Chris Matthews retires on-air!

FIRED, CANCELLED or forced out? You be the judge MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews retires on-air, leaves MID-BROADCAST and is replaced to a stunned Steve Kornacki who took over the broadcast, telling the audience, “That was a lot to take in just now, I’m sure, and I’m sure you’re still absorbing that, and I am too.”

Chris announced his retirement at the opening of Hardball Monday night by stating the following “Let me start with my headline: I’m retiring,” said the anchor, who has hosted the show since 1997 at first CNBC, then MSNBC. “Obviously, this isn’t for lack of interest in politics,” Matthews said, explaining how much he loved hosting the show.

As for his reason for leaving, Matthews told his audience that he came to the decision after a conversation with MSNBC and that he believed that a younger generation was “ready to take the reins.” He then praised young people for improving conditions in the workplace, then transitioned into an apology for sexual harassment. “Compliments on a woman’s appearance that some men, including me, might have once incorrectly thought were OK, were never OK,” Matthews said. “Not then, and certainly not today, and for making such comments in the past, I’m sorry.”

It’s been reported that the network had little advance warning that Matthews was leaving, saying, “We do have to fill the rest of this hour—we’re going to take a quick break and come back with today’s news,” before cutting to commercial again. This sort of thing is hard for me to believe as I think he might have been consumed by the same left politics which he pushed on the show. So now that he’s been thrown a curveball, and won’t be on hardball anymore what’s left for Chris? Well he’s going to be penning another book.

I suspect this isn’t the last of this, and that he will either end up doing his own online podcast at some point, and not stay “Retired” I think that he’s been pushed out, and left with an agreement not to trash the network, and take a payout so the network doesn’t leave him embarrassed. So he went on air, and went out in the bestway possible which made the network look as good as it could. Here is the video below of his farewell speech.