Better dead than red … said Chris Matthews.

The MSNBC host went into a protracted monologue after the Democratic debate in New Hampshire Friday night in which he condemned the evils of socialism and warned of public executions in Central Park if it ever came to the United States.

“I have my own views of the word socialist and I’ll be glad to share them with you in private and they go back to the early 1950s,” he told a post-debate analysis panel.

“I have an attitude about them. I remember the Cold War. I have an attitude toward [Fidel] Castro,” he added. “I believe if Castro and the reds had won the Cold War there would have been executions in Central Park and I might have been one of the ones getting executed. And certain other people would be there cheering.”

Matthews declined to get into who exactly he thought would have been cheering his execution.

“I don’t know who Bernie supports over these years, I don’t know what he means by socialism. One week it’s Denmark. We’re gonna be like Denmark,” Matthews continued, mocking Sanders’ deep Brooklyn accent. “Well, what does he think of Castro? That’s a great question. What did you think of Fidelissmo?”

The moment swiftly went viral on Twitter and was picked up by pro-Trump surrogates, like campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh. “Chris Matthews laying it down,” he said approvingly in a tweet.

Before becoming the host of his MSNBC show “Hardball,” Matthews spent his career as an insider in Democratic politics as a speechwriter for former President Jimmy Carter and chief of staff to former House Speaker Tip O’Neill.