Chris Matthews on Ted Cruz: he’s ‘menacing’ and ‘It scares me’

MSNBC host Chris Matthews unloaded on Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz during a segment Wednesday on “Morning Joe,” arguing that, if the Texas senator were to be elected to the presidency, “a darkness will come over America.”

“There’s a troll-like quality to Cruz,” Matthews said. “He operates below the level of human life.”

“OK, Chris, that’s a little tough,” host Joe Scarborough responded. “You have not gotten sleep, we’re going to try that again.”

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“Am I allowed to have an opinion?” Matthews asked.

“Well, not that opinion, no,” Scarborough said.

“Well, let me clarify it,” Matthews continued, undeterred. “I think he appeals to people’s negativity rather than their joy. I don’t think people feel good about voting for Cruz. I don’t know what it is he appeals to.”

“What is he, a theocrat? Maybe he is,” Matthews said, before suggesting that he doesn’t understand Cruz’s support among Baptists in New Hampshire.

“There’s something about him that’s negative and menacing,” Matthews said. “So when I say below the level of human life, I mean the good nature of human life. Not just being a person, although…”

When another panelist jumped in to remind Matthews about Cruz’s remarks about addiction in light of his family history, Matthews replied, “Somebody just asked him about addiction, and he of course had a family experience with it. That doesn’t show anything.”

“I sense in him a darkness, a virulent antipathy toward Obama that almost sees Obama as Castro, as a dictator of the left,” Matthews said. “The vicious anger of him, I think it’s for real. It scares me. It’s so menacing.”