MSNBC host Chris Matthews is taking heat for comparing Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders’ win in the Nevada caucus with Nazi Germany’s defeat of France in 1940.

Matthews appeared on the cable network’s coverage of the primary as Sanders was projected to win and said with the victory Sanders was the Democratic front-runner and the race was “pretty much over.”

“I was reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940,” the 74-year-old  “Hardball” host said Saturday. “And the general calls up Churchill and says, ‘It’s over,’ and Churchill says, ‘How can it be? You got the greatest army in Europe. How can it be over?’ He said, ‘It’s over.’”

Many people recalled that Sanders had lost family members in the Holocaust.

“Chris Matthews just compared Bernie’s victory in Nevada to the Nazis taking control of France,” Justice Democrats wrote in a tweet. “Incredibly offensive thing to say about someone from a family of holocaust survivors.”

Parker Molloy of Media Matters said Matthews’ remarks were “unacceptable.”

“It is absolutely unacceptable that Matthews is making comparisons between Bernie Sanders, whose family was murdered by Nazis, to Nazis.@HardballChris needs to retire. Immediately,” he wrote on Twitter.

 Mike Casca, communications director for the Sanders campaign, was left stunned.

“Never thought part of my job would be pleading with a national news network to stop likening the campaign of a jewish presidential candidate whose family was wiped out by the nazis to the third reich,” he wrote in a posting. “But here we are.”

It’s not the first time Matthews has been critical of Sanders, a self-described “Democratic socialist,” and his political views.

Responding to Sanders’ appearance at the Democratic primary debate in New Hampshire earlier this month, Matthews condemned the evils of socialism.

“I have my own views of the word socialist and I’ll be glad to share them with you in private and they go back to the early 1950s,” he said during a panel discussion on MSNBC after the debate.

“I have an attitude about them. I remember the Cold War. I have an attitude toward [Fidel] Castro,” he continued. “I believe if Castro and the reds had won the Cold War there would have been executions in Central Park and I might have been one of the ones getting executed. And certain other people would be there cheering.”

MSNBC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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