Chris Matthews: Democrats need to 'repay' Liz Cheney if Harris wins

Pundit Chris Matthews said he thinks Vice President Harris and Democrats more generally should include former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in their policymaking agenda if they beat former President Trump for the presidency this fall, after Cheney came out in support of Harris this year.

“If you’re going to use her, repay her when you get into office. Don’t just act like you’re giving a little nod to a Republican," Matthews said Monday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"Clean up some of your act. You’ve got problems, Democrats. You don’t have all the answers, you’ve got to have much tougher ... action on the border. You have to get serious about it and come up with a reasonable way of getting people into the country in a reasonable way and let them become citizens in time. But you’ve got to do something. You can’t just say, 'I’m with Biden.' That’s not too good."

Matthews also said Democrats have messaging problems on inflation and the economy, and suggested Cheney could help.

"You can’t say on the inflation, 'It’s world inflation.' Nobody cares about the world, they want to know why are their prices are going up," he said. "So I think the Democrats have a lot of things to clean up, but one of the things they need to show is courage and guts, and that woman has it.”

Matthews's comments were first highlighted by Mediaite.

Cheney has joined Harris for a number of events targeting suburban voters across the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

A vocal Trump critic, Cheney on Monday told a crowd Harris is "somebody that you can trust and someone that our children can look up to."

Harris, who has promised to include a Republican in her Cabinet if elected, has previously shot down questions about whether she would pick Cheney for such a role.