Chris Matthews EXITS MSNBC

Chris Matthews (left) resigned from 'Hardball' Monday night, days after freelance journalist Laura Bassett (right) published an article accusing Matthews of being 'gross and inappropriate'. Matthews had also faced criticism for a series of on-air flubs - including when he grilled Sen Elizabeth Warren in a post-debate interview (inset). Daily Mail composite

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 the news media over the past quarter-century.

The NT Times reports 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 making 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.

Accompanied by his family, Mr. Matthews walked onto the “Hardball” set inside NBC’s Washington bureau shortly before 7 p.m. to deliver a brief farewell. His longtime crew members, who had been told of his plans roughly an hour earlier, looked on stunned.



After reading the statement, the program went to commercial break and Matthews was gone. Visibly stunned MSNBC political analyst Steve Kornacki took over the broadcast.

Matthews was well liked within NBC News. But according to The LA Times citing people familiar with the discussions about his departure, there were growing concerns over his on-air comments, which have tended to fall out of sync with current cultural norms. While he could get away with such gaffes in a previous era, social media has been unforgiving.

Steve Kornacki

His sudden signoff took many colleagues by surprise — “Wait. What?” the MSNBC anchor Katy Tur wrote on Twitter — but it followed days of discussions with Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC and one of the early executive producers of “Hardball.”

Griffin, who is close with Mr. Matthews, traveled to Washington over the weekend to discuss his future in person, according to three people who requested anonymity to describe sensitive conversations.

On the air on Monday, Mr. Matthews made clear that the timing of his exit was not entirely his choosing. “Obviously, it isn’t for a lack of interest in politics,” he said, going on to apologize for his past insensitive comments.

“Compliments on a woman’s appearance that some men, including me, might have once incorrectly thought were OK are never OK,” he said. “Not then, and certainly not today.”