On Tuesday's "Hardball," Chris Matthews was so incredulous about Michele Bachmann's interpretation of American history that he called her a "balloon head," and he could hardly keep himself from yelling at a co-founder of the Tea Party group which has selected the Republican to give a response to President Obama's State of the Union address.
Matthews was speaking to Tea Party Express co-founder Sal Russo. He played the same tape which had also gotten Anderson Cooper riled up, where Bachman lauds the Founding Fathers for working "tirelessly to end slavery."
"I don't know what to make of that, Sal," Matthews said. "That's balloon head. That's not what our history was founded on. We founded on a Constitution which...treated slaves as three-fifths of a person. It went all the way to the Civil War."
Matthews derided Russo and his group for making Bachmann their spokesperson.
"Why do you put someone like this forward who is a balloon head?" he said. "Who knows no American history? It's a ridiculous decision you guys have made. Do you know how little this woman knows about our history?"
Russo started to respond, but Matthews interrupted him. "Did you just hear that stuff?" he said. "Did you just hear? You want me to play it again? We can rub it in, Sal. It's horrendous."
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy