Chris Matthews wondered on his Thursday show why some of the potential candidates for the 2012 Republican nomination who work for Fox News have been trailing in polls.

Speaking to Time magazine's Michael Scherer and the New York Times' Nate Silver, Matthews discussed the Donald Trump phenomenon before, as he is wont to do, turning a corner into another topic. Towards the end of the conversation, he mused that several candidates, including Newt Gingrich--who worked for Fox News for years until the network suspended him in March--and Sarah Palin have fallen back in recent polls, especially as Trump has risen.

"By the way, working at Fox has turned out to be kind of the roach motel," he said. "I, mean anybody who has gone over there to work seems like...they haven't been able to come back from it. I'm going through these people. Gingrich is not doing well, Palin seems to have vagued out into the sunset. The people who work over there don't seem to be doing too well as presidentials."

Trump, Scherer noted, was an "NBC guy."

"That's why I've sort of been nice to him," Matthews said.

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