There were toasts and bittersweet tributes over dinner at the Capital Grille in Chevy Chase, Md. — all of it put together at the last minute, and nearly a year sooner than anyone anticipated.

Two days earlier, after hours of conversation, Griffin had delivered the rough news: It was time for Matthews to step down.

That was the prompt for Matthews’s startling on-camera speech at the start of “Hardball” Monday. In an abrupt, live two-minute sign-off speech, Matthews stunned his audience on the eve of one of the most consequential political days of the 2020 campaign by announcing that he was resigning — and apologizing for a history of inappropriate comments about women.

Though the announcement followed a week of on-air gaffes, the suddenness of it shocked many inside his network, who followed up with misty testimonials to this most vivid of cable hosts: “A real person who truly loves & knows politics,” tweeted morning news anchor Stephanie Ruhle. “I appreciate all that he has taught me.” Correspondent Steve Kornacki, tapped to host the rest of the “Hardball” hour after Matthews left the set, choked back tears on camera as he described Matthews as “human . . . one of the highest compliments I can pay to someone.”

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But the humanity of the bombastic Matthews was his undoing as his definitional character — a host without a filter — finally caught up to him.

“Each time he went on air,” said a person familiar with Griffin’s conversation with Matthews, “he was at risk for saying something that was not okay.”

Matthews, 74, had a serious conversation with Griffin about his eventual retirement back in early 2019, before the presidential election cycle shifted into high gear. Matthews had made it known that he yearned to start getting home before 9 p.m. to have dinner with his wife, according to a person familiar with the discussions who like others requested anonymity to speak about private communications.

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The network considered moving Matthews’s show to an earlier time slot but in the end, he stayed where he was, with the plan to retire after the 2020 election. That timing would have given management plenty of time to figure out his replacement in the crucial 7 p.m. slot just before prime time.

But embarrassments in recent weeks changed all that — and put Matthews in the position of having to jump before he was pushed, according to three people familiar with the conversation.

Last week, Matthews apologized for comparing Sen. Bernie Sanders’s victory in the Nevada Democratic caucuses to the Nazi invasion of France. He also was criticized for an interview with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in which he expressed incredulity that Warren would take the word of a female employee who sued former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, alleging he told her to “kill” her unborn child. “You believe he is lying?” Matthews gasped.

Then, on Friday, Matthews misidentified Democrat Jaime Harrison, mistaking him for another black South Carolina politician, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.).

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The coup de grace came that same day, when journalist Laura Bassett published an essay in GQ alleging that Matthews made boorish comments (“Why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?”) to her and other women when they were guests on his show. The piece reawakened old whispers about Matthews’s serial insensitivity and inappropriate behavior — claims NBC News has quietly been defending him against for decades. NBC is particularly sensitive to harassment allegations these days, given its pledges to employees to not tolerate the type of crass sexual exploitation for which longtime “Today” anchor Matt Lauer was dismissed in 2017.

All of that led Griffin to head to Matthews’s house in Chevy Chase on Saturday to discuss Matthews’s departure. Matthews’s wife, Kathleen, a former longtime television reporter and public relations executive, was present for the “difficult” conversation, according to two people familiar with the meeting, during which Matthews’s departure became inevitable. The discussion continued Sunday over the phone to determine what exactly to say, and when.

Matthews was not pleased, but he came to accept the outcome. During the conversation, Griffin made clear the window was closing on Matthews to leave the network in a way that would allow him to go on air, talk about his departure, and set the timing and terms, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

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Matthews's long Washington career represented a bridge from the old school of public affairs programming to the brash, conflict-charged arena of today's cable news.

A native of Philadelphia but a creature of Capitol Hill — his first job in Washington was as a Capitol Police officer — he wrote speeches for President Jimmy Carter and battled the Reagan White House as press secretary for Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill before moving into print journalism as a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Matthew got his on-camera start as a regular fill-in panelist in the early days of “The McLaughlin Group,” along with the likes of Lawrence O’Donnell, another young Hill staffer who would also eventually make his way to ­MSNBC. The show, launched by Jesuit priest-turned-Republican operative John McLaughlin in 1982, turbocharged the once-sedate tradition of punditry debate panels. And Matthews had a style — shouty, combative, glib, pointed — perfectly suited for this new kind of discussion. It was, in essence, what cable news would eventually become.

Matthews’s first show, “Politics With Chris Matthews,” aired on the short-lived Roger Ailes-created, NBC-owned America’s Talking channel, which was eventually subsumed in 1996 by the new MSNBC. His show moved over to CNBC, where it was renamed “Hardball,” and then moved to MSNBC, where it aired every night for two decades.

The show was freewheeling and unpredictable. “It turned him into one of the first cable news stars,” said Jon Klein, former president of CNN, in an interview. “Hardball” was one of the early cable shows, such as CNN’s “Crossfire” and “Capital Gang,” that were unabashedly Beltway-centric, inviting viewers to experience a raucous and irreverent conversation about the corridors of political power.

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“Viewers always wondered what would come out of his mouth next. He was kind of like Tim Russert on molly,” Klein said. Matthews rarely dwelled on any single idea for very long, and he famously cut off guests before they could even begin to answer a question. Antsy, agitated and loose-lipped, he was a dramatic counterpart to the smooth and controlled news anchors of the old days.

Over the years, Matthews didn’t change much. Instead, cable news became more like him.

His volatility continued off-camera. In 1999, a female employee told CNBC executives that Matthews had made inappropriate jokes and comments at her expense and in the presence of others. The company investigated and found that Matthews’s conduct was inappropriate and offensive, though it concluded that he wasn’t propositioning the woman, according to reports from the Daily Caller eventually confirmed by the network. He received a formal reprimand, and the woman got a separation package with an undisclosed amount of money.

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On camera, Matthews opened himself up to charges of sexism — in particular for the loaded terms he used to critique Hillary Clinton. Matthews called her “witchy,” a “she-devil” and “Madame Defarge,” a reference to the vindictive, villainous knitting-woman of “A Tale of Two Cities.” In 2005, he questioned whether troops would take orders from her as president; in 2008 he argued that “the reason she’s a U.S. senator, the reason she’s a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around.” He later apologized. He also once pinched her cheek after an interview.

Linda Vester, who worked at NBC in the 1990s and accused Tom Brokaw of inappropriate advances, expressed concern that Matthews’s retirement would end discussion of whether he had treated other women inappropriately. “It’s essential that NBC News fully and independently investigate him,” she said. “The issue is getting the full truth out in the open, understanding how it happened within the corporate culture.”

While Kornacki appeared emotional and stunned as he took over the remaining 58 minutes of “Hardball,” he had known since Monday morning, the eve of Super Tuesday, that he would be sitting in for Matthews that night.