“I was trying in my way to engage, as I often do, with critics"

Matthews said he told the rowdy group, “What’s this, a douchebag convention?”

The Republicans became angry and retorted back.

“I told him that’s next week,” said New York delegate Anthony Nunziato, referring to the Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C., that will start on Tuesday.

In a statement emailed to The Hill on Friday afternoon, Matthews said, “I was talking to this 2 a.m. get-together of loud-talking people who had been heckling me from inside a restaurant and were now huddled together around a table. It was that get-together, right there in front of me; that was the ‘convention’ I was towel-snapping about. When The Hill called me and suggested I might have been referring to the Republican National Convention I couldn’t believe it. That’s wrong.”