CSI: American Carnage (Thursday, December 13, 2018)
Chris says, Liar. Let’s play Hardball. I’m Chris Matthews in Washington, I think it’s Washington, because I don’t recognize this place where I’ve been most of my adult life and at other times before and since, and where my dear friend, the tough old speaker, Tip O’Neill, called a spade a spade. Well, apparently spades are no longer spades here. And I’m not talking 60s slang. But today the president’s lawyer and fixer, how about that for a handle, lawyer and fixer, was sentenced to hard time in prison for paying off a porn star and a bunny to keep their stories from the people, and let’s not forget, the people is, are what it’s all about. This is a democracy. The constitution begins, We the people. It isn’t We the Romanovs. It isn’t We Scarface and his Family. It is we the people. Which Tip understood. Which was good enough for the Founding Fathers and for my dear friend John Kennedy, a hero. And Bobby Kennedy, who said to me once late at night, long ago, he said, I love the people. We are the people. But that’s not the way it works any more. This guy, does he love the people? Can you love the people on an explosive day like today when the corporate owner of the National Enquirer — can you believe it? — admitted to paying a bunny $150,000 to keep her sordid Trump story away from the people and not hurt the Trump campaign, making Donald J. Trump, the president, the only person who says it was okay to pay off whomever and he didn’t do it anyway, and if he did it was civil, and even if it was civil it was personal, we got this reaction from the august Senators of the Republican Party. Here’s Orrin Hatch, after unloading his last hurrah, a great book, by the way, on the floor of the Senate. A CNN clip of Orrin runs, he says, I don’t think he was involved in crimes, but even then, you know, you can make anything a crime under the current laws if you want to. You can blow it way out of proportion. You can do a lot of things. The Democrats will do anything to hurt this president. Reporter Manu Raju, interviewing Orrin, points out that it was prosecutors who named Trump in their Cohen indictment, not Democrats. Orrin says, Okay, but I don’t care. All I can say is he’s doing a good job as president. You’re talking about things that happened before he became president. Chris says, I don’t care. Can you believe that? Meanwhile, here’s Chuck Grassley. A clip of Chuck rolls. Chuck says, As long as Cohen’s a liar, I shouldn’t give much credibility to what he says. Prosecutors are getting their information from a liar. Chris shakes his head. He says, Pants on fire. Panel what can you make of this? Capone? Czar Nicholas? Sam says, Well, I …. Chris interjects, This is America. This is the rule of law. My dear old friend Bobby Kennedy was attorney general. He cracked down. Yeah there was some funny stuff with the wiretaps and the campaign business and Cohen, the other Cohen. What is it with Trump and Cohens? But not like this guy. Yamiche, your thoughts. Yamiche says, Absolutely un…. Chris cuts in, And this weird guy, they’re calling him Flat Mike now. What’s with the vice president? My old, old friend, he’s dead now, Lyndon Johnson — now there was a vice president. Yeah there was Vietnam and all that. But Lyndon knew how to talk. He didn’t just sit there like Yul Brynner in Westworld, broken and being pieced back together by technicians. Lifeless eyes. Glass eyes. Remember that? Panel stay with me, we’ll be right back.
— Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018