MSNBC host Chris Matthews fawned over Bill Clinton Friday while defending his much-criticized private meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, calling him the friendly "Big Dawg" with a "high IQ" to explain why he sought Lynch out.
Clinton and Lynch took flak from both sides of the aisle this week after it was revealed they met on her plane in Phoenix, Arizona. Lynch has maintained their conversation was innocent, but given the ongoing federal investigation into Hillary Clinton, even Democrats and media observers said it was inappropriate.
Matthews, the left-leaning MSNBC host whose wife's failed congressional campaign was bankrolled by Clinton donors, said it was simply Clinton's nature to want to speak to Lynch when they happened upon each other in Arizona.
"We know Bill Clinton," Matthews told Andrea Mitchell. "He's the Big Dawg. That's his nickname. D-A-W-G. The Big Dawg. Elvis. He's gushing when you meet him. If you had a hard time with him as a journalist, he still comes up and says hi. He's very friendly. His tail wags when he sees somebody he knows."
Mitchell chuckled as Matthews went on.
"It's just who he is," Matthews said. "I know he has a high IQ, and I know he probably somewhere in the back of his head said, 'My God, this person could be prosecuting my wife, potentially. I should stay out of this one.' But that's sort of the super ego."
He added the "people on the hard right" would keep making hay out of it.
"Remember we got into a war with Iraq because of some meeting in Prague, somehow, with some meeting between, you know, whatever," he said.