Chris Matthews Compares Bernie Sanders Winning Nevada To Nazi Invasion Of France In World War II
Veteran MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews is not taking the news of Sen. Bernie Sanders winning the Democratic Nevada caucuses well. By all indications, Sanders will win the caucuses in a landslide. According to Matthews, his impending victory is reminiscent of Nazi German’s invasion of France in World War II.
Per Mediaite, while commenting on Sanders’ success in Nevada, Matthews observed that “it looks like Bernie Sanders is hard to beat right now.” In agreement with Democratic strategist James Carville — who had blasted Sanders minutes earlier — the anchor then warned of “the dangers of what lies ahead in November.”
“They’re sitting on so much oppo research on Bernie,” he said, presumably referring to President Donald Trump’s Republican Party, but without specifying what kind of “oppo” exists that would be damaging to Sanders’ candidacy.
Matthews then went on to compare Sanders winning Nevada to the German invasion of France during the Second World War.
“I was reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940, and the general, Renault, calls up Churchill and says, ‘It’s over.’ And Churchill says ‘How can it be? You’ve got the greatest army in Europe. How can it be over?’ He said, ‘It’s over.'”
The anchor doubled down with the commentary, adding that Carville was “damn right” in his observations. Sanders winning the caucus would not come as a surprise, however, given that the most recent polling showed him to have a double-digit lead over his closest competitors in the Democratic primary.
Matthews’ remarks are coming across intense criticism on social media, with prominent political figures denouncing the anchor’s comparison. Mike Casca, Communications Director for Sanders’ presidential campaign, pointed out that the senator’s family was wiped out in the Holocaust.
never thought part of my job would be pleading with a national news network to stop likening the campaign of a jewish presidential candidate whose family was wiped out by the nazis to the third reich.
but here we are. https://t.co/2G1bqZ6bkI
— mike casca (@cascamike) February 22, 2020
Parker Molloy, editor-at-large of watchdog group Media Matters for America went a step further than Casca, suggesting in a Twitter message that Matthews should resign or retire for comparing Sanders — who would be the first Jewish president in U.S. history — to a Nazi.
Tonight was not the first time for MSNBC to draw the unseemly comparison between Sanders and his movement and the Nazis. As The Daily Beast reported, anchor Chuck Todd recently quoted an op-ed which compares Sanders’ supporters to brown shirts, the Nazi Party’s original paramilitary wing.
MSNBC has long been criticized for the way it’s covering Sanders’ presidential campaign. In January, anchor Joy Reid brought on a supposed body language expert to analyze whether Sanders was telling the truth about his reported discussions with Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Both the host and the alleged expert — an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist — were accused of pushing anti-Semitic stereotypes.
