When Howard Dean suggested Wednesday that people only criticize Hillary Clinton for her communication problems because she is a woman, Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski promptly shut him down.
Journalist Bob Woodward insisted earlier in the show that Clinton appears "unrelaxed" in her rallies because she yells into her microphone. He suggested that rather than attempting to appear passionate by screaming, she "lower the temperature" and rationally explain her platform.
"But he agreed, though, that there's a communications problem on television?" Woodward said, referring to Dean, a vehement Clinton supporter.
"No!" Dean said.
"You don't think that?" Woodward said.
Dean then proposed that people only dislike Clinton’s style and delivery because she is a woman.
"Look, I'm going to say this, and I’m gonna get jumped for it, but I gotta do it," Dean said. "If she were a male and she were making these kinds of speeches, would people be criticizing her?"
Mika Brzezinski, a champion of women’s causes, rejected Dean's claim.
"Oh, my God, that's desperate," Brzezinski said.
Co-host Joe Scarborough then imitated Clinton’s deafening tone and said that even if Clinton were a man, he would make fun of her speaking style.
"I'd probably too if there was a man who always talked like this on stage, I would make fun of that man a lot faster than I would've made [fun of] a woman," Scarborough said.
The panel then agreed that Dean was also wrong about his earlier assertion that Clinton was not profiting from speaking fees at colleges while advocating for college affordability.
"Howard, Howard, Howard, you are wrong about the colleges," Brzezinski said.
Scarborough asked his research team to find out for certain whether Clinton made hundreds of thousands of dollars from speeches at colleges.
"So the bottom line is this, is it UNLV (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) or UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles)?" Scarborough said.
"Both," Brzezinski said.
His researcher told him that Clinton made $225,000 at UNLV in October of 2014, and a month later at UCLA she made $300,000.
"So she got over $500,000 from two colleges," Scarborough said.
Dean finally admitted defeat.
"I stand corrected and I was mistaken. I will humbly eat crow, Joe. Do you have a serving of crow, please?" Dean said.
Scarborough said that he also believed Clinton profited from speaking at a college in New York when she was senator of that state.
"I’m pretty sure she got paid over $200,000 to a New York state college, because I remember saying on this show that I found it hard to believe that a senator that would represent a college would then go and get paid $200,000," Scarborough said.
"Alright, I'll be taking the feathers out of my teeth," Dean said.