MSNBC’s Chris Matthews tells the AP‘s David Bauder, “My job is to provide excitement and to bring it into the show and have people argue about things that they would normally argue about.” Beyond the heat seeking mission of Hardball, Matthews also talked to Bauder about his comments on Morning Joe last week that that the reason Sen. Hillary Clinton is a Presidential candidate, “is that her husband messed around.”

Defending the comment and the criticism that followed, Matthews tells Bauder, “I thought it was an unexceptional statement.”