Stop 1 on Chris Matthews' Whirlwind Tour of LA — which will bring him to his reunion with Ellen DeGeneres — was the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Tuesday night Matthews sat down with Leno to discuss the Obama presidency, the possibility of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, the bailout of the auto industry,
Matthews admitted to Leno that he has been, and still is, "partial" to Barack Obama.
"Well, I'm partial," he said. "You got me. You nailed me! I've been watching politics since I was a kid and all the way back to the days of Kennedy and Nixon and I've never seen anything like Barack Obama. No one's ever been as inspiring."
Matthews said that Obama's run was "stunning to [him] from the time it started" and described Obama as "a remarkable political reality."
When Leno brought up the topic of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Matthews laughed, saying, "Come on, you're setting me up!" Matthews is a frequent Clinton-antagonist who was recently overheard on a train trashing her as a Cabinet pick.
The always-excited "Hardball" host may was also passionate about the auto industry bailout. Matthews told Leno, a well-known car enthusiast, that if the CEOs of the "Big Three" auto companies are going to become government employees through a bailout, they ought to accept government salaries.
"These auto company CEOs have not had a good year, or a good decade, and they're still making hundreds of millions of dollars," Matthews said. "I think we ought to say, if we're going to be in a bailout situation...stop getting paid like capitalists. You didn't do it," he added, suggesting a $400,000/year cap on their salaries (equivalent to what the President makes).
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