MSNBC host Chris Matthews mistook Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., for Democratic Senate candidate Jaime Harrison on Friday, chalking it up to "mistaken identity."

Harrison was appearing on "Hardball" to discuss his campaign to unseat Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., but the interview went off the rails when Matthews ran a clip of Scott standing beside Graham at that evening's Trump rally in North Charleston and assumed it was Harrison.

Both Scott and Harrison are African-American.

"Jaime, I see you standing next to the guy you're going to beat right there, maybe," he said. "Maybe? Maybe, maybe? Lindsey Graham?"

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Democratic strategist Adrienne Elrod and network correspondent Trymaine Lee both chimed in to alert Matthews that he'd made a mistake, but it took several seconds for him to realize the mixup.

"Who's that?" Matthews eventually replied. "I'm sorry, oh! The other senator, Tim Scott. What am I saying? Big mistake. Mistaken identity, sir. Sorry. Tell me how you’re going to beat Lindsey. Because everybody knows Lindsey."

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Harrison appeared to roll his eyes and looked shocked, but kept a smile on his face and answered Matthews' question.

"Everybody knows Lindsey, but everybody doesn’t like Lindsey Graham," he replied. "And that’s how I’m going to beat him, Chris.

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"This is a guy that you can’t trust," added Harrison, the former chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party. "This is a guy that doesn’t have a moral compass. And all he's focused on is Washington, D.C. games. And at the end of the day, the folks in South Carolina are going to give Lindsey Graham a one-way ticket, maybe not back here to South Carolina, but possibly to Mar-a-Lago. We're fed up."