MSNBC host Chris Matthews said Israel's longtime prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the world's "bad guys," lumping him in with brutal dictators such as Russia's Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Recep Erdoğan.
Matthews observed during his Tuesday night show that President Donald Trump likes "bad guys" on the world stage more than world leaders Matthews views as good, such as French president Emanuel Macron.
"He does seem to be a guy who doesn't like the good guys of the world, he seems to like the bad guys," Matthews said. "He doesn't like Macron, or Justin Trudeau, or the chancellor of Germany—they're all too regular for him—he likes the bad guys, he wants to be one of them."
As MSNBC commentator Steve Schmidt responded by saying Trump "fetishizes the Erdogans, and the Putins, and the dictators," he was interrupted by Matthews who wanted to add Israel's Netanyahu to the list.
"Let's throw in Netanyahu," Matthews said.
Netanyahu is the longest serving prime minister in Israel's history, serving first a stint from 1996 to 1999 and now in the midst of a longer tenure that began in 2009. A recent Gallup poll found Netanyahu to be the foreign leader most admired by the American people.