Morning Joe’s panel unanimously slammed Hillary Clinton supporter Howard Dean on Wednesday for suggesting, without evidence, that Republican nominee Donald Trump uses cocaine.
Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, drew flack for tweeting Monday night that Trump’s audible sniffing during his debate with Clinton could be due to a cocaine habit.
Notice Trump sniffing all the time. Coke user?
— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) September 27, 2016
Pressed about the controversy Tuesday on MSNBC, Dean would not apologize, saying Trump’s personality lent itself to his suggestion that Trump used the drug and that he should be asked about it.
"I don’t think this is a ridiculous idea," Dean said. "Something funny was going on with Trump tonight. Do I think it was cocaine? Probably not, but, you know, again, the sniffling, the grandiosity, the delusions, the pressured speech—you know, this guy’s already proven himself to be unstable. The question is, why is he unstable?"
After Morning Joe played the clip of Dean’s interview, co-host Joe Scarborough looked appalled. Dean is a frequent guest on the show.
"What in the world is going on there?" Scarborough asked. "We know Howard. We like Howard. What in the world is going on? A doctor diagnosing a coke problem because a guy is sniffing?"
Panelist Mark Halperin said he wondered if Dean had been hacked when he saw the tweet. Scarborough quipped he’d have to do drug tests on his eight-year-old son because he gets the flu once a month and starts sniffing.
"Are my kids doing lines on the way to tee-ball?" he asked. "How stupid is this ... I think an apology’s in order."
A Trump surrogate would "get killed" in the press for making such a suggestion, he added.
"Oh my God, we’d go crazy," co-host Mika Brzezinski said.
"He’s their surrogate," Halperin said. "They should be asked if they think that’s appropriate, and he should take it back."
Former Democratic Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. called Dean a friend but said it was wrong for him to "double down" on such an accusation.
"If this was said about Secretary Clinton or something in the same route, we would be lighting this person up this morning and urging the campaign to denounce these words," he said.
Scarborough reminded the panel that the Clinton campaign "freaked out" when Trump surrogates made public comments and suppositions about her health, before she collapsed at the 9/11 memorial in New York City and ultimately revealed a pneumonia diagnosis.