An MSNBC panel argued Monday that unchecked falsehoods from President Donald Trump and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk are to blame for Democrats’ tanking popularity.
The Democratic Party’s favorability has plunged 20% since January 2021 to a historic low of 29%, according to a Sunday CNN/SSRS poll conducted March 6-9. On “Morning Joe,” when host Mika Brzezinski asked former MSNBC host Chris Matthews about the party’s poor ratings, he asserted Americans are absorbing right-wing “lies,” claiming that “nobody” fact-checks them.
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“Well, you could have seen them the night that [President Donald] Trump addressed the Congress and you watched the Democratic Party. They seemed like they weren’t there,” Matthews said. “They were sort of vacant. They weren’t saying anything with their manner. They never questioned the facts. They let the president lie about Social Security and say that we’re giving benefits to people who are 160 years old or to their grandchildren.”
Democrats held up signs that said “false” and “That’s a LIE!” during Trump’s March 4 congressional address, USA Today reported.
“We allowed Elon Musk to go on television and tell everybody that we’re using Social Security as a lure to bring people into the country illegally, that we’re giving them benefits, which we’re not,” Matthews continued. “We’re giving them to illegal people in the country who came in illegally. We give it to them. Lie after lie after lie, and said nothing. I’ll tell you, [Democratic strategist] James Carville, who said the Democrats should stay silent, may be partially right.”
“But where he’s wrong is you have to have a fact-checker. There needs to be a war room. Remember, in 1992, remember how [former President] Bill Clinton won that election because he had a war room,” he said. “He and George Stephanopoulos were down there in Little Rock, and they were checking every fact, and nobody checks the facts anymore. And the lies are getting through to the American people.”
Brzezinski agreed, telling an anecdote about attending a baseball game where she heard people praising the DOGE cuts.
“I also agree on the fact-checker, Chris Matthews … there’s a lot of possum that should be played. This is theirs, okay? This is theirs,” she added. “And as we get to the midterms, take a look at what Trump owns here, not to get muddled in with it. But at the same time, I do think there should be a war room, a central command and a person, a voice, a figure who can call out the disinformation and perhaps the laws that are being flouted at the same time.”
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Just 63% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents approve of the party, a nine-point drop from January and an 18-point drop since the beginning of former President Joe Biden’s administration.
An NBC News poll published on Sunday also found that only 27% of registered voters held a positive perception of the Democratic Party, a record low in the outlet’s polling since 1990, it reported. Meanwhile, 55% of registered voters held a negative perception of the party.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
