Without a hint of irony, MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews seemed exasperated on Tuesday night while reacting to former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg’s strange cable news tour from Monday, dubbing Nunberg a “loopy” “Kato Kaelin-type character” who’s emerged in the Trump-Russia probe.
Matthews was speaking to The Atlantic’s Natasha Bertrand and former Whitewater prosecutor Kim Wehle when he shifted gears from Tuesday’s Mueller news to Nunberg, admitting that “he's like this Kato Kaelin-type character we meet in” big stories like this one where “[t]hey’re a little bit dodgy.”
“You can’t — they say things that don't seem to be well thought through, but they do make news and when he said he thinks that Mueller's got something, that the president did something bad, do we count that as a serious contribution to the facts here,” Matthews added.
Wehle replied that we should take what Nunberg said about having something about Trump as serious. She explained: “I think it's relevant, I guess, to the public discourse to understand that people within the grand jury are reporting that these are the kinds of questions that the Mueller team is asking, but it really shows that Mueller is following the facts and will ultimately make a determination.”
Matthews again asked Wehle what she thought about “these characters” like Nunberg and Carter Page because “they all seem a little loopy and the way they look and behave on camera doesn't seem to be normal.”
The former Whitewater counsel sought to put things in perspective, hinting that the “three guilty pleas from people within the President's core team already” were far more significant to the Mueller investigation than Nunberg’s emotional breakdowns.
Nonetheless, Matthews still couldn’t move on: “We've got Erin Burnett saying were you drinking today? I mean, this is — I’m not used to hearing this kind of conversation. I’m sorry. This is strange.”
Bertrand briefly decided to entertain this Nunberg storyline, explaining that he’s “grown frustrated with the fact he feels a lot of friends during the campaign have completely abandoned him” and while he was “very pivotal to the campaign’s early days,” he feels no “loyalty” to Trump.
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on March 6, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s Hardball
March 6, 2018
7:29 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Okay, let me ask you about what we heard yesterday. This guy, Sam Nunberg. Okay, now he's like this Kato Kaelin-type character we meet in this. They’re a little bit dodgy. You can’t — they say things that don't seem to be well thought through, but they do make news and when he said he thinks that Mueller's got something, that the president did something bad, do we count that as a serious contribution to the facts here?
KIM WEHLE: No, I don't think so frankly. I mean, I think it's relevant, I guess, to the public discourse to understand that people within the grand jury are reporting that these are the kinds of questions that the Mueller team is asking, but it really shows that Mueller is following the facts and will ultimately make a determination.
MATTHEWS: But what do you make of these characters? Carter Page — they all seem a little loopy and the way they look and behave on camera doesn't seem to be normal.
WEHLE: Well, we have three guilty pleas from people within the President's core team already. So, this is not a pressing —
MATTHEWS: We've got Erin Burnett saying were you drinking today? I mean, this is — I’m not used to hearing this kind of conversation.
WEHLE: Right.
MATTHEWS: I’m sorry. This is strange.
NATASHA BETRAND: Well apparently, Sam Nunberg has just grown frustrated with the fact he feels a lot of friends during the campaign have completely abandoned him. He was actually very pivotal to the campaign's early days and then he ousted not once but twice after a series of kind of racist Facebook posts were unearthed. But he now feels he's been thrown under you the bus. He does not have any loyalty to Donald Trump. His loyalty is to Roger Stone.
