Did Chris Matthews Take Subtle Dig at Colleague Chris Hayes on May 14 Edition of 'Hardball'?

May 14th, 2015 8:28 PM

I report, you decide, but it looks to me like MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews worked in a thinly-veiled dig at colleague Chris Hayes, who is an editor-at-large for the leftist magazine The Nation.

It came on the May 14 edition of Hardball during a panel discussion on Tuesday night's deadly Amtrak crash in Philadelphia as Matthews was introducing his panelists, Salon.com editor-at-large Joan Walsh, Ben Goldberg, nation editor at Time magazine, and McKay Coppins of BuzzFeed. Matthews initially mistakenly said Goldberg was an editor of The Nation, before correcting himself and putting down the liberal magazine by comparison to Time. 

Matthews then apologized to Walsh for besmirching a magazine she happens to "love."

Here's the relevant transcript: 

MSNBC
Hardball
May 14, 2015

7:43 p.m. Eastern

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let's bring in the roundtable. Joan Walsh is editor-at-large of Salon. Ben Goldberg is with The Nation, he's editor, by the way, he's the nation editor for Time magazine, which is a lot bigger than being an editor at Nation. And McKay Coppins is the senior political writer for BuzzFeed.

Sorry for that. You love Nation.

JOAN WALSH: I do.

[all three panelists chuckle]

Now, I didn't think much of this at the time, but earlier today Daily Beast gossip columnist Betsy Rothstein observed what she contended was a snub by Matthews when he was handing off the baton to Chris Hayes.

You can read her piece on that here, where you can also watch the corresponding video clip, and decide for yourself if you think Matthews disdains Hayes.