MSNBC's Chris Matthews admits 'regular people' will like Trump's SOTU speech: 'It's all good stuff'

Providing reaction and analysis following President Trump's State of the Union Address Tuesday night, MSNBC host Chris Matthews admitted that "regular people" will like Trump's speech because it was "all good stuff."

Matthews, normally an outspoken critic of the president, appeared to gush over the speech, saying, "I think people where I came from will like the speech tonight. I think regular people will — they'll see the schmaltz, the corniness, they'll see it — but they'll like it. Because it's all good stuff, whatever purpose it had."

The "schmaltz" Matthews is referring to included surprising a military family by bringing their husband and dad back home early from Afghanistan and honoring conservative radio icon Rush Limbaugh with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, who was recently diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.

Has Matthews turned a corner on Trump since struggling to utter the words "president" and "Trump" in the same sentence and comparing the president to Nazi totalitarian Adolf Hitler? Probably not.

But his admission that most Americans would like Trump's State of the Union speech Tuesday night seems to be accurate, at least. A CNN instant poll conducted immediately following the speech found that 76% of viewers had a positive reaction to the speech (59% said their reaction was "very positive"), while just 23% had a negative reaction.

Matthews also noticed that by honoring several guests in an inclusive way Trump even forced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to stand and applaud more than she may have liked to.

"I watched Pelosi because I really respect her like most of us do. And I watched very — the way she calibrated when to stand, when to applaud," Matthews said. "It was almost entirely the tributes to people, individual people. She always felt that was the right thing to do."

Of course, that did not stop the speaker from expressing her displeasure with the president by ripping up a copy of his speech in front of cameras before the night was over.