On Tuesday’s Hardball, MSNBC host Chris Matthews upped the ante on his obsession with calling the Trump family the 21st century Romanovs, doing so for the 12th different show in 2017. He went one step further here, hinting that “we know what happened to the Romanov” as in that some were murdered by the Bolsheviks.
12 minutes into the show, Matthews whined to The Washington Post’s Anne Gearan that “it seems to me there's always an element of almost Romanov absurdity — a royal family absurdity with the Trumps now” plus son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Prior to Tuesday, Matthews referred to Trump as the Romanov family at least once during his shows on March 17, 20, and 27 then April 3-7 and 10 (which we chronicled here, and here). Matthews also did this during MSNBC’s live Inauguration coverage on January 20.
Before going to commercial break on this night, however, Matthews made it worse by hinting to viewers that the Trump family could suffer the fate of the Romanovs, which was that some (including Czar Nicholas II) were murdered by Bolsheviks in 1918.
“And they weren't elected. Anyway, it is a royal family. Anyway, thank you, Robert Costa, Anne Gearan. We're seeing this — we know what happened to the Romanovs,” ruled Matthews.
Referring again to the President’s son Eric, Matthews brought up the Romanovs twice more at the end of his show, including this final instance:
If you want to list things to worry about, he said that his father, the President, is surrounded by 37 appeasers. Yes, yes men, most of them. He means people who just tell Trump what they think he wants to hear, where the family gives him the right direction. What a perfect definition of a country run by a royal family, again, on the Russian model, the Romanovs, a bad example of having it all and blowing it.
The loony MSNBC pundit did the same on at least one occasion to the Bush family when they left office on Inauguration Day in 2009, but the media similar declined to bat an eye. If such a comparison were made about the Clintons or Obamas, the media would be outraged. Why? Here’s how the History Channel explained what happened to the Romanovs:
Civil war broke out in Russia in June 1918, and in July the anti-Bolshevik “White” Russian forces advanced on Yekaterinburg, where Nicholas and his family were located, during a campaign against the Bolshevik forces. Local authorities were ordered to prevent a rescue of the Romanovs, and after a secret meeting of the Yekaterinburg Soviet, a death sentence was passed on the imperial family.Late on the night of July 16, Nicholas, Alexandra, their five children and four servants were ordered to dress quickly and go down to the cellar of the house in which they were being held. There, the family and servants were arranged in two rows for a photograph they were told was being taken to quell rumors that they had escaped. Suddenly, a dozen armed men burst into the room and gunned down the imperial family in a hail of gunfire. Those who were still breathing when the smoked cleared were stabbed to death.
The network’s Website also highlighted in a separate post how brutal their murders were:
After Czar Nicholas II and his family were executed by Bolshevik forces in July 1918, the killers hid the victims’ mutilated bodies. The remains were discovered and exhumed in the late 1970s near Yekaterinburg, Russia, and eventually identified through DNA testing.
The double standard here is striking. Matthews has repeatedly compared the Trump family to the Russian royal family that was removed then murdered so communism could take hold in the Soviet Union. The fact that guest after guest has allowed Matthews to do this without pushback or facts like these are doing a great disservice.
