Matthews: Hard-working Latino immigrants are "natural Republicans"

Summary: MSNBC's Chris Matthews asserted that Spanish-speaking immigrants "sound like ... natural Republicans to me." Matthews also claimed that "everybody knows" that Puerto Rican, Cuban and Mexican immigrants "don't want a big social democracy" and that "[t]hey want free enterprise and entrepreneurialism," citing examples of opening a flower shop or "a bodega."

On the January 26 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews asserted that Spanish-speaking immigrants "sound like ... natural Republicans to me." Matthews also claimed that "everybody knows" that Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Mexican immigrants "don't want a big social democracy" and that "[t]hey want free enterprise and entrepreneurialism," citing examples of opening a flower shop or "a bodega." Matthews stated that Spanish-speaking immigrants are "[t]he hardest-working people" and concluded, "[t]hey sound like they're natural Republicans to me." Matthews' comments came during an interview with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat, in which the two discussed Villaraigosa's planned Spanish-language Democratic response to President Bush's upcoming January 31 State of the Union address.

From the January 26 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: When I think of people who have come to this country from other countries where they speak Spanish -- Puerto Rico is not another country, but it's the commonwealth -- hardest-working people, they are extremely entrepreneurial. If it's just owning a flower shop, it's owning a small business, a bodega, right? Puerto Ricans come to this country to start business. Cubans certainly come here to start businesses. The hardest-working people in the United States are people who just got here from Mexico, the first day they get here. Everybody knows -- they don't want a big social democracy. They want free enterprise and entrepreneurialism, don't they?

VILLARAIGOSA: I think what they want --

MATTHEWS: They sound like they're natural Republicans to me.

VILLARAIGOSA: I think what they want is the American dream, and they're willing to work for it.

—J.M.