THE (bleep) hit the fan on MSNBC’s “Hardball” when Chris Matthews uttered a prohibited expletive on the air.
Matthews apparently did not know he was back on the air when a promo spot ended and he suddenly appeared on screen in the middle of a conversation with some off-screen staffer.
“. . . we’re all reacting here and putting on s**t! We have nothing to [offer],” he said just before 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.
He quickly realized he was on the air and tried to recover, but wound up sputtering gibberish.
“Welcome back to ‘Hardball,’ ” Matthews said. “So who is now – the New York mayor, Mike Bloomberg, is running now all of a sudden. Last Tuesday, NBC’s Brian Williams interviewed Mayor Bloomberg . . .”
A few minutes later, Matthews apologized to viewers.
“I apologize for that,” he said. “I shouldn’t have used that word on the air. I didn’t think I was. Things are breaking around here. We are trying to get this story on the air – a breaking story of course.”
He was referring to the story of Bloomberg switching his party affiliation from Republican to Independent.
Matthews, 61, declined to be interviewed by The Post, but he issued a brief statement to explain his foul, coarse language. “I use newsroom language too much!” he said.
It was the third time this year that Matthews used profanity on the air.