On Monday night, Chris Matthews announced his resignation from MSNBC Monday night after more than two decades at the network.
“I’m retiring. This is the last ‘Hardball’ on MSNBC, and obviously this isn’t for lack of interest in Politics…”
Watch his shock announcement below:
Over the last 72 hours, Matthews had come under fire for previous “sexist” comments that were exposed in a GQ column.
The GQ released article headlined, “Like Warren, I Had My Own Sexist Run-In with Chris Matthews.”. In it, Laura Bassett revealed that Matthews had said sexist language at her multiple times.
During the most recent Democratic primary debate, Matthews asked Senator Elizabeth Warren about why she hammered billionaire presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg for allegedly telling a former employee to “kill” her unborn child.
“Why would he lie?” Matthews asked Warren of Bloomberg’s denial of the incident. “Because just to protect himself?”
“You believe he’s lying,” Matthews said to Warren. After Warren said she believed the woman who accused Bloomberg, Matthews asked why Bloomberg would lie.
Warren replied: “Yeah, and why would she lie? I mean, that’s the question, Chris.”
In her piece in GQ, Basset recalled an example of when Matthews made a sexist comment towards her: “Why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?” Matthews had asked as she was getting her makeup done.
The number of on-air incidents is long, exhausting, and creepy, including commenting to Erin Burnett, for example, “You’re a knockout… it’s all right getting bad news from you,” while telling her to move closer to the camera. Behind the scenes, one of Matthews’s former producers told The Daily Caller in 2017 that he allegedly rated his female guests on a numerical scale and would name a “hottest of the week,” like a “teenage boy.” In 1999, an assistant producer accused Matthews of sexual harassment, which CNBC, the show’s network at the time, investigated. They concluded that the comments were “inappropriate,” and Matthews received a “stern reprimand,” according to an MSNBC spokesperson.
This tendency to objectify women in his orbit has bled into his treatment of female politicians and candidates. He has repeatedly lusted over women in politics on air, including remarking in 2011 that there’s “something electric” and “very attractive” about the way former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin walks and moves, and noting in 2017 that acting attorney general Sally Yates is “attractive, obviously.” But he has reserved a particular contempt for the woman who made it closest to ascending the heights of American political power, Hillary Clinton, calling her “witchy,” “anti-male,” and “She-Devil.”
The Cut obtained footage of him joking in early 2016, just before a live interview with then candidate Clinton, “where’s that Bill Cosby pill,” referring to the date-rape drug. In 2005, he openly wondered whether the troops would “take the orders” from a female president; after another interview, he pinched Clinton’s cheek; and in another, he suggested that she had only had so much political success because her husband had “messed around.” This evening anchor, in addition to everything else, has repeatedly challenged whether women are legitimate politicians or could be president at all. “I was thinking how hard it is for a woman to take on a job that’s always been held by men,” he said of Clinton in 2006.
What is your reaction to Matthews stepping down? Comment below…
This content was originally published here.