Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball, was caught making remarks about Melania Trump’s physical appearance during the live broadcast of the Indiana primary coverage.
“Did you see her walk? Runway walk. My God is that good,” Matthews could be heard saying as the Republican frontrunner’s wife walked onto the stage.
“I could watch that runway show,” Matthews continued, unaware that his microphone was still on as co-host Brian Williams cut to commercial.
Matthews has been critical of Donald Trump’s stances on womens issues, which culminated in the host asking tough questions about abortion, leading the presumptive nominee to make controversial remarks — which was swiftly retracted — that women who have abortions should be punished.
This is not the first time that Matthews has made remarks about a woman’s appearance during a presidential campaign.
In 2011, the MSNBC host got together an all-male panel to discuss why Sarah Palin “could not be hotter as a candidate.” He also attributed her success to her looks, saying that there was “something electric” about the way Sarah Palin walks and moves, and called her “very attractive.”
“When she walks and moves, there’s something electric about it. That she doesn’t do on television with Roger Ailes sitting in that booth in Wasilla. Look at, there’s something. Other candidates don’t do this. She’s constantly in motion. She looks, obviously, very attractive. She’s doing something that works. If Mitt Romney was doing the same exact thing. This is what’s going on here.”
In 2007, he compared Hillary Clinton to Nurse Ratched, the antagonist in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and in 2008 said she looked “witchy.”
“I hate to say this,” Matthews said. “I’m not going to hate to say it. It’s a fact. You [Clinton] look more witchy when you’re doing it like this.”
When reached by CNN, a spokesperson for Melania Trump described her as “an accomplished businesswoman and entrepreneur in her own right,” and said it was “unfortunate to see the continuous inaccuracies and misrepresentations made by the media of Mrs. Trump as anything less than the independently successful woman that she is.”
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