On MSNBC tonight, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell interviewed Condoleezza Rice about her speech at the Republican National Convention.

It wasn’t long, however, before Chris Matthews interrupted to ask whether Rice’s speech was a “rejoinder to all the birtherism and narrowness that she’s heard in her party.”

The birther question was a huge stretch for Matthews, who has been struggling throughout the convention to highlight one of the larger fringe elements of the Republican party. Rice ignored the birther question, choosing instead to talk about foreign policy.

Andrea Mitchell, however, repeated the birther question a second time.

Rice explained that birtherism was an “extreme” and that extreme elements could be found on “both sides of the political spectrum.”

“The great majority of the people here and the great majority of the people in the United States America believe in that we are one America,” Rice concluded.