CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: It’s a little weird, but is Chicago part of America? Is Philadelphia -- my hometown where I'm going to address the National Constitution Center tomorrow -- is Philly part of America? Is L.A.? Is San Francisco? Is Austin, Texas? The reason I'm asking this stupid question is because this partisan gunslinger, Ted Cruz, is out there today defining who is and who isn't an American.



Remember Michele Bachmann asking the press on this show to conduct a person to person investigation of who in the U.S. Congress is anti-American? Well, Cruz is worse. The same Senator who suggested the nominee for the Defense Secretary was taking money from the communists in North Korea now decrees what part of this country are in and which parts are out, which parts are American and which parts aren't.



This is McCarthyism writ large. Disagree with this guy and be prepared for the accusations. We are witnessing, I think, the greatest challenge to progressives to moderates and reasonable conservatives in modern memory. It's an indictment against the great majority of Americans. To compromise he says is bad. To support the law he says is wrong. To oppose his brand of right-wing politics is to stand accused by him of being un-American.



Cruz returned to his supporters this weekend where he got shouts of approval Saturday night from his most fervent backers. Here he is drawing the line between them and his fellow Senators and, by the way, all the people represented in Washington.



SEN. TED CRUZ: Having spent the past month up in D.C., it is really great to be back in America.



MATTHEWS: Howard [Fineman], this isn't a casual reference. This is 'we're Americans, we white people out here in Texas, as opposed to people who live in the big cities, the ethnics, the blacks, the browns. Those people in Washington, those liberals, they're not Americans.'



This guy either has a total lack of understanding of American history and the hell we went through in the McCarthy period or he knows it damn well and is playing that card. What do you think it is -- knowledge or ignorance?



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