Chris Hayes began the final segment of MSNBC’s All In on Monday by lambasting Republicans for “running against Hillary Clinton” in the 2018 midterms. Ironically, Hayes spent entire remainder of his show discussing Hillary Clinton.

The segment opened with an ad by Republican Senator Don Blankenship (WV), in which a narrator declared that Blankenship supported jailing former Secretary Clinton. Hayes paused briefly to remind viewers of Blankenship’s felony charge before attacking the GOP’s renewed interest in talking about Clinton:

The A.P. reports that Republicans are making Clinton the star of their midterm election strategy, despite the fact that she currently holds no position of power, isn't running for, well, anything. But their tax cut message falling flat, Republicans are betting big the ghost will serve them well in 2018.

In the very next sentence, Hayes introduced his guest for the remainder of the show: Amy Chozick, a New York Times reporter and the author of the pro-Clinton book Chasing Hillary. To hammer home precisely what kind of interview Hayes had in store for his viewers, the book’s cover appeared on screen boasting a subheader that read, “Ten years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling.”

The conversation unfolded predictably. Once Hayes had finished with the obligatory platitudes (“really interesting book,” “very well-written,”), Chozick complained the negative “pavlovian response” that Republican voters exhibited towards Ms. Clinton:

“I write in the book about when I first met her when I was growing up in Texas when I was sixteen. And like, everyone I knew hated her. There has been this large-scale psychic phenomenon of hillary hating for as long as she’s been on the national stage. And I thought once she stepped back from the national stage, we wouldn’t see that. But clearly we still are.”

Hayes also mentioned Chozick’s laughable conclusion that media coverage had been an obstacle for the Clinton campaign. She contended that The New York Times and other outlets had become “a de facto instrument of Russian intelligence,” during the election by reporting on the former Secretary’s hacked emails. Intrigued, Hayes inquired how the media might avoid such pitfalls in the future, but she had no answer ready for him. “That’s above my pay grade,” she laughed.

To his credit, Hayes managed to make it nearly four minutes before mentioning sexism. The subject inevitably came up while he and Chozick scratched their heads in unison and pondered what on earth could have made Ms. Clinton so unpalatable to voters. He finally concluded that the widespread distaste for her was “totally out of proportion to her as a person, and also driven by sexism.”

Choczick admitted to being particularly perturbed by a common refrain she’d heard in 2016: “I would vote for a woman, just not that woman.” Neither she nor Hayes appeared overly convinced by this seemingly reasonable sentiment, with the MSNBC host likening such rationale to the phrase, “I’m not racist, but...”

While the DNC reportedly have attempted to distance themselves from the Clintons since 2016, many in the media appear all to eager to defend their chosen candidate two years later. Ms. Clinton may have faded from the public eye somewhat, but the indignance has remained. While Hayes’s criticism of the GOP’s new anti-Hillary strategy ought to be evaluated on its own merits, it is hard to ignore how eager he still appeared to be to relitigate the election.

To read a partial transcript of the segment, click "expand" below: