Just think, this is who MSNBC considers to be one of its best and brightest Republicans. On Tuesday’s Hardball, political analyst and 2008 McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt tore into Republican questions about the FISA memo and Strzok-Page texts as “snake oil” “McCarthyism” being “abetted” by the Fox News Channel serving as “state-run TV in an autocratic society.”

Unbelievably, Schmidt’s deranged rants kept host Chris Matthews from seizing the mantle as the nuttiest person on Tuesday’s show. Schmidt began by complaining about “the abnormality of what's happening here” with “this allegation that there's a deep state” and a secret society inside the FBI has nothing to do with asking questions or finding out the truth.

Rather, the MSNBC analyst argued that such claims are “autocratic behavior” meant to degrade the Constitution and “the legitimacy of the presidency.”

“[I]t’s abetted by members of the Republican majority in the Congress and it's abetted by a television network that's increasingly come to resemble state-run TV in an autocratic society,” Schmidt added in a swipe at FNC. As a reminder, this is a man who viciously blamed conservative talk radio host Mark Levin for “the demise of the conservative movement.”

Matthews agreed, ruling that the “smoke screen” concerns about the missing text messages and the FISA Memo distract from the real issues (which is the necessity to find collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia).

Fellow MSNBC analyst Frank Figliuzzi joined in, blasting the stories as part of “a scorched Earth policy” that’s “designed to attack your attackers and it's something that, I think, we've seen Trump do throughout his career professionally and politically.”

As a former intelligence official, Figliuzzi dismissed the notion of a deep state or secret society within the government. Instead, he suggested that there’s one “within the halls of Congress” with Republican Congressman Devin Nunes (Calif.) “waving around a memo that he won't show to anybody.”

Triggered by the mention of Nunes, Matthews attacked him as a “tool” and “the kingpin of this escapade” before playing clips of Republican Congressman John Ratcliffe (Tex.) and Trey Gowdy (S.C.) discussing the underreported stories on FNC’s The Story.

After the clips, Matthews told Schmidt that these stories seems like they’re being peddled by a “snake oil salesman” and questioned Gowdy’s credibility because “he spent one million hours trying to grill Hillary on Benghazi and he got nowhere.”

Schmidt trashed the concerns raised about the missing texts and the FISA memo as “absolutely snake oil.” Further, he cited zero evidence himself in giving a full-throated defense of Strzok and Page, arguing that “[t]here's absolutely zero evidence that any of these FBI agents whose had their private text messages compromised” or that “they misused their badge, their office, their credentials to abuse the President, his family, or any of the President's supporters.”

“Again, this is smear campaign directed at these two FBI agents absent any evidence. It is latter day McCarthyism and it is entirely about what it seems to be about, which is trying to blow smoke around this investigation to obstruct the American people from finding out what went on here at all costs,” he bemoaned.

Here’s the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on January 23: