Chris Matthews on Biden: ‘We Sit Here and Don’t Know What Condition He Is In’ Because They Are Not Transparent

SCARBOROUGH: “Let’s bring in now, professor at Princeton University, Eddie Glaude Jr., former MSNBC host and contributor to Washington Monthly, Chris Matthews. Co-founder and CEO of Axios, Jim VandeHei, and former assistant to Obama official Susan Rice and David Axelrod, Ravi Gupta, he’s the host of podcast ‘Killing Justice and the Lost Debate.’ Reverend Al Sharpton and Molly Jong-Fast also still with us. So, Chris Matthews, a lot of people on the phone over the past week melting down, I find, as only Democrats can melt down. I’m curious, the way forward, is it to wait, give Joe Biden time and space, see what happens over the next week or so, see where the polls go, where the fundraising go, how the interviews go? Is that the best way forward?”
MATTHEWS: “Yeah, I think he’s going to do this one step at a time with George Stephanopoulos today, and I think Stephanopoulos will be tough. I mean, he has been in the business of journalism now for decades, and I think he really wants to earn that title as sort of a Walter Cronkite. In other words, it has to be a tough debate. That’ll be — to me, if I were the president, I would have basic answers that can be familiar answers, but just get through it with confidence. I think that’s — I hope the people around him are saying, ‘Just do what you’ve done before on immigration, on infrastructure, on Ukraine. Just stick to the basics. Get through this interview and then work on the press conference next week.’ I think he should hang in there for a couple of weeks. We owe him that. I watched this guy’s career since 1972, when he didn’t have a chance in Delaware and he was elected senator against an incumbent senator, a multi-incumbent senator for a couple terms. He won big, big surprise. He ran in ’88, he ran in ’08, and here he has finally got the presidency and he will hold onto it. I’ll tell you one thing I’ve noticed in the last couple days. There is a huge distinction between the people who are on the true inside, the true inside with the candidate or a president, and everybody else in the world. You cannot break through. They’re really tight. This crowd around the president, and maybe two, three personal aides, even within that area of just very, very small people who are keeping it completely secret, we don’t know. We sit here and don’t know what condition he is in, what episodes have come on, how often the episodes have occurred since maybe the Super Bowl, when they turned down that tremendous opportunity to speak to the country. So, we don’t know how long it’s gone or how episodic it is. We don’t know anything, really. This is incredible story, the power of the very tightly knit Biden crowd. It’s not even a crowd, it’s a few people. This president is very protected.”