Christopher John Matthews (born December 17 1945) is a television talk show host and pundit, known for a nightly hour-long talk show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, which is televised on the American cable television channel MSNBC. On weekends he hosts the syndicated NBC News-produced panel discussion program, The Chris Matthews Show. Matthews makes frequent appearances as a political commentator on many NBC and MSNBC programs.

Hardball with Chris Matthews is a talk show on MSNBC broadcast weekdays at 5 and 7 PM 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 show features many regular guests, including liberal author Katrina vanden Heuvel, conservative MSNBC pundit and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, Congressional Quarterly columnist Craig Crawford, 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.)