Joining Brian Williams for his second day back anchoring MSNBC’s coverage of Pope Francis’s visit to the United States on Wednesday afternoon, Catholic and Hardball host Chris Matthews blasted Francis’s predecessor Pope Benedict XVI for being “so fragile and removed” and possessing a “weakness” and “coldness” that Francis does not have. The disgraced former NBC Nightly News anchor gushed over Matthews’s “patriotism” for the U.S. that’s “matched only by his exuberance.”

It is a devastating, indisputable fact of history -- George W. Bush was president when jihadists murdered 3,000 people in the United States on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

For the liberals who loathed Bush during the 2000 campaign, and who then succumbed during the Florida recount to a chronic condition later diagnosed as Bush Derangement Syndrome, Bush's presence at the helm that horrific day is not damning enough. They vilify him by embellishing the truth of what came before it.

Carly Fiorina is "either a liar, or she's delusional" regarding the Planned Parenthood sting videos, Salon editor-at-large Joan Walsh snarled on tonight's edition of Hardball.

In the late hours of Wednesday night after the Republican debate, MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews was in his element as he whined about the 2016 GOP candidates being “very ideological tonight” and targeted the Cuban-American heritage of Senators Marco Rubio (Fl.) and Ted Cruz (Tex.) for thinking that “they still are fighting a Cold War” and “treat[ing] Obama like he’s Castro.”

In an exchange with former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) on Wednesday night's Hardball prior to the CNN debate, host Chris Matthews blasted the Republican Party writ large for not rebuking Donald Trump several years ago when he publicly questioned whether President Obama was constitutionally eligible for the office.