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The U.S. can’t defeat the Islamic State by “killing them,” State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Monday night. “We’re killing a lot of them, and we’re going to keep killing more of them. So are the Egyptians, so are the Jordanians. They’re in this fight with us. But we cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war,” Harf said. Instead, she said the U.S. needs to focus on the “medium to longer term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups,” such as...

State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf told Chris Matthews tonight that we cannot win this war with ISIS by killing them. She said we have to get to the root cause of why people are attracted to Jihad — you know like poverty, jobs, etc… “We’re killing a lot of them and we’re going to keep killing more of them. So are the Egyptians, so are the Jordanians. They’re in this fight with us. But we cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium to longer term to...

If once is an MSNBC aberration, is twice is a trend? Earlier today we reported on Ed Schultz getting surprisingly angry over the fecklessness of the Obama administration's weakness in confronting ISIS, calling the situation a "religious war." Just two hours later, Chris Matthews sounded a similar alarm, saying "if I were ISIS I wouldn't be afraid . . . the American people are getting humiliated . . . it sounds like we can't stop it." Have we reached a watershed moment among normally dutiful MSM supporters of President Obama? View the video here.

Imagine a Fox News host making an unflattering remark about some aspect of Hillary Clinton's appearance. Now imagine the MSM going into 24/7 outrage mode. But on tonight's Hardball, Chris Matthews casually referred to Chris Christie as "the fat guy from New Jersey." And in walking back the crack, Matthews actually compounded his mistake. Rather than acknowledging that it's simply wrong to insult someone for his obesity, Matthews instead observed that he shouldn't call Christie a fat guy, because "he's losing weight." So fat cracks are fine if the target is actually fat? View the video here.

Reasonable people can disagree on whether racism was involved in the tragic death of Eric Garner. My own suspicion is that this misfortune could have transpired just as easily with a white man resisting arrest and/or a black cop choking him. And even though lots of people don't want to hear it, reasonable can disagree on whether illegally excessive force was to blame. Personally, watching the ubiquitous video of Garner's arrest, it looks like excessive force to me. But the simple fact is that a Staten Island grand jury saw evidence that led it to conclude otherwise. People should at...

Via the Daily Caller. He’s right, but … I’m not sure anyone, up to and including nutty Joan Walsh, is claiming otherwise. (If Al Qaeda ends up ratcheting down the barbarity, it’ll be because of lessons they’ve learned from ISIS, not from the U.S.) On the other hand, opponents of EIT do frequently say that we need to set an example for the rest of the world in renouncing torture and I’ve never understood that argument either. Who are we setting an example for? Which countries are going to change how they handle terrorists because Dianne Feinstein released the...

In case MSNBC viewers didn't understand that Ted Cruz is the new Joe McCarthy, Hardball's Chris Matthews on Thursday repeated the attack four times. Smearing the Texas Republican as unhinged and paranoid is a favorite of Matthews. This time, the host lashed out against Cruz's opposition to Barack Obama's executive order amnesty. At 7:35, Matthews jeered, "Big surprise there. Joe McCarthy is at it again." Five minutes later, at 7:40, the cable host ranted about "this plan by the new Joe McCarthy which is always to blame the government as lawless." Repeating himself, he wondered of Cruz, "Where is he...

MSNBC host Chris Matthews offered his theory about what kind of mass immigration would be acceptable to conservatives. During an exchange on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday, Maher was discussing President Obama’s recent amnesty action and began discussing America’s attitude towards immigrants in general. “When has America ever, ever been welcoming to immigrants?” Maher asked. “Certainly not the Irish. Need not apply.” Matthews, who was raised in an Irish Catholic family, chimed in, saying “probably the last time Heidi Klum visited,” referencing the German supermodel. “What, you mean because she’s hot?” asked Maher. “Yes!” exclaimed Matthews, adding...

VIDEO AT LINK It was truly a remarkable two-and-a-half minutes. The other panelists alongside Chris Matthews on the MSNBC Election Special sat in stunned silence as the long-time liberal Democrat tore into Barack Obama following the president’s post-midterms news conference.

Thursday at the Aspen Institute's "Washington Ideas Forum," MSNBC's "Hardball," host Chris Matthews said the Republicans could pick up as many as 10 Senate seats because the democrats have nothing to offer voters except running away from the unpopular leader of their party, President Barack Obama. Matthews said, the Democrats have no message.

Tuesday on MSNBC's "Hardball," host Chris Matthews compared Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to Saddam Hussein by saying, "remember the picture of Saddam Hussein patting that kid's head," after running the Republican minority leaders latest ad in his reelection bid against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes.

Greatest, latest parlor game: watching liberals pretzel-ize logic in arguing against a travel ban on people from Ebola-affected countries. We've noted a few examples here, here and here. But as wacky as those assertions were, they might all have to take a back seat to the absolutely absurd argument offered up by Chris Matthews on this evening's Hardball. Matthews suggested that a travel ban wouldn't work since Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian who infected two people before dying of Ebola, lied to get into the US. Can't Chris see that his argument runs headlong against logic? That it is precisely...

Pat Buchanan, Gaza, and What We Learn from Chris Matthews’ Neo-Communist Propaganda 2010 June 18 by J. Christopher Pryor tags: Chris Matthews, Gaza flotilla, Lift the Siege of Gaza, Pat Buchnan While Chris Matthews’ special “Rise of the New Right” was nothing less than insulting to the intelligence, and pure propaganda, conservatives can learn something from it. If we do not clean our own house, somebody else will. There are many who march under the banner of conservative America, but who have their own agenda. They often keep this agenda to themselves until they are presented with the proper...

Early in today's Morning Joe, teasing Chris Matthews' upcoming appearance, Mika Brzezinski admonished "you two be nice now." They weren't. Yet again, the two MSNBC hosts came to verbal blows. The detonator wasn't political differences. Instead, the two MSNBC hosts squabbled over personal supremacy like a pair of eighth-grade boys in the schoolyard. Matthews was on a riff, offering a extended rundown of his predictions on the various Senate races. He didn't want to stop when Scarborough sought to interrupt. "Just a minute, Joe. Just a minute," insisted the Hardball host. Shot back Scarborough: "no, no. It's my show. I'm...

Matthews and Emanuel also spar over President Obama saying it was "unlikely" that an Ebola case would strike the U.S. "Obama said it was unlikely. It has happened. It's here," Matthews said. Dr. Emanuel said there is some "fear mongering" going on here, but Matthews said he was just quoting the president and stating facts.

This might sound strange to regular NewsBusters readers, but what Chris Matthews said tonight makes sense. His critique of President Obama's ISIS strategy was simple . . . and devastating. Yes, we can bomb from the air. But since President Obama has ruled out American boots on the ground, we'll have to rely on foreign partners on to hold territory. And there's no way we can rely on the dismantled likes of the Free Syrian Army or other non-existent forces. And so, admitted Matthews, he's a "skeptic" about the potential for success of President Obama's plan. View the video here.

NBC Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel and MSNBC’s “Hardball” anchor Chris Matthews criticized President Obama’s address on ISIS during MSNBC’s special coverage of the speech on Wednesday night.

Chris Matthews isn’t much for logical consistency. In the wake of the gruesome beheading of journalist James Foley by ISIS terrorists, an act explicitly designed to send a warning to the United State of America, the MSNBC host appeared visibly agitated by President Barack Obama’s inattentiveness. “No American president can survive if he lets Iran get nuclear weapons, and no American president can survive if he lets Americans be beheaded on international television with impunity. Impunity!” an impassioned Matthews asserted. “He has to strike back, as an American, it’s in our soul!”A few weeks and another beheading later, the...

In his rush to flame-broil Burger King as an unpatriotic fast-food joint looking to skip out on paying its taxes to Uncle Sam, MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews sought to enlist the famously pro-free market, pro-capitalism Wall Street Journal. The only problem is his claim is 100 percent Grade A baloney. "The Wall Street Journal lead editorial today came out against it.... The lead editorial today, surprisingly, attacked this tax scheme," Matthews insisted to guest David Corn of the leftist Mother Jones magazine. In point of fact, the Journal editorial board slammed not corporate "inversion" schemes but the current U.S. tax code, which...