On Thursday, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC saw no interest in reporting that a possible Hillary Clinton vice presidential running mate had accepted more $160,000 in gifts while an elected official in Virginia as the veepstakes moves into its later stages.

In a piece published early Thursday morning by Politico, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine (Va.) admitted he had accepted “more than $160,000 in gifts from 2001 to 2009, mostly for travel to and from political events and conferences” and included an “$18,000 Caribbean vacation, $5,500 in clothes and a trip to watch George Mason University play in the NCAA Basketball Final Four.”

The article also detailed how “givers included political supporters, a drug company that soon after bought a facility in Virginia, and Dominion, the state’s biggest provider of electricity” and were legally disclosed as per Virginia law.

ABC, CBS, and NBC yawned at story they surely would have been all over it involved a possible Republican vice presidential nominee but somehow, MSNBC’s Hardball found it worth devoting over a minute to on Thursday thanks to host Chris Matthews.

Matthews explained that “[t]he presidential veepstakes are gearing up and today, two prospective running mates are making some news” but “[n]ot all of it good” for Kaine and he went onto read excerpts from Politico.

Speaking with the Hardball Rountable, Matthews predicted that the story won’t amount to much of anything but nonetheless “seems to have a certain scent to it because we had this big Supreme Court case about his successor or his predecessor down there.”

However, Matthews expressed confusion at the idea of Kaine accepting clothes and how that’d work:

[E]xplain to me the clothes thing. How does somebody give you clothes? I mean, I just don’t get. Hey, anybody, want some clothes? I got clothes for you. It seems like an odd gift from a friend. I can see, hey, you want to go out for a steak dinner tonight? That's one thing. Hey, come on out, I'll buy you some clothes. It seems strange.

Instead of covering Kaine or the murder of an Israeli-American at the hands of a Palestinian terrorist, the networks spent six minutes and six seconds on the Defense Department’s lifting of a ban on having transgender people serve openly in the military.

The relevant portions of the transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on June 30 can be found below.