hillary Clinton, why is he doing so well, a guy - most people never heard of this fellow before this year.

I forgot he [Barack Obama] was black tonight for an hour.

Wouldn`t it be great for some of the Republican candidates to stand up to the money guys and say, if you want a presidential nominee who will do what the Bushes did, go from war to war, look elsewhere.

A new poll out taken by a Republican group that shows most Democrats prefer socialism to capitalism. Those terms don't mean what they did maybe 40, 50 years ago.

In the world of late-night comics, Letterman made us feel any hometown boy from Indianapolis could poke fun at celebrities and politicians and do it right to their faces.

I think in places like Pennsylvania, there`s folks who want our next president to talk like a hawk, but fly like a dove.

Toastmasters changed my life. They really did. Put me on the stage. I don’t know what I would have done without that positive boost.

Bill Clinton was for NAFTA. I heard him over in Tokyo he came out all said it was a great bill. Secretary Clinton was for it. She called it the gold standard when she was secretary of state.

Let's not forget, Sarah Palin may not have a golden touch, but she gave Christine O'Donnell candidate a big touch that got her over the top.

I think also people in states like Pennsylvania know that a lot of money and effort and time needs to be spent on knitting America back together, on the bridges and the roads and the infrastructure and the education.

Sarah Palin - now don't laugh - is writing a book. Not just reading a book, writing a book. Actually, in the word of the publisher, she's 'collaborating' on a book. What an embarrassment! It's one of these 'I told you,' books that jocks do.

There is absolutely no record ever of Hillary Clinton or anyone in her campaign ever saying that President [Barack] Obama is not legitimate.

Bernie Sanders even reminded me of the way I felt at parties over the years. You go to a party, you don't know anybody, you sort of wander around. You hold a drink in your hand, you don't know what to do. This poor guy Bernie, he was at a loss with this group of people he didn't know.

I wanted to know how Jackie felt about [John F. Kennedy], and I got to know Rachel "Bunny" Mellon. Bunny and her were buddies. I asked, "How do you know what Jackie knew?" And Bunny said, "She told me."... Jackie called him "Magic." Bunny said she just picked her man. That was it. This was the guy she loved.

I think, like Ronald Reagan, in another way, in a secular way, John Paul II was a great communicator, but he was also a man of deep conviction.

The real difference between relationship politics and transactional politics is loyalty. [Barack] Obama doesn't seem to expect it.

You could see Newt Gingrich, who`s a member of Donald Trump`s country club, already getting together and talking about the new episode of "The Apprentice," with the poor kids in the city.This was a very smart thing to do. He shows that he is the grown-up in the Republican Party.

I mean, if somebody said to me, junior year of college, you can go anywhere, your old man's paying for it, I'd have been gone in a flash. But I had to work. Every summer my mother would say, 'Get that job and hold on to it until August 30.'

Presidents aren`t supposed to spit, at least not obviously.

You don't know whether he's thought through how this is going to affect the Middle East.

The more failure you can accept, the greater your chance of success.

This looking down our noses at tea party people has got to stop.

I mean, the idea that Bar could have sent him off on a Grand Tour. But he wasn't the least bit interested. Why? Why isn't he interested in the world? Because here's the bad news for him: He's in the world now.

People don`t like getting dirty or living in an environment that`s been contaminated and is covered in hazardous waste.

I care about Roger Sterling, one of the most subtle and amazing characters in dramatic history ["Mad Men"]. This guys who knows precisely who he is, yet leaves us time after time hoping desperately for him to finally grab control of his life and some responsibility for those around him.

We've always had a dual role in the region - friend of Israel, and honest broker. We've given up the honest broker role completely.

Keep you enemies in front of you.

It does look like it's almost like South Africa to this extent: You have a white - what's the word - feeble minority. It's losing its majority status. And it says, the Republican Party, 'We can only get so many white votes. So, we got to reduce the votes of others.' It does look that way. Only the - maybe you're non-partisan, but only Republicans have pushed this in these 31 states. No Democratic legislature. You gotta look at the pattern here. You talk about profiling. I'm sorry, Republicans do this stuff.

And then there's Israel - a lot of people support Israel, and it's important to Israel to take out Iraq. So it's all mixed together. It's a combination of motives.

Then the administration tied it in to the regional dispute between Israel and its enemies, as if that's about international terrorism. No, it's not.

While I have questions about the language used in describing the two economic systems, I think people have fairly good gut sense of the difference between socialism and capitalism.

You don't say, like the Bush crowd, 'I got this guy over here and I don't like him and I'm gonna get him, whether you back me or not.'

The world is not checking in with us to see what skills we've picked up, what idea we've concocted, what dreams we carry in our hearts. When a job opens, whether it's in the chorus line or on the assembly line, it goes to the person standing there. It goes to the eager beaver the boss sees when he looks up from his work: the pint-sized kid standing at the basketball court on the playground waiting for one of the older boys to head home. "Hey, kid, wanna play?"

Hillary Clinton did better among working-class whites when she's running against Barack Hussein Obama. How is she doing now against an older, a professor type, who seems very unthreatening, very likable.

And on the war, I think my numbers would be a lot higher if I were out there beating the drum for this war. In fact, I don't think it, I know it. But I can't be for the war.

The president of the United States, whoever it is, deserves a certain level of reverence and respect just because of the office he holds.

I tried to talk to the graduates who haven't figured what they're going to do next. The kids who are heading in medical school or law school, they've got pretty much figured where they're headed in life. But there are so many kids out there, that are just going, they're still kids. They've always been promoted from grade to grade.

I`m surprised people are that hopeful about what government can do, because if you believe in socialism, society can run a pretty decent government, it can provide services, it can regulate the economy effectively.

If you want to play a game, go to where it's played and find a way to get in. Things happen when you get in the game.

The fact is he [John F.Kennedy] always had to have somebody around besides Jackie [Kennedy]. Whatever their relationship, he wanted company. I think it gets back to all those years in a hospital bed.

That is the voice of God because its the voice of truth and experience.

Whether the Bushes, or whoever they are, they always end up in the end with the money and the ability to really blow away anybody who dares challenge them.

It doesn't serve an American interest. It really doesn't really serve Israeli interests - it serves the interests of the political party that's getting the votes of the settlers on the West Bank.

The difference between me and them is that I'll look at Jesse Jackson and I'll see four Jesse Jacksons, and they'll just see one, the clown ambulance chaser.

I think a lot it was the theology, that the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad, that somehow if we broke apart the rejectionist states, like Iraq, then the whole Middle East would reconfigure itself into a more favorable environment for democracy and Israel and us.

I do still think there is a big disconnect between Republicans in Washington, D.C., and Republicans everywhere I go. When you start talking about, you know, foreign entanglements, they just don`t want any part of it.

I`m impressed that people out there in Pennsylvania, deer hunter country, have had it with these stupid wars, that they don`t go along with the neocon theology, they don`t go along with the big money people or the evangelicals that always seem to want to fight, especially in the Middle East.

Anybody can say anything they want. Hillary Clinton can control her own campaign.

I think Bernie's [Sanders] setting a direction in the way that [Barry] Goldwater when he lost - I'm not saying he's going to lose. We don't know what is going to happen. It's early. But I think he's already set a lot of themes.

I truly believe that America`s greatness and billions and billions of dollars of our wealth flows away because China doesn`t treat us fairly.

Everything he's done is clean as a whistle. He's never not only broken any law, he's never done anything wrong.

Right now, the old guys, the old farts, if you will, are still running the show, and the women haven't gotten their place yet at all.

Here's our policy. It's Unite the world against terrorism.

I think that the candidates who are doing it [not debating] are doing a great disservice to the party. It`s a sign of an unhealthy institution.

Most politicians have to find a way past that allergy. They have to find a way to go door to door, person to person, or else they don't win.

[Hillary] Clinton was able to assemble a winning Democratic coalition out here, beating Sanders among African-Americans, women, among women, and voters from union households, so, unions, women, African-Americans.

Unity is the most important thing on the road to stamping out terror. You need global rules of law and order, and they have to be enforced. Start with that principle.