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Chris Matthews defends attack on Priebus: GOP 'dividing country along racial lines'

TAMPA, Fla. -- In an emotional interview with POLITICO tonight, MSNBC host Chris Matthews defended his spirited attack against RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, in which he alleged that the Republican party was guilty of playing the race card against President Barack Obama.

"It is obvious that this is something I care passionately about: race was abused by white politicians in my lifetime, including Reagan. For someone to come on the program and deny that this is part of their process, I couldn't take that," Matthews said. "This is something I really, deeply believe in. We grew up in a country where appeals to race have been awful, terrible. This language -- we are beyond this. It had to be called out."

(See alo: Chris Matthews's 5 best rants)

On today's edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, Matthews told Priebus that Republican attacks on President Obama's welfare stance, as well as Mitt Romney's remark about his birth certificate, were evidence that the Republican party was playing "that little ethnic card... the race card," and called it an embarrassment to the party.

Matthews criticism, leveled with a remarkable emotional intensity, visibly rankled the show's co-hosts, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. RNC spokesman Sean Spicer called it "outlandish." Priebus called it "garbage," and later charged Matthews with trying to be "the biggest jerk in the room." In an interview with Matthews Monday evening, Newt Gingrich charged Matthews with racism.

But Matthews told POLITICO that has received an outpouring of support -- from his bosses, who he says "agree with substance of what I said," and from fans in places as disparate as Mozambique and Jamaica.

"I have never heard -- never heard -- such a positive response," Matthews said. "The people I've met, globally, the people who have felt this, personally -- I've never got such a positive response."

While many liberals champion Matthews for what he did this morning -- his remarks received applause from the audience -- many attendees here in Tampa took issue with his tone and his interruptions when Priebus tried to respond. (Matthews said he hasn't talked to Scarborough and Brzeznski about their reaction to the exchange. "They had their own reactions to it. Joe has his own feelings; mine are totally different.")

(Also on POLITICO: Reince Priebus: 'Prosecute Obama')

Asked about his tone, Matthews said, "There come times when the passion should be reflective in the tone."

"There are a couple issues like peace and war, and race relations -- this is, deeply, not something we should be revisiting in the 21st century," he said. "It isn't even covert any more, its overt. Race is the San Andreas Fault in this country, and this is dividing this country along racial lines."

Matthews said he met with Priebus after the show and asked him to come on tonight's edition of MSNBC's Hardball, which Matthews hosts, to "continue the conversation." Priebus, Matthews says, told him he had 23 events tonight and couldn't make it.

But Matthews has no illusions about where Priebus stands.

"Like [H.L.] Mencken said, 'Never argue with somebody whose job depends on not being convinced,'" Matthews said.