Deep breaths, Chris. On Tuesday’s Hardball, MSNBC host/pundit Chris Matthews asserted that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s entire job (aka “mandate”) was to, instead of letting the chips fall where they may, “unearth any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia” because that’s “what he was set to find.”

Matthews began the show on the heels of Friday’s news of the Roger Stone indictment and Monday’s headline from Acting AG Matt Whitaker that the Mueller report was “close to being completed.”

“The lingering question for Special Counsel Robert Mueller remains will he deliver on his mandate to unearth any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia,” Matthews declared.

Moments later, he noted that Mueller’s team had thus far “brought charges against 34 people and three companies,” so with that foundation, Matthews reiterated this deranged notion that the Russia probe must result in a certain outcome (which is desired by the left and their allies in the press): “[T]he question is whether Mueller, in his final act as special counsel, will deliver what he was set to find, a conspiracy between the Trump campaign itself and Russia.”

Matthews introduced his opening panel and the first question went to former Obama administration official Elliot Williams to hammer home his point.

“A bang or a whimper? Are we going to get what we went to find out? Did the Russians cooperate? Both ways, Trump and the Russians, did they work together on this — winning the election in 2016,” demanded Matthews.

Williams tried to bring Matthews back to earth, acknowledging that “everybody wants one answer” but the key was to look at how “30 people have been indicted, look at all the charges, look at all the information that's come out” because “[t]his has been a hugely successful prosecution.”

Channeling Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Matthews interrupted: “But will he answer the question in the mandate. Did Trump collude with Russia?”

To Williams’s credit, he stayed the course before an unsatisfied Matthews plowed ahead in hope of a different answer from NBC News reporter Julia Ainsley (click “expand”):

WILLIAMS: Trump himself may not have colluded with Russians. Now, it’s clear from paragraph 12 of the indictment that individuals on the campaign were trying to direct interactions with Russians and interacts with Wikileaks and so on. So they — they got close. Now whether this is something they can be charged with, it's just not clear, but they’ll keep trying. MATTHEWS: Okay, Julia, that opens the question which I don’t really is a question [sic] — is Trump some kind of mister — criminal mastermind that he's able to override — to oversee criminal enterprise that brings dirty stuff on Hillary Clinton from Moscow with their help, does exactly what the investigation is supposed to prove he did do and he never got his fingers on it? Ever? Never once told somebody to do this? Ever?

Ainsley did a little more to assuage Matthews’s fears, noting that the Trump campaign was “very centralized” and that the Stone indictment cited a “senior campaign official” as having directed Stone with that person’s identity being unknown so thus it could be anyone.

She did eventually deliver the bad news (click “expand”):

It does not say — Roger Stone himself is not charged, with conspiracy with the Russians. It doesn't even say in there that Roger Stone knew for sure that this information from WikiLeaks was coming from a Russian hack. So how can we with expect then, I mean, unless there’s more work which of courses there is, there's so many stones still unturned. Ha. I didn't even realize I’d do that. But still, it could be that, you know, if they can’t make that connection from Roger Stone to the Russians, how can they make it from the campaign to the Russians?

Thankfully for Matthews’s sanity, Democratic Congressman Mike Quigley (IL) obliged in sounding more hopeful. Here’s how Matthews teed him up:

Congressman, I want to bring the Congressman in here who’s on the committee. Congressman, you put all this together. It's like wheel of fortune when you have to complete the word — the whole phrase. You know, the quotation, you see a few words and you got to fill it in. Where are you on this? Where are you on seeing a connection between President Trump — now President Trump — candidate Trump then and the Russians?

To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on January 29, click “expand.”