Chris Matthews on What The West Wing, House of Cards and Veep Get Right About Politics

Specs Age 70 Claim to fame Host of MSNBC's Hardball With Chris Matthews (weeknights at 7 p.m.) Base Washington, D.C. Twitter @HardballChris Adweek: What's the first information you consume in the morning? Chris Matthews: History. I start the day knowing most of what's happened in politics since World War II, so it's always there as a point of comparison. Everything is a mash-up of past and present in my brain. For instance, [Alicia Machado] is very much a case of how you treat the little people if you're a big shot, and this is what happened with [Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey] back in '48 when he yelled at some train conductor and said he ought to be fired because he accidentally jolted the train, and that really hurt Dewey. These things happen in patterns. Where do you get your news? I start my day very traditionally. I go out in the driveway and pick up the New York Post, The New York Times, sometimes The Wall Street Journal. I look at the front page, then I might check the Philly scores, then I'll read the op-eds, then I'll go back and go through the political section. I like Maureen Dowd [at The New York Times] and Peggy Noonan at the Journal. The international overnight and Playbook come in my email [in the morning]. And there is a half-inch pile of clips that I get in the afternoon to read. What TV shows do you watch? I never missed an episode of Downton Abbey or House of Cards. I think I've seen all of Veep. I like Madam Secretary. I tried to watch The Affair for a while, but I couldn't watch that anymore. It was too depressing. I tried to watch Ray Donovan, but that was depressing, too. But I'm really a movie buff. I've had a philosophy about feature films all my life, basically, that feature films are always about the present, even if it's a period piece or historical drama. If you want to understand our culture, go to the movies. In fact, I love watching old movies because I can tell from the movie what was going on that year. Have you seen any movies recently that do a good job of showing the current political climate? I saw Hell or High Water, which is getting back to that antihero thing from the '60s where the good guys are the outlaws, which is fascinating. It's sort of about the current times, too, because the bad guys are the banks and somehow they're responsible for everything bad. The movie never connects it up very well, but that's the idea. You get the spirit of the Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders point of view. I think the millennials will like that film. And as far as political TV shows, which ones do you think really get it right? Well, there are different aspects. The West Wing captured the total loyalty and devotion of the White House staff to the president. House of Cards is correct in one regard, that people who are elected to the House of Representatives, for example, really do try to project years, even decades ahead to where they're going to be in the pecking order and how long it will take them to get to a position of real authority. I imagine Veep is accurate in the sense that the vice president is often overlooked by the president's people in every administration. The vice president is totally under the president's control; it's not really a partnership. That's pretty interesting. This story first appeared in the October 17, 2016 issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.

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Chris Matthews on What The West Wing, House of Cards and Veep Get Right About Politics

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