A familiar face popped up as a guest on today's edition of Martin Bashir's eponymous msnbc broadcast. Lawrence joined Martin live from the RNC in Tampa, and the two began their conversation discussing whether tonight's speech by New Jersey's "pugnacious" (to use Martin's description) governor Chris Christie could possibly overshadow Mitt Romney's own speech.
Lawrence told Martin that was absolutely what Gov. Christie hoped to do. He continued saying:
"(Christie) wants to run for president four years from now after Mitt Romney loses, and the Republican nomination's wide open. Christie is the best public speaker that the Republicans have when he is on his game, when he's not busy insulting someone in the audience. But remember Martin, the Romney campaign controls - word-for-word - the text and the length of this speech tonight... and they have to deliberately find little ways to tone down his performance so that he won't just overwhelm and make people forget Romney's coming later in the week."
The two also discussed Christie's parallel with Machiavelli's Prince, and their diverging opinions on the British Royal Family among many other things. The conversation is well worth your time, as is Lawrence's appearance earlier on msnbc's Now with Alex Wagner. You can see that clip by clicking here.