MSNBC host Chris Matthews said approximately 10 to 20 percent of the country wants President Obama to fail and "to have an asterisk" next to his name after his presidency Wednesday on MSNBC.
Matthews explained the point, claiming the "10 to 20" percent of the country who most oppose President Obama do so in part because "they cannot stand the idea that a white man is not president":
AL SHARPTON: [...] Chris, let me go back to you. Could this ultimately, this obsession that Congressman Cleaver talks about, could this ultimately end up back firing on the Republicans? Are they overjumping the runway here?
CHRIS MATTHEWS: I would think that would be justice if it did happen. If they didn't keep saying the president was involved in this. They can say fairly and authoritatively, it is his job to fix it. I'll tell you, Reverend, one piece of this thing that we have to keep in mind as we deal with effective government, and those of us who believe in effective positive government have to be the ones to make it work. The right wing loves it when it screws up because it makes their case. The liberals, the progressives, the reasonable people will say I need the government. I need it not just to protect me, I need it to do a lot of things I want done to keep this society okay. But the problem is there are people in this country, I don't know the number maybe 10 percent, maybe 20 percent on a bad day, who want this president to have an asterisk next to his name in the history books, that he really wasn't president. You know, like a guy in baseball who used drugs. They want to be able to say you know, he really didn't have that batting average. He really wasn't really the first African-American president. He really didn't do healthcare. He really didn't kill Bin-Laden. There's an asterisk. They've been fighting like that, people like Donald Trump, since day one, they can't stand the idea that he is president. And a piece of it is racism. Not that somebody in one racial group doesn't like somebody in another race or group, so what. It is the sense the white race must rule. That's what racism is. And they can't stand the idea that a man who is not white is president. That is real. That sense of racial superiority and rule is in the hearts of some people in this country. Not all conservatives. Not even all right wingers. But it always come through with this birther crap and the other references and somehow trying to erase Obamacare, erase his record in history and a big part of it is bought into by people like John Boehner who is not a bad guy but he knows the only way to talk to the hard right is talk their language.
AL SHARPTON: No doubt about it.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: That's it. This guy shouldn't be president somehow. That he isn't president somehow. That he is an asterisk. Just like you know Barry Bonds or somebody took drugs so he didn't really have the batting average, it didn't really count.
Matthew's charge of racism among conservatives is hardly a first for the MSNBC host.
The "Hardball" personality got into a verbal altercation with GOP Chairman Reince Priebus last August at the Republican National Convention, claiming Republicans were "playing that ethnic card" during the campaign.