0
0
Chris Matthews Announces He Is Retiring From MSNBC
Chris Matthews, the veteran political anchor and voluble host of the long-running MSNBC talk show “Hardball,” resigned on Monday night, an abrupt departure from a television perch that made him a fixture of politics and therefore the news media over the past quarter-century. Mr. Matthews, 74, had faced mounting criticism in recent days over a spate of embarrassing on-air moments, including a comparison of Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign to the Nazi invasion of France and an interview with Senator Elizabeth Warren in which the anchor was criticized for a condescending and disbelieving tone.
On Saturday, the journalist Laura Bassett published an essay accusing Mr. Matthews of creating multiple inappropriate comments about her appearance, reviving longstanding allegations about the anchor’s sexist behavior. By Monday, his position at the news network he helped build had become untenable. amid his family, Mr. Matthews walked onto the “Hardball” set inside NBC’s Washington bureau shortly before 7 p.m. to deliver a quick farewell. His longtime crew members, who had been told of his plans roughly an hour earlier, looked on stunned.
Who is Chris Matthews?
— Chris Matthews (@HardballChris) March 3, 2020
Christopher John Matthews is an American political commentator retired talk show host, and author. Matthews hosted his weeknight hour-long talk show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, on MSNBC from 1994 until Texas Independence Day, 2020, when he announced his retirement on air.
Overview of Chris Matthews
Born: 17 December 1945 (age 74 years), Nicetown–Tioga, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Spouse: Kathleen Matthews (m. 1980)
Education: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, La Salle College High School, College of the Holy Cross
Books: Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit, MORE
Children: Thomas Matthews, Caroline Matthews, Michael Matthews
In a GQ story, Bassett wrote that Matthews wanted to understand why he hadn’t “fallen in love” together with her — right before she went on his show. (She was scheduled to debate allegations of sexual assault against Donald Trump.) Though Bassett wrote that she didn’t think the remarks rose to the extent of “illegal harassment,” she felt that they undermined her right before she went on-air.
The confrontation with Warren came after Warren had pressed presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg on the use of NDAs at his business. A lawsuit alleged that, upon hearing of her pregnancy, Bloomberg had told a female employee to “kill it.” (Bloomberg has denied saying this.) Matthews asked Warren if she believed that Bloomberg had said this. “Well, a pregnant employee sure said that he did,” Warren responded. “Why shouldn’t I think her?”
Also, after Bernie Sanders won the Nevada caucuses, Matthews compared Sanders’ victory to the autumn of France to the Nazis in world war II. Sanders is Jewish; many of his relatives on his father’s side of the family were killed in the Holocaust. Matthews later apologized.
MSNBC said a rotating series of hosts would fill Mr. Matthews’s interval until a permanent replacement was named. An important person of television news, Mr. Matthews encompasses a pugilistic and red-cheeked persona familiar to viewers from countless election nights and parodies on shows like “Saturday Night Live.” His rat-a-tat political commentary was informed by experience: Before his enter punditry, Mr. Matthews served as a speechwriter in President Jimmy Carter’s administration and spent years as chief of staff to Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., the powerful Democratic speaker of the House.
MSNBC is an American cable channel that has NBC News coverage also as its own reporting and political commentary on current events. MSNBC is owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of the NBCUniversal Broadcast, Cable, Sports, and News division of NBCUniversal.
