Adding in his two cents to Israeli Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Tuesday address on a possible deal with Iran, MSNBC host Chris Matthews took direct shots at the Israeli government head, saying he “tried to take over U.S. foreign policy.”
Matthews, who has sided with President Barack Obama and railed against Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu, added that the Israeli prime minister was, in essence, saying that “I’m the man you should trust,” and that “you must listen to me and not this president.”
MATTHEWS: I’ll get to the heart of this speech now. This man from a foreign government walked into the United States legislative chamber and tried to take off U.S. foreign policy. He said you should trust me, not your president on this. I’m the man you should trust, I’m your true leader on this question of U.S. geopolitics, to protect yourself you must listen to me and not to this president. It was startling to allow someone to come in, knowing that was going to be the message in the chamber of the U.S. Congress. This was a decision made by Boehner and certainly complied with by Netanyahu and his ambassador Dermer.
They went into the U.S. Congress to take over U.S. foreign policy today from the president. It’s a remarkable day when the leaders of the opposition in Congress allowed this to happen. Think it through. What country in the world would let a foreign leader come in and attempt to rest from the president control of U.S. foreign policy. That’s what the applause was about today. That was what the battle of applauses was about, to take power away from the president.
So we’ll see, it may succeed. We may see more legislative intent here in terms of any treaty, a stronger push by Congress to insist on a vote, up or down, on any treaty. But clearly that was what was going on here. This was a takeover attempt by Netanyahu, with his complying American partners, to take American foreign policy out of the hands of the president.