Chris Matthews accuses Romney of encouraging white anger

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MSNBC host Chris Matthews on Monday accused Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney of using racial politics to turn white voters against President Barack Obama.

During MSNBC’s Mitchell Reports, Matthews accused the Republican Party of trying to prevent people from being able to vote. Republicans this year have pushed for voter ID laws and other voting restrictions in an attempt to crack down on alleged voter fraud. But Democrats have claimed the voting laws are merely a cynical attempt to suppress minority votes.

Matthews compared the voter ID laws to literacy tests, which were used by southern states in the late 19th century to prevent nearly all African Americans from voting.

“And then they start the white working-class agitation with the welfare stuff,” he continued. “They do that very effectively. They discourage black voting and encourage white anger.”

Romney’s campaign has released ads that show pictures of white working-class Americans while claiming that Obama gutted welfare reform by allow states to drop the work-requirement from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Numerous fact-checkers have said the claim is false.

Watch video, clipped by BuzzFeed, below: