MSNBC’s Chris Matthews issues apology to Bernie Sanders for Nazi comparison after calls for his resignation

MSNBC host Chris Matthews apologized on Monday night to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) after comparing his weekend victory in Nevada caucus to the Nazi invasion of France in 1940.

“I was reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940,” Matthews said on Saturday. “And the general, Reynaud, calls up Churchill and says, ‘It’s over.’ And Churchill says, ‘How can that be? You’ve got the greatest army in Europe. How can it be over?’ He said, ‘It’s over.'”

Those comments triggered calls for Matthews to resign, with many pointing out that many Sanders’ Jewish relatives were killed Holocaust.

On Monday, Matthews acknowledged that his remarks were wrong.

“As I watched the one-sided results of Saturday’s Democratic caucus in Nevada, I reached for a historical analogy. And used a bad one,” he said. “I was wrong to refer to an event from the last days, or actually the first days, of World War II. Sen. Sanders, I’m sorry for comparing anything from that tragic era in which so many suffered, especially the Jewish people, to an electoral result in which you were the well-deserved winner. This is going to be a hard-fought, heated campaign of ideas, and in the days, the weeks, and months ahead, I will strive to do a better job myself of elevating the political discussion. congratulations, by the way, to you, Sen. Sanders, and your supporters, on a tremendous win down in Nevada.”

Watch the clip below: