MSNBC host Chris Matthews began his show Monday evening with an on-air apology to 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders after comparing his surge in the race to when Nazi Germany took over France.

Matthews compared Sanders’ recent success to “the fall of France in the summer of 1940” during MSNBC’s electoral coverage Feb. 22. His comments, directed at a Jewish presidential candidate, sparked swift and fierce backlash, with many calling on the network to fire Matthews. (RELATED: MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Predicts Electoral Disaster For Democrats Under Bernie Sanders)

“Senator Sanders, I’m sorry for comparing anything from that tragic error in which so many suffered, especially the Jewish people, to an electoral result in which you were the well-deserved winner,” Matthews said at the start of his show Monday. “This is going to be a hard-fought heated campaign of ideas. In the days and weeks and months ahead, I will strive to do a better job myself of elevating the political discussion.”

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The host of “Hardball with Chris Matthews” added that he “reached for a historical analogy and used a bad one” as he “watched the one-sided results of Saturday’s Democratic caucus in Nevada.”

Hours earlier, Fox News host Howard Kurtz called on the MSNBC host to apologize to Sanders. Kurtz said everyone should “stay away” from Nazi references. He also remarked on how Matthews’ comments were “particularly tone deaf” as the Vermont senator has had family members that died in the Holocaust.

“Chris Matthews should apologize to Bernie Sanders,” Kurtz said Monday. “I don’t know what he’s waiting for, MSNBC should disavow the remarks, and what horrible thing did Sanders do to warrant this analogy? He clobbered everybody else fair and square.”

MSNBC did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller.