MSNBC host Chris Matthews issued an on air apology Monday night to leading Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT) for comparing his victory in Saturday’s Nevada primary caucus to the Nazi invasion of France in 1940.

Matthews said, “Before getting into tonight’s news, I want to to say something quite important and personal. As I watched the one sided results of Saturday’s Democrat caucus in Nevada I reached for an historical analogy–and used a bad one. I was wrong to refer to an event from the last days, or actually the first days of World War Two. Senator Sanders, I’m sorry for comparing anything from that tragic era in which so many suffered, especially the Jewish people, to an electoral result in which you were the well-deserved winner. This is gonna 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. Congratulations, by the way, to you Senator Sanders and to your supporters on the tremendous win down in Nevada.”

Video:

https://twitter.com/alx/status/1232103535594156032

TRENDING: Black Lives Matter Activist Wearing 'Justice for Breonna Taylor' Shirt Walked into a Louisville Bar and Murdered Three People

Matthews on Saturday compared Sanders’ victory to the Nazis, saying, “I was reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940 and the general, Reynaud, calls up Churchill and says, ‘It’s over’. And Churchill says, ‘How can that be? You’ve got the greatest army in Europe. How can it be over?’ He said, ‘It’s over.'”

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews likens Sanders victory in Nevada to Nazi Germany overrunning France in 1940: “It’s too late to stop him … it’s over” pic.twitter.com/6GJetLoDkq — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) February 22, 2020

Matthews had come under heavy criticism over the comparison of Sanders, who is Jewish and lost family in the Holocaust, to the Nazis. A campaign by Sanders supporters for Matthews to resign from MSNBC went viral Saturday night.

At a CNN town hall in South Carolina Monday night, Sanders spoke about his father’s family being killed by the Nazis in their native Poland.