Monday night on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” host Chris Matthews warned there are some wanting to “erase” President Barack Obama from the history books.

Matthews said, “My theory Molly [Ball], and I’m not a person of color but I have a particular theory about this charge. I think the really angry guy out there, mostly guy, white guy, thinks if he can erase him from that picture of what we get as kids from the presidents, begins with George Washington through Lincoln and Roosevelt, and there is a president who is black, they want to make sure he is not there. Somehow that book has an asterisk. Pete rose didn’t really get in the hall of fame. Somehow he’s not there they keep picking at it. because they do. All the polls, 43% of Republicans say he’s a Muslim. Where do they get that from?”

The Atlantic’s Molly Ball said, “This is the sense which Donald Trump is pandering to a market need. There’s a number of people — I think the president’s analysis that this is a time of rapid social change, that he is a representative of and there are a lot of people who feel dislocated by that, who feel uncomfortable with that and it’s not only about this president, it’s about a lot of things happening in this country. It’s about these economic woes. Interestingly does not associate himself with. He doesn’t see himself as part of this scenario. He doesn’t think the troubles the country is going through have anything to do with him. He is talking like a sociology professor.”

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