Chris Matthews' Accuser Has a Succinct Answer for Bill Maher

On Friday night, Bill Maher defended Chris Matthews, who resigned over sexual harassment allegations, and criticized the MSNBC host's accuser with a mocking "Thank you, Rosa Parks." One of Maher's Real Time guests, Caitlin Flanagan of the Atlantic, added, "How fragile can one woman be?" On Saturday morning, their target, Laura Bassett, answered, the Daily Beast reports. "Hey @billmaher how’s this for fragile: F--- you," the GQ columnist tweeted. Bassett had written that Matthews harassed her before they went on the air on Hardball. "People are really outraged that a rich as hell 74-yr-old man had to retire after being called out for 20 years of objectifying women in the workplace?" Bassett wrote in a later tweet. "This is not about me, and if your inclination is to attack me, consider putting that energy into therapy or anger management."

Among the things Bassett wrote that Matthews said to her was, "Why haven't I fallen in love with you yet?'" While calling that creepy, Maher dismissed Matthews' behavior with, "You know, I just, guys are married for a million years, they want to flirt for two seconds." Bassett said last week that she's been a target since her column was published, per the New York Post. "People [are] telling me to kill myself, people calling me a whore, people calling me ugly," she said on Inside Edition, which posted the interview here. "They want me to shut up, they want me to go away." (More Bill Maher stories.)