MSNBC mainstay Chris Matthews kicked off Hardball the day before Super Tuesday with a shocker: that he would be leaving his signature hour and the network entirely.
Not exactly buried in Matthews’s evidently surprise announcement was an admission of sorts.
“A lot of it has to be with how we talk to each other,” he said. “Compliments on a women’s appearance that some men, including me, might have once incorrectly thought were OK, were never OK. Not then and certainly not today, and, for making such comments in the past, I’m sorry.”
The host’s departure, which he said resulted after “a conversation with MSNBC,” hardly came out of the blue. For months, Matthews and other hosts challenging 2020 front-runner Bernie Sanders have faced the ire of the socialist senator’s fans as well as those of Elizabeth Warren. And, only now, did the network apparently care that, for years, rumors of inappropriate behavior have swirled around Matthews.
Right at the onset of the #MeToo movement in late 2017, the Daily Caller uncovered a settlement paid out by NBC to assuage a former employee of Matthews who alleged sexual harassment. Shortly thereafter, multiple sources alleged that Matthews created an “abusive” work environment. Other reporters corroborated the payout and additional details.
But, despite other serial sexual harassers facing punishment, Matthews continued on as usual. That is, until he got under the skin of Warren fans and Bernie Bros.
Just days after he likened Sanders’s victory in Nevada to the fall of France to the Nazis, he pressed Warren on her invoking the allegation that Michael Bloomberg told a female employee to have an abortion. Angering Sanders and Warren fans is a good way to alienate a substantial portion of the MSNBC audience.
Warren-defender Laura Bassett compared his aggressive questioning of the Massachusetts senator to the “objectifying” comments she faced from Matthews three years ago. That MSNBC decided to take action against a credible accusation is not the problem. That they waited this long is.
For starters, corporate giants, especially supposedly liberal ones such as MSNBC ought to care about ethical workplace environments regardless of the talent that might be expunged as a result. But, even more important for women everywhere, caring about issues such as sexual harassment and assault cannot begin only when political or personal interests are at stake.
Matthews is either the target of a witch hunt, which the available evidence doesn’t seem to corroborate, or he’s only facing the music because an executive found it politically expedient to care about sexual harassment. Both possibilities are reprehensible, and those in the Hardball orbit ought to clarify.
