Chris Matthews Wonders If Trump Will ‘Wag the Dog’ After Cohen Raid: ‘It Isn’t So Far-Fetched, Is It?’

Shortly after the news broke that the FBI had raided the office and hotel room of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen and seized records related to the $130,000 hush payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels, the president publicly remarked on the raid during a national defense meeting on Syria.

During tonight’s Hardball, MSNBC host Chris Matthews wondered aloud if we might see a situation in which the president engages in a military action in order to distract from a bad news cycle. And he brought up a ’90s movie to make his point.

After the panel brought up that Cohen likely has tons of information about Trump’s business dealings going back decades and that it could possibly lead to Russian oligarchs, Matthews asked USA Today’s Susan Page a question.

“How about Wag the Dog, Susan?” Matthews exclaimed, bringing up the 1997 film. “I was with Barry Levinson last week. He is the director of a film where a president in fiction decided to start a little war to cover up for hanky-panky.”

Page noted that was a “very serious charge to make against a president,” leading Matthews to respond that it wasn’t “when you have John Bolton sitting next to him.”

A bit later, Matthews went back to the possibility that we’ll see a ‘Wag the Dog’ situation, stating that many believed Ronald Reagan used Grenada to distract from Beirut in the ’80s.

“It isn’t so far-fetched, is it?” Matthews asked.

“I don’t know if it’s far-fetched,” Page responded. “It’s a very serious charge.”

“It’s an awful charge,” Matthews noted. Meanwhile, the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart added that if you can imagine it with this president, “it can possibly happen.”

Watch the clip above, via MSNBC.