Chris Matthews called Trump's speech 'Hitlerian' over two words

MNBC host Chris Matthews heard something in President Trump's inauguration speech that he couldn't help but call "Hitlerian," and it all came from just two words he uttered.

When he said today ‘America First,’ it was not just the racial — I mean, I shouldn’t say racial, the Hitlerian background to it, but it was the message I kept thinking.

He made the comments while narrating the inauguration day events for MSNBC.

Chris Matthews on #Trump's #Inauguration speech: "When he said "America first" today, it was not just the ... Hitlerian background to it..." pic.twitter.com/zJp4brrNQb

— Jeffrey Guterman (@JeffreyGuterman) January 20, 2017

Matthews wondered if the United Kingdom Prime Minister would take the slogan as a slight against our historically close political relationship.

What does Theresa May think of this,  this morning, when she picks up the papers and goes ‘My God, what did he just say? He said 'America first.' What happened to the special relationship?' What if you’re Putin? You’re probably pounding the table saying, 'That’s what I’ve been saying, Russia first! Russia first!’ The bullying message to him.

Then Matthews made reference to the Presidential Daily Briefings, wondering aloud if those two words put is in more danger from our enemies.

And I wonder, y'know, are people around the world we're watching closely in those PDBs, he got one this morning, what will be the reaction today? Will somebody do something they weren't gonna do yesterday?

Matthews' comments were immediately assailed by conservatives as an example of the bias in the media and the hysteria from the left about Trump's inauguration.

The charge is not a new one, as many on the left have tried to tie the "America First" slogan to a group that advocated to keep America out of World War II.

It is extremely unfortunate that in his speech Wednesday outlining his foreign policy goals, Donald Trump chose to brand his foreign policy with the noxious slogan "America First," the name of the isolationist, defeatist, anti-Semitic national organization that urged the United States to appease Adolf Hitler.

The America First Committee actually began at Yale University, where Douglas Stuart Jr., the son of a vice president of Quaker Oats, began organizing his fellow students in spring 1940. He and Gerald Ford, the future American president, and Potter Stewart, the future Supreme Court justice, drafted a petition stating, "We demand that Congress refrain from war, even if England is on the verge of defeat."

Trump has vehemently denied any inferred connection between his campaign and historical Fascist movements and organizations.