MSNBC host Chris Matthews thinks Ben Carson's controversial comments on the victims of the mass shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, are "pathetic."
The Republican presidential candidate recently implied that the victims of the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College should have done more to stop the gunman. "I would not just stand there and let him shoot me," Carson said on "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday.
When ABC News asked him to clarify his remarks later that day, Carson said, "I would ask everybody to attack the gunman."
Matthews tore into Carson's comments on Wednesday's "Hardball."
"Why would someone running for president ... lay the blame on those young people in Oregon who were just killed by a mass murderer?" Matthews asked. "Why would he say they should have behaved differently, when he doesn't even know how they behaved in those last split seconds before they were killed."
Matthews continued by saying Carson's comments are nothing more than political pandering.
"Look, we all know that there is a lot of pandering in politics these days, far too much of it, but these words of Dr. Ben Carson are the verbal equivalent of letting the hard political right walk all over you then sticking your head up to say, ‘now will you make me president?’” he said. “It’s pathetic.”
Watch the clip from "Hardball" below.