Fmr. Gov. and Libertarian party vice presidential candidate for president William Weld defended Hillary Clinton in an interview with Rachel Maddow. Weld, ignoring fundraising attempts by his running mate at the top of the ticket, Gary Johnson, said it is "high time" somebody defends the Democratic nominee for president and he is here to vouch for her.



Transcript, via MSNBC:





RACHEL MADDOW: What do you think – what’s your reaction – I ask this in part because you were deputy attorney general…assistant attorney general?



WILLIAM WELD, LIBERTARIAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Assistant attorney general in the criminal division.



MADDOW: That’s part of your background and you’ve had a varied life in public service – What is your reaction to the emergence of the FBI as a sort of wild card in these last days, what’s your reaction to what James Comey’s…



WELD: It’s incomprehensible, and I can’t see it – Mr. Comey’s got a good background but there’s nothing there, so far as it appears. Nothing there. So he wrote the letter to the 8 Republican committee members copied to the Democrats saying ‘you know some emails have turned up, we’ve looked at a lot of emails now it turns out there are even more emails – we don’t know what’s there, so there’s absolutely no evidence whatsoever that could be of interest to anyone until we conduct our multi-week, multi-month investigation but I thought you’d all just like to know. Now I don’t get that – that’s violating any number of Justice Dept. protocols and procedures. Y’know he should have gone to the Public Integrity section and said ‘What do you folks think.’ It’s a little bit of an odd situation because he’s a former deputy attorney general as well as head of the FBI so he may have trouble keeping on only the investigator hat forgetting that he’s a former deputy attorney general. So it’s not a good thing, it’s a distraction so I think we should just ignore it because there’s nothing there so get on with the business of last week of the election.



MADDOW: Well, when you say there’s nothing there, the campaign of which you are a part put out this statement re: Clinton Investigation and they put it out over your photo, you and Gary Johnson, and it says “The newest revelations about Hillary Clinton demonstrate why America should be scared of both Clinton and Trump. We have a system that is so corrupted that parents all over have to apologize to their children for the leadership we are giving them.” This was put out in response to what Jim Comey did and it sounds like you do not agree with this statement from your own campaign.



WELD: That’s correct. That’s correct.



MADDOW: But they still kept it up over your photo.



WELD: You know in fairness Gary and I have not agreed on a number of substantive issues in this campaign, tax policy, we’ve had some influence on each other, I think I’ve had some influence on him, on constructive engagement around the world, he’s had some influence on me in criminal justice reform issues. We’re talking them through, I talk with Gary every other day we’re on different coasts usually but we keep in touch and yeah, No I do not agree with that release.



MADDOW: And that seems hard like, let me just say as a Massachusetts resident who knows something of your tenure in public life there, I’m in a different place than you ideologically on the number line but I have a lot of respect both for your career and your thoughtfulness and I think that you are, you’re a deep thinker and a clear thinker on these things and I have a lot of respect for you, hope you don’t mind me saying…



WELD Let me button my coat, I sense something’s coming…



MADDOW: I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t tell a person in North Carolina or Ohio to vote for Hillary Clinton if the choice they were making was between giving the Libertarian Party 5% or potentially electing Donald Trump because you guys don’t have a chance against Donald Trump and she does and if they vote for you they would be helping to elect Donald Trump. The Libertarian Party hasn’t treated you great if they’re putting out statements that you disagree with over your name even now, one week before the election I can’t imagine that your loyalty to them is stronger than your fear of Trump as a President.



WELD: Well I’m here vouching for Mrs. Clinton and I think it’s high time somebody did and I’m doing it based on my personal experience with her and I think she deserves to have people vouch for her other than members of the Democratic National Committee so I’m here to do that.