MSNBC’s “Hardball” host Chris Matthews said that Republicans “treat trains like Hispanics” on Thursday.

Matthews argued that AMTRAK could “unite this country. It wouldn’t be flyover country, it would be one country again. Rail could bring us together. Culturally, it would be the greatest thing. St. Louis would boom, Cincinnati, all those train stops, all those rail heads would be back in business big-time, if we were united by rail, instead of flyover, looking down on the people, the everyday people.”

Salon Editor-at-Large, and MSNBC political analyst Joan Walsh remarked, “when you talk about uniting the country, that is a beautiful idea, and we all love that idea, but we have a situation right now where there are 180 congressional districts, where nobody takes the train ever. not AMTRAK, and two-thirds of those are represented by Republicans. And they don’t care about us. I mean, it makes me sad to hear about it.”

Matthews then asked, “So they treat trains like Hispanics? We don’t have enough in our district to worry about them.”

He concluded the segment with, “I used to say that Ted Kennedy could beat Jimmy Carter anywhere on the AMTRAK route, because it is more liberal. … Why do I think of these things?”

(h/t Real Clear Politics)

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