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Hardball with Chris Matthews
Genre	Talk/Debate program
Starring	Chris Matthews
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	Unknown
Production
Running time	60 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	MSNBC
Original run	1994 - 1996 (America's Talking) 1997 - 1999 (CNBC) 1999 – present (MSNBC)
Links
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Hardball with Chris Matthews is a talk show on MSNBC hosted by Chris Matthews. It originally aired on now-defunct America's Talking (as "Politics with Chris Matthews") and later CNBC. The current title was derived from a book Matthews wrote in 1988, Hardball: How Politics is Played Told By One Who Knows the Game.

Hardball is a talking-head style cable news show where the moderator advances opinions on a wide range of topics, focusing primarily on political issues. These issues are discussed with a panel of guests that usually consist of political analysts and sometimes include politicians. The format of the show can lead to confrontations: During coverage of the 2004 Republican National Convention, then-U.S. Senator Zell Miller, (D-Georgia), who actually supported Republican President George W. Bush and was the keynote speaker at the Republican convention, angrily stated that he wished he could challenge Matthews to a duel because of Matthews' questioning ([1]).

The show features many regular guests including right-wing pundit and author Ann Coulter, conservative radio show personality G. Gordon Liddy, infamous from the Watergate scandal, conservative author Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, liberal author Katrina vanden Heuvel, contributor to The Nation, MSNBC pundit Pat Buchanan, former presidential candidate, Chuck Todd, editor of the political newsmagazine The Hotline, and essayist Christopher Hitchens, among others.

Hardball often follows Countdown with Keith Olbermann as the second most-watched show on all of MSNBC. (Source: Nielsen Media Research, 2006.)

Hardball has had a variety of guest hosts when Chris Matthews is unavailable. Hosts include Norah O'Donnell, Mike Barnicle, David Shuster, Andrea Mitchell, David Gregory, Pete Williams, and Campbell Brown.

MSNBC and NBC News programming is shown for several hours a day on the 24 hour news network Orbit News in Europe and the Middle East. This includes Hardball with Chris Matthews.

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