Well my friends, every once in a while on Amped Up, we get a guest who reminds me how I fell in love with politics, history and political media—and buried myself in campaign politics long before I ever thought I’d host a show of my own about it.
Today was that day.
David Shuster and I welcomed the legendary
on Amped Up—yes, that Chris Matthews—one of the original cable news political hosts and and pundits. When facts were things that didn’t have “alternative” in front of them and someone was forced to answer a question they tried to avoid while playing Hardball.Before Chris even appeared on screen, we were buzzing—and no, not in a Don Jr, eyes-half-closed live stream kinda way. We were excited. David worked under Chris as a Hardball correspondent. Chris was a mentor, a teacher, the kind of newsroom leader who didn’t just shape segments, but shaped careers.
And when David says he loves Chris Matthews, it’s based on the fact he’s forgotten more about politics than the entire Trump Administration ever knew. And did his best to impart this knowledge on those who worked with him. He was passionate about politics, not just the strategy of it—though that too—but as a means of improving people’s lives.
I grew up watching Hardball, and if you’re anything like me—someone who cares deeply about American democracy—so I can therefore no longer stomach a minute, much less an hour of cable coverage—you know exactly how important Chris’ show was.
He brought something to political broadcasting that we almost completely lack today: a combo of toughness, storytelling, humor, institutional memory, and love of the game. He knew politics because he lived it.
This was a point I made to him about why I loved his show: He was one of just two anchors when he was on MSNBC who had worked on campaigns and in Congress—he knew what he was talking about, not from reading it in a book, from being in the trenches and making the decisions.
He walked the halls of Congress as an aide to famous House Speaker Tip O’Neill. He wrote speeches for President Jimmy Carter. He was in these political fights before he ever sat behind a desk. And it showed—night after night, when the rest of cable news was still figuring out what it even wanted to be, Hardball had already set the standard.
So when he joined us, I felt a mix of gratitude and awe. Here’s a guy whose work literally shaped how millions of Americans understand politics, democracy, winning, losing, power, values—and he brought all that history, all that voice, all that fire right into our studio. His show, unlike so many today, educated people on the topic.
We talked with Chris about a number of topics, including the Miami mayoral earthquake, affordability, and the political realignment happening right under our feet. As always, Chris went straight to the gut-level reality of how voters think, how memory works, how short-term economic pain shifts entire electoral maps.
When he describes the price of cream cheese going from $2 to $7, you got it that he gets it. That’s Chris—taking the 50,000-foot issue and dropping it right onto the kitchen table. And damn did his example of the classic Philly stuff make me hungry for a good raisin bagel with chive cream cheese.
But I digress 😉.
We also dove into the Caribbean boat strikes story and the #DeleteGate revelations Melissa Corrigan and David have broken wide open. Chris instantly jumped into the stakes—legally, morally, politically.
And when he said Trump might not pay a political price for these killings because of how communities ravaged by drugs perceive the crisis, he wasn’t endorsing it—he was diagnosing it with the clear-eyed honesty that made Hardball essential viewing.
But what I really enjoyed most was out discussion about Bobby Kennedy, the subject of Chris’s new book: Lessons from Bobby: Ten Reasons Robert F. Kennedy Still Matters.
When he talked about who Bobby Kennedy was—his toughness, his compassion, his ability to unite white working-class voters and Black Americans with a singular political vision—you can tell how much he revered the man. It’s like Stephen Miller talking about deportation or Pete Hegseth dreaming of his eighth Dewar’s in an hour.
In his book and in his voice on Amped Up, you could hear his yearning for political courage, for moral clarity, for a kind of leadership from Democrats we had with Bobby Kennedy, LBJ, and other “take no sh*t Democrats” of that era. The ones the Democratic Party has some of, but desperately needs in leadership.
That time Chris Matthews kept pushing for an answer, so turncoat former Democrat, Zell Miller, challenged him to…a duel!
It reminded me why Chris Matthews became Chris Matthews. Why Hardball mattered. How far political media has fallen. Why we still need voices who understand politics not as some abstract chess match or scholarly paper, but as a human, bruising, consequential fight for the soul of the country and lives of our people.
For me, it wasn’t just a show. It was a reminder of lineage and legacy. Of what political storytelling looks like when done by someone who helped invent its form in cable media. There is so much more, so you definitely must watch the video—and we will be share clips!
But I’m grateful we got to share Chris Matthews with all of you, and, if I’m being honest, grateful I got to share Chris Matthews with me. What a show!
