Rachel Maddow has taken with increasing glee to her role as part of the media resistance against President Donald Trump.

But believe it or not, the rising force on MSNBC once had a bizarre conversation with candidate Trump in the early stages of his campaign. It was a call she described during an appearance Tuesday on Late Night with Seth Meyers.

“I talked to him during the primaries. He was an announced candidate,” said Maddow who added that the Trump team initiated the call as an off the record conversation as part of the groundwork to a planned larger interview. “I had this conversation with him .. I’d sort of said he had good chances against his Republican primary opponents and we kind of dished dirt on all the things he thought was wrong with all his Republican primary opponents.”

The interview, however, never happened. Trump suggested that Maddow could just use the phone call they had, even though it was not recorded.

Meyers and Maddow spent much of the rest of their interview trying to psychoanalyze Trump’s relationship with cable news.

“There’s never been a president who is more addicted to news about himself and who’s more response to the news that he supposedly thinks is so worthless,” said Maddow “So it’s a weird tension. It’s a dangerous time for the first amendment and the free press in this country. At the same time, we’re oddly influential with the guy who wants to kill us.”

Meyers compared the whole thing to being a serial killer in love with the person trying to arrest him.

watch above

[image via screengrab]

Follow Jon Levine on Twitter / Facebook.

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]