As Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump sniffled away Monday night during the first debate of the general election, former Vermont governor Howard Dean posited a theory as to what was causing all the nasal activity.
“Notice Trump sniffing all the time,” he wrote on Twitter. “Coke user?”
Rather than apologize for the off-color tweet the next day, the former practicing physician doubled down on it Tuesday afternoon in an appearance on MSNBC.
“Well, you can’t make a diagnosis over the television,” he said. “I would never do that. But he has some interesting — that is actually a signature of people who use cocaine. I’m not suggesting that Trump does, but—”
“Well you are suggesting it, actually, in a tweet,” MSNBC host Kate Snow interjected.
“No, I’m suggesting we think about it,” Dean said. Then he rattled off a list of symptoms he said Trump shared with cocaine users, ranging from “grandiosity” to “delusions” to “trouble with pressured speech.”
“Do I think at 70 years old he has a cocaine habit?” the ex-gov continued. “Probably not. But, you know, it’s something that I think would be interesting to ask him and see if he ever had a problem with that.”
For several more excruciating minutes, Dean claimed he wasn’t accusing Trump of using drugs while repeating the suggestion that he might be — employing similar rhetorical tactics as when Trump and his surrogates accused Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton of hiding a grave illness and President Barack Obama of being foreign born.
“I don’t think this was a ridiculous idea,” Dean said. “Something funny was going on with Trump last night. Do I think it was cocaine? Probably not. But, again, the sniffing, the grandiosity, the delusions, the pressured speech. You know, this guy has already proven himself unstable. The question is: Why is he unstable?”
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Any respect I had for Dean is now gone. For all of you who cry about Trump’s poor comments, this is as bad as any and shows how low everyone will go. This is disgusting politics at its lowest
How is this as bad as any of Trumps comments? Suggesting that the majority of illegal immigrants from Mexico are rapists, drug-users and -pushers or murderers is a hell of a lot worse than cheekily suggesting that an old white dude from the business world abuses cocaine.
Agreed Thommy. Though the character attacks are so repulsive this election.
It really is not out of the question that he uses drugs. He thinks he’s above any laws or conventions. And something HAS to be wrong with him.
I don’t think Trump is above doing a line off his podium mid- debate and his supporters would find some way to justify it.
I, also, noticed Trump was drinking more water than Marco ever did during his primary debates.
I don’t blame Gov. Dean for speaking up. Many, many of us wondered what was really happening!
Never had any respect ever for Dean..I remember a few speeches Deanie boy had given and he was sniffing a lot..was he doing coke??!!!.. The wanna be pres, is a bigot..He never did anything for Vermont except for helping Vermonters lose jobs..while he ran around the country yelling “YEAHHH”.. !!!! People called him a Vermonter..he was a transplant from NY..not a Vermonter.. After going to work for DNC why didn’t he go back to his medical practice?? His wife stated she would not move to DC if he became pres..Dean hasn’t changed one bit..still a BIGOT!!!!
Mr Trump doesn’t do drugs or even drinks because his brother died from alcoholism ..Trump said because of Fred “Freddy” death he swore he would never drink or do drugs..and he hasn’t..
Very surprised that Dean went down to Trump’s level. Thought Dean had more class than this. There are plenty of horrible things to bring up about Trump, no need to make stuff up. Especially disturbing since Dean is a medical doctor.
The original Tweet, in the midst of the debate, was world-class trolling on Dean’s part. Timely, funny, and a pointed response to Trump’s bizarro-world performance.
Doubling down on it the next day – instead of just laughing it off – seemed to take it too far.
Republicans and Trump backers, however, are in no position to complain about it after weeks and months of Trump and his backers insinuations and accusations about Clinton’s health. But I hope Howard Dean doesn’t want to simply become the Democratic equivalent of Rudy Giuliani and his ugly behaviors.
Was Dean on Coke too, when he was yelling?
Not very impressed by Dean since he couldn’t indorse Bernie!!!
Jim Douglas was a better Governor than Dean was!
People – Dean is playing with you. He is doing exactly what Trump does. Throw the bait in the water and watch the sharks come get it. He is doing this as an attack dog for Hillary and I think it is very smart.
Dean should stick to, “Jim, I’m a simple country Doctor; I’m not a politician, pundit or an internet troll.” Veddy interesting, but shtoopid!
This quote doesn’t particularly bother me, no different than the gutter politics practiced by both Trump and Clinton.
However, in the bigger picture, I’ve simply lost so much respect for Howard Dean this past year. Voted for him for Governor. He was much more fiscally responsible than Shumlin and, unlike Shumlin, he cared about keeping Act 250 strong, supported zoning and land use planning and fought sprawl. Very different governor vs. Shumlin. We supported Dean in his presidential run when he was 100% right about Iraq. He did a great job with the 50-state strategy to elect Obama.
So what does he do this year?? Completely contradicts himself and everything his 2004 presidential campaign stood for by endorsing and sucking up to a candidate who voted for Iraq. A candidate who, many years later, claimed she learned from this “mistake” (never mind the fact that she voted for Iraq at all shows she completely failed to learn the lesson of Vietnam, which she lived through). So what does she do having “learned” from her “mistake”? Urges Obama into his biggest regret over 8 years – destroying stability in Libya to let ISIS run wild and aggravate the flood of refugees to our European allies. “We came, we saw, he died.” A candidate who says she learned from her Iraq War vote “mistake” and then happily embraces the endorsements of nearly all the neo-con liars responsible for the Iraq War! Paul Wolfowitz, Max Boot, Bob Kagan, etc. At least Trump disavowed the support of the psycho-racist David Duke. Hillary refuses to disavow the neo-con liars who are supporting her.
What Howard Dean has demonstrated is strict party loyalty matters more to him than country. Truly sad. The candidates presented by both major parties this year are embarrassing – to themselves, to the parties and to the nation. Whoever wins, the nation has lost. We can only hope we’ll have better choices in 2020.
Talk about Jekyl and Hyde. This man has been confusing me for years.
On the one hand, we have VT Howard who worked pretty well in a bi-partisan way as Governor and still gives fairly commonsensical opinions occasionally on VT Digger. On the other hand, we have National Howard who will say anything, unfiltered to further part agenda a la Debbie Wasserman-Shultz. What’s up with that?!
Donald Trump is famously a teetotaller; his older brother was an alcoholic and died young, and Trump’s claims of never using drugs or alcohol seem to be one of the few true aspects of his self-myth. Which makes this low blow (jokingly accusing him of doing coke when he probably just had allergies) all the more asinine and petty.
Trump denies having allergies or a cold.
Heck, he’s even denied sniffling.
I found the denials odd.
Trump is Trump 🙂 This race is historical. But what awaits us ahead? America is losing its power. China and Putin dictate us what to do. We cant even control what happens to our computer systems. Police, universities, hospitals all pay to hackers:
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-me-ln-hollywood-hospital-bitcoin-20160217-story.html
http://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/police-pay-off-ransomware-operators-again/d/d-id/1319918
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36478650
It’s called ransomware plague, viruses like Cerber http://myspybot.com/cerber-ransomware-evolution/ encrypt files and make them inaccessible. Even security researches can do nothing.
They say ransomware viruses come from Russia:
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/news/450298579/Russian-hacker-arrests-linked-to-ransomware-and-exploit-kit-shutdowns
https://www.neowin.net/news/how-russian-cybercrime-bosses-crafted-a-ransomware-empire-out-of-an-economic-crisis
http://news.softpedia.com/news/russian-devs-behind-new-wildfire-ransomware-506290.shtml
Millions in rogue ransom payment flow away through anonymous Bitcoin payments. Law enforcement cant always put their hands on hackers, cant trace the money and cant protect us from these viruses.
No mater who is the next President, he/she should stop this ransomware epidemic and stop Putin who sends those viruses. Of cause not himself but in totalitarian Russia nothing happens without his commands.