The former head of the Republican Party in South Carolina ran into a buzzsaw during an MSNBC appearance on Sunday afternoon when he tried to dismiss the bombshell report about a former Trump adviser bragging about having dirt on Hillary Clinton in early 2016, which set in motion a U.S. intelligence investigation.

Saturday afternoon, the New York Times reported that Trump adviser George Papadopoulos drunkenly boasted to an Australian diplomat about having information on the former Secretary of State in March of 2016 –with the Australians turning around and alerting U.S. authorities.

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After former South Carolina GOP chair Katon Dawson attempted to blow off the story as nothing close to the “level of Watergate,” and stating that Papadopoulos was a nobody in the campaign, former Clinton-era Deputy Press Secretary David Goodfriend laid waste to the Republican’s downplaying of the story, lumping him in with “Trump cheerleaders.”

“The point being made by Katon Dawson is he was a volunteer, wasn’t getting a paycheck, but they needed somebody to endorse their foreign policy platform,” host David Gura asked Goodfriend. “How much does that matter, whether or not the campaign was cutting a check for him?”

“Very little,” a smirking Goodfriend replied. ” With all due respect to my friend from South Carolina, this is a major bombshell, and the cheerleading squad on the right and the Republicans in Congress have this pattern, when they’re in trouble and feeling the heat, they lash out and attack and try to discredit everybody.”

“In this case, they’re trying to discredit Bob Mueller, and in fact, the FBI and probably the entire American law enforcement system because they’re sweating,” he continued. “The top dog here, Flynn, has turned snitch and is a state’s witness and they’re feeling the heat.”

“You can’t just say anymore that this is some sort of weird dossier put together by some private group,” Goodfriend explained. “No, no. The investigation was prompted, was started, was instigated by something completely outside what the Trump world is attacking right now. What my Republican friend from South Carolina here clearly doesn’t tell us is that the theory the entire Republican Party has been using for the last several weeks is gone.”

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“There’s no way you can now say this is just some Bob Mueller exercise in a dossier put together by an oppo research firm,” he bluntly stated. “No. We now have major American allies, like Australia, that are saying we were telling the American CIA, FBI, law enforcement and international apparatus that there is a problem with the Russians and the Trump campaign. This has completely destroyed the Trump world’s best defense — and they’re going to be sweating more in 2018.”

Watch the video below via MSNBC: