Chris Matthews apologized today (Credit: MSNBC, screenshot)

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews apologized to Bernie Sanders tonight after comparing his Nevada win to the fall of France to the Nazis.

Matthews said, according to The Hill: “I was reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940. 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.'”

iMediaEthics has written to MSNBC to ask if Matthews was disciplined.

Matthews said in his on-air apology:

“I want to say something quite important and personal. As I watched the one-sided results of Saturday’s Democratic caucus in Nevada I reached for an historic analogy and used a bad one. I was wrong to refer to an event from the last days, actually the first days of World War 2.

“Senator 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 and 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 to your supporters on a tremendous win down in Nevada.”

Hat Tip: Holly Otterbein