Ex-MSNBC star Chris Matthews insisted that ‘the country is moving toward’ Donald Trump despite some increasingly negative polling for the president on key issues. 

The former Hardball host had toed the liberal line as recently as April, when he drew a mocking tweet from a White House spokesperson for criticizing Trump’s tariff plans. 

However, in a weekend interview with disgraced former PBS anchor Charlie Rose, Matthews believes the American people are more aligned with the president than ever.

‘To be honest with you, the country is moving towards Trump,’ he said, dismissing polls showing he’s losing popularity.

‘These polls, they come out and show him not doing well — I don’t buy that. His strength is still greater than the Democratic strength. He is a stronger public figure than the Democratic people,’ Matthews added.

Matthews showed what he meant by having to go all the way back to former President Barack Obama to name a Democrat as popular as Trump is.

‘Obama still has tremendous charisma — but Trump has strength. And I think that’s what all voters look for,’ he said. ‘They want a president who is a strong figure. And he’s got it. It’s just there. And half the country buys it.’

He also praised what Trump has done on immigration, as well as his foreign policy with regard to the drone strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. 

Ex-MSNBC star Chris Matthews believes ‘the country is moving toward’ Donald Trump as he begins his second term

‘To be honest with you, the country is moving towards Trump (pictured),’ Matthews said, dismissing polls showing he’s losing popularity

Matthews did dampen ideas of Trump running for a third term but noted that the president was easily more popular and influential than Elon Musk, dismissing any idea of Musk’s America Party succeeding.

‘[Musk] plays the same role as Ross Perot,’ he said, referencing the infamous third party candidate who hurt Republicans in the 1992 and 1996 elections and consider those who vote for his party unserious.

While some polls have shown Trump on a downward slope, the president improved a hair with voters according to a new exclusive Daily Mail/J.L. Partners poll, even as they give him failing grades for his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Forty-nine percent of voters now approve of Trump’s job performance as president, up one point from the tracking survey conducted earlier in July.

But he remains underwater as 51 percent disapprove of Trump’s job performance, down one point from earlier in the month. The margin of error in the survey of 1,007 registered voters is 3.1 percent.

The poll numbers suggest Trump is surviving politically during a punishing news cycle consumed by the Epstein files and his administration’s failure to disclose them as he promised during his presidential campaign. 

The president’s job approval is up one percentage point from June and remains his highest rating since May.

‘The news saga might have seemed terrible for Trump in the last few days, but it isn’t having an impact on his approval rating,’ James Johnson, JL Partners co-founder told the Daily Mail.

Matthews showed what he meant by having to go all the way back to former President Barack Obama to name a Democrat as popular as Trump is

‘In fact, we think it’s going up, from 48 percent to 49 percent, making this his best approval rating since May. His ratings with the base is holding up too, unchanged on 91 percent with Republicans,’ Johnson continued. 

But Trump’s strong job approval ratings does not carry over to his handling of the Epstein files.

Forty-two percent of voters disapprove of his handling of the issue while just 27 percent approve.

A significant number of voters, 20 percent, did not appear to care about the case as they neither approved nor disapproved Trump’s handling of the issue.

In the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump referred to the ongoing saga as a ‘witch hunt’ indicating he was tired of answering questions from the media about it.

Despite the president’s best efforts to put the issue behind him, few voters believe in the administration’s assessment of the case. 

Only fifteen percent in the poll said they believed the Justice Department’s memo released by Attorney General Pam Bondi concluding that Epstein committed suicide in prison and that the infamous pedofile did not have a ‘client list’ they could release.

Forty-seven percent said they did not believe the administration’s account of the Epstein case, and that they believed there was more secrets to uncover.

While some polls have shown Trump on a downward slope, the president improved a hair with voters according to a new exclusive Daily Mail/J.L. Partners poll, even as they give him failing grades for his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files

Twenty-three percent said they believed the Trump administration memo, but that there was more to uncover in the case.

‘This is despite voters disapproving of his handling of the Epstein scandal. What explains the difference? Voters simply do not rate it highly on their list of priorities,’ Johnson said. 

Ninety percent of the Republican voter base continue to grant the president solid approval ratings, despite their misgivings about the Epstein files. 

The poll was conducted as Trump furiously contested a Wall Street Journal report that he had signed a letter to Epstein for his 50th birthday which concluded: ‘Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret,’ and featured a hand-drawn image of a naked woman as well as his signature.

Trump decried the news article as ‘fake’ and filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the company.  

‘They are judging Trump on other issues – such as the economy, the southern border, and how he is actually running the country. Their grumbles on the Epstein handling are not enough for them to turn on their man,’ Johnson said. 

While the majority of Republicans, 52 percent, give Trump a passing grade on his handling of the Epstein files, just 13 percent of Independent voters feel the same way.

Fifty percent of independent voters in the survey said they disapproved of the way the Trump administration has handled the Epstein files case.