Chris Matthews: Pence Gave a "Barn Burner" Of A Speech, All The Elements Of A Keynote Address

MSNBC's Chris Matthews reacts to Gov. Mike Pence's speech after presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump announced him as his running mate.





CHRIS MATTHEWS: It was a barn burner. And it had all the elements of a keynote speech for next week's convention. Clearly, both these guys were warming up today. I know we're just supposed to get an announcement of a vice presidential announcement already made, but they used it to get network time, cable time, to basically give us a draft of what we'll hear next week.



I thought the speech by Governor Pence was reminding me of old-time Republican speeches, people like Walter Judd. this is the whole power-packed conservative argument. It's about building, it's about infrastructure of all things. But manufacturing jobs. And he was talking about his own state of Indiana. If you go to places like Michigan City down at the bottom of Michigan, Lake Michigan there, you see cities with nothing left, but maybe a Blockbuster that's gone now. Maybe a diner is still there. They've been hollowed out.



The great irony, of course, Brian [Williams], is he brags about his state's A-1 bond rating, balance budgets, create 40,000 net jobs, at the same time basically decrying the economic state of the country, the loss of jobs to Mexico, et cetera. They're trying to have it both ways in the rust belt by saying it's terrible. But also bragging about their own successes there. I would say overall, his reference to the presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, as the builder is a pretty good place to start in terms of branding this ticket...



And he picks this you go, wait a minute, why is this guy somehow able to end up solid after days and hours of cold feet and confusion, and yet ends up on solid ground once again. He's a billionaire. How did he get to be a billionaire? If it's $11 billion or $4 billion, he's successful. How does he end up solid after all this weaving and craziness? Is this guy capable of success after all the nonsense? They must wonder, maybe he is. That's something to worry about. Which is good for our democracy.



They're going to be on their toes [at Clinton campaign HQ]. They're going to say this guy is at least 50%. in the latest polling, this guy is going to be a contender. 'We've got to beat him.' The american people have to be given a positive choice from Hillary Clinton. She's got to figure out the trust factor she has, which is her deficit right now. She has to figure this guy out. And she hasn't done it yet.



So he's the builder. Hillary Clinton is the enemy, that clearly the Republicans in an almost unimaginable way hate her. Hillary Clinton must never become president of the United States, that was the big crowd pleaser from the VP nominee now. Clearly they're going to run negatively, and maybe successfully on that negative camp.