Morning Joe‘s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski weighed in today on their no-longer-MSNBC-colleague Chris Matthew’s abrupt resignation last night, with Brzezinski expressing her thoughts on shifts in cultural attitudes and wondering if “there might be a better way.”
In a stunning on-air moment last night, Matthews announced his immediate retirement and the end of his long-running primetime news program Hardball. In his top-of-show sign-off – an announcement that seemed to stun even MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki, who immediately took over last night’s Hardball – Matthews seemed to address the allegations made last week in GQ magazine by journalist Laura Bassett that the Hardball host “inappropriately flirted” with her before an appearance on his show, making her “noticeably uncomfortable on air.”
“Compliments on a woman’s appearance that some men, including me, once incorrectly would have thought were okay, they were never okay,” Matthews said last night. “Not then, and certainly not today, and for making such comments in the past, I am sorry.”
On today’s Morning Joe, Scarborough addressed Matthews’ departure by quoting a tearful Kornacki’s impromptu comment last night that the Hardball host was “the most human” of TV news personalities, though Scarborough altered the phrase to “all too human.”
“All too human?,” Scarborough said. “Yeah, I guess so but those of us still playing or reporting on the hardball of politics could stand a bit more of this humanity these days. Even if it sometimes reveals our flaw, exposes our weaknesses and, yes, even shows our blind spots. Chris gave us his all every night and that’s why were were wiping tears from our eyes last night and why we’re going to miss him terribly tonight and every night when 7 o’clock rolls around. Thank you Chris for all you’ve done…”
Brzezinski then said, in part, “As a woman I want to say this: I loved working with Chris Matthews. I really enjoyed being his colleague. I understand the important changes around this so-called cancel culture – they’re important, they’re hard, they’re painful and in many cases they are necessary. I do wonder at this point though, as we move forward and we look at this and what happened here, if there might be a better way for all of us in the future where we work through this and get to a better place. But for now I’ll just say I’ll miss him every night at 7 pm, but I remain his friend.”
Watch the Morning Joe segment above.
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