Former MSNBC host Chris Matthews criticized the Democratic Party on Wednesday and said it needed to focus on the economy rather than issues like attacking the Trump administration's immigration policies and defending transgender athletes competing in women's sports.
While discussing the Democratic Party's low popularity on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Matthews pointed in part to the Biden administration's poor handling of illegal immigration as a reason, saying, "The polling will tell you, the open border - what seemed like an open border for four years.
"Today, the border has been closed since January and not a peep out of any Hispanic leader. Nobody has complained because they know that surge at the border was killing the Democrats."
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Identifying another possible factor in Democrats' sinking approval, Matthews cited how transgender policies impacted the 2024 presidential election.
"On the issue of trans people playing women's sports, that ad ran in every sports event, starting with the World Series. It never stopped. It showed up around the third quarter, and everybody's like, 'What's that? That's insane.'"
The ad in question from President Donald Trump's campaign featured a narrator telling voters: "Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you."
Matthews said issues such as trans people participating in sports were 80/20 issues and added that the party couldn't make it a lead issue before arguing that Democrats' focus should be on the economy.
"They've got to pick three hard economic issues: interest rates, inflation, tariffs. And they got to say that's what we're running on. Not all this other crap," the former MSNBC host said.
"I'm going to go after real things and affordability and that's how we're going to win the close election, and it's going to be close, in '26."
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Co-host Joe Scarborough agreed and suggested the Democratic Party diffuse the issues.
He urged the acknowledgment that the southern border was a problem during the Biden administration while, at the same time, it was humane in dealing with immigration.
"Then you go to the trans issue. The Democrats just didn't want to talk about it despite the fact that 85% of Americans did not want men who transitioned after puberty competing against young women, young girls, right? 'So, of course, we understand why 85% of people are against that. And, no, we don't think that's fair. We're for fairness, but we're also for compassion. Let's figure out what we can do here that's fair to young women, fair to young girls,'" the MSNBC host said.
Scarborough also emphasized focusing on affordability.
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Matthews also called out the Democratic Party earlier this month over its response to Trump's plan to combat crime in Washington, D.C.
"I think this is a strength move against the big cities who are in a difficult situation on crime. And the murder rate, you can't keep saying violent crime is down with the murder rates up. To the average person, the murders are about life and death. You don't brag about a rising murder rate. And the Democrats are, I agree with you, Mika, they're falling into the trap of defending what's indefensible," Matthews said during an Aug. 13 appearance on "Morning Joe."
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Fox News' Jamie Joseph contributed to this report.
