MSNBC host alludes to Kushner assassination, Trump Jr. up in arms

Matthews compared President Trump to Mussolini.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Updated: JULY 3, 2017 00:03
MSNBC's Chris Matthews 'jokes' about a potential assassination of Jared Kushner on "Hardball" in June 2017.
Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's "Hardball," made wry comments on Thursday regarding a theoretical assassination of US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Matthews opened with remarks about recent reports that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was displeased with his place in the White House food chain. "Rex is just exhausted," Matthews said. "He can't get any of his appointments approved and is running around the world cleaning up after a president whose primary foreign policy adviser is a 36-year-old amateur." He was referring, of course, to Kushner.
Matthews went on to state that in his opinion, nepotism is "a bad thing in government." For example, he said, "We find Kushner in the Middle East, brokering the Middle East peace process, whatever it is, among the Arabs and Israelis and Likud and everybody else and meanwhile, Tillerson is sitting around doing what? He can't even appoint his own deputies. The power seems to have gone to the son-in-law."
"Is it the family running the government?" Matthews wondered out loud. "Is it Ivanka and Jared and the President sitting around in the White House upstairs ruling the world?"
MSNBC senior political analyst Ashley Parker concurred, somewhat, suggesting that "Jared basically emerged as a shadow Secretary of State."
But most aggressively, Matthews compared Trump to Mussolini, except, he said, "one good thing Mussolini did was execute his son-in-law... that was an extreme measure, but this is a strange situation."
In response, Donald Trump Jr., Kushner's brother-in-law, tweeted on Sunday: "Given this week's 'outrage' I'm trying to figure out why this is ok & no one has a problem with it? LMK Thanks. Hint: lib double standard."

Celebrities have been toeing, or crossing, the line lately with assassination references. In June, Johnny Depp joked about the last time an actor killed a president in his remarks at Glastonbury Festival, and in May, Kathy Griffin posted pictures of herself holding what appeared to be President Trump's severed head. Both stars apologized for their stunts, but, as Matthews displayed last week, the trend has continued.


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