MSNBC pundit under fire for comparing Sanders win to Nazi victory over France

“It is absolutely unacceptable that Matthews is making comparisons between Bernie Sanders, whose family was murdered by Nazis, to Nazis,” tweeted Media Matters editor Parker Molloy.

By Aaron Sull, World Israel News

Twitter has been on fire over the weekend after MSNBC’s Chris Matthews compared Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ recent victory in the Nevada caucuses to the Nazi’s victory over France in 1940.

“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,’” said Matthews during MSNBC’s TV broadcast of Saturday’s Nevada caucuses.

Mike Casca, a spokesperson for the Sanders campaign, took to Twitter on Saturday night to blast Matthew’s insensitivity.

“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,” he tweeted.

Critics are also calling on Matthews to resign.

“It is absolutely unacceptable that Matthews is making comparisons between Bernie Sanders, whose family was murdered by Nazis, to Nazis. @HardballChris needs to retire. Immediately,” Media Matters editor Parker Molloy tweeted.

“I’m really, really insulted by a major pundit on an allegedly liberal news network comparing a Jewish candidate’s overwhelming caucus victory to the French losing a battle with the Nazis. Get this lunatic off the air,” tweeted reporter Alex Kotch from The Center for Media and Democracy.

This is the second MSNBC political analysist this month to compare the Sanders campaign to the Nazi era.

On Feb. 10, MSNBC anchor Chuck Todd faced swift backlash after quoting an article that described online supporters of Sanders as Nazi brownshirts.

“Hey I want to bring up something that Jonathan Last put in The Bulwark today,” said Todd. “It was about how — and Ruth, we’ve all been on the receiving end of the Bernie online brigade — here’s what he says: He says ‘no other candidate has anything like this sort of digital brownshirt brigade. I mean, except for Donald Trump.'”

Bernie SandersChris MatthewsChuck ToddMSNBC