MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews compared Republican lawmakers applauding President Donald Trump's State of the Union to North Koreans praising their dictator.

"When we look at pictures from North Korea, just an example of a dictatorship, you watch everybody wearing those high peaked hats and everybody smiling in unison or frowning in unison or marching in unison, a goose step," Matthews said Thursday night on Hardball. "And you watch the people and their so-called assembly, their congress, so-called. They all are so frozen in fear of being seen as somehow out of line which is a very strict standard in that country."

"Are Republicans beginning to act like that? Fearful of not showing the right sort of emotion even in public? You have to be exuberant in this cult when he stands before them, it seems," Matthews continued.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) said Republican reception to Trump's speech was extraordinary.

"You look across, it's almost all white men, not entirely," Brown said. "You look across their side of the aisle in the way they stand and cheer for damn near anything that Trump says when he wants them to stand, just in unison."

"I know State of the Union speeches are sometimes like that but never ever to this degree," he said.