Appearing during MSNBC’s 9 a.m. ET hour on Tuesday, political analyst Steve Schmidt was completely unhinged as he launched into a tirade against President Trump. Outraged over the President’s criticism of NFL players disrespecting the National Anthem, Schmidt lashed out with this hysterical declaration: “And what Donald Trump is doing here is as terrible a thing, and maybe the most terrible thing, that has ever been done to this country by a President of the United States. Despicable doesn’t begin to describe it.”

Earlier in the discussion, the former McCain campaign manager couldn’t muster that much fury over the anti-American demonstrations by professional athletes as he ranted against Trump: “And to see him try to hijack this symbol, to wrap himself in it for the purposes premeditatedly, purposely of dividing the country is the most disgusting thing I’ve seen in my lifetime, in my 47 years.”

Rather than challenge Schmidt’s hyberbolic assertions or try to turn down the nasty tone of the conversation, anchor Stephanie Ruhle decided to amp it up instead: “But it’s not a surprise....it reminds us of the hate that we saw, how the President came to be on the campaign trail.”

Schmidt recalled seeing an NFL player being asked about Trump in a recent TV interview and “got a little bit jammed up when the reporter asked him a question, ‘Is he a racist?’” The MSNBC contributor continued: “And he didn’t want to say it. So let me say it, I want to help him out. He’s a racist, okay?”

Schmidt justified the accusation by imagining that the President had almost uttered a racial slur at a Friday rally:

You look at that speech in Alabama to an all-white crowd, right? We need to get real about this in this country. The President of the United States goes down there, and he talks about “us” and “those people.” He came proverbially as close as you can possibly come to shouting at a rally the n-word. That’s what he did down there. I know it. You know it. Harold knows it. We all know it.

Moments later, Ruhle feared: “Then why is America – are we a racist nation? Why is America allowing the President to reframe this nonsense?”

Schmidt’s fellow panelist Harold Ford Jr. thought Ruhle was on the right track: “...your question is a legitimate one....there’s something to your question. I don’t know the answer, but there’s something to it.”

The biased discussion was brought to viewers by LegalZoom and Raymond James Financial.

Here are excerpts of the September 26 segment: