MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” host Mika Brzezinski criticized former Vermont Governor Howard Dean for his defense of Hillary Clinton, stating that he was being “partisan,” “trying to avoid a true narrative” and “You just would not be this way if it was like Dick Cheney, or Paul Wolfowitz, or Donald Rumsfeld” on Wednesday.
Dean said that he still believes the email story isn’t a big deal, and said of Clinton’s server being turned over to the DOJ, “I think it’s great. I am far happier with the server in the custody of the Justice Department than in the custody of [Rep.] Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and the ridiculous farce that that’s become. Look, not one of the emails that she has sent or received was labeled top secret, or privileged, or confidential, or any of that kind of — classified. So, if — we’ll find out what’s in there. If there are some classified emails, which apparently there are, I don’t think she’s going to get the blame for it, because she didn’t know. It’s pretty clear to me. I think this is a good thing. I think it’s going to stop a lot of the ridiculous speculation that we’ve seen in the papers…I’d much rather have it in the hands of the Justice Department.”
Later, panelist Willie Geist asked Dean, “is it fair to say if this were a Republican secretary of state and someone you were not supporting for president, you would be troubled by a secretary of state having a private email server in his or her home?” He responded, No, I wouldn’t be. No, because I used to do that as governor. And I know there’s a tremendous other number of public officials who have done the same thing” After Geist asked, “And would only use a private server for Justice — for State Department emails?” Dean responded, “whatever Hillary Clinton did was within the constraints of the law at the time.”
Brzezinski countered, “No, it wasn’t in the constraints of the White House operating rules that they had put out for this administration. You do know that, right? You do agree with that, correct?” Dean then said, “It’s not clear that I agree with that. There’s a lot of back and forth about this. Look, you know my position on this hasn’t changed.” He continued, “I still think, as you quoted me accurately in the beginning, I think this is a lot of hooey. We’ll find out. At least now it’s in the hands of some professional people who can look at it, and I think that’s a good thing.”
At the end of the segment, Brzezinski said to Dean, “I think you’re really — you’re like literally for the first time truly trying to avoid a true narrative here.” He stated, “this is like having this discussion about the Patriots and the Jets that you had had on in the last half hour. You’re just not going to get me to give on this.”
She responded, “You just would not be this way if it was like Dick Cheney, or Paul Wolfowitz, or Donald Rumsfeld. You just wouldn’t. Your partisan, whatever, it’s like, it’s just…right there.”
After Dean countered with, “Hillary didn’t start a war in which two million people were killed. That’s a little different.” A clearly frustrated Brzezinski responded, “Oh my gosh.”
(h/t Newsbusters)
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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