One of the most distracting things from last night's debate, outside of Trump's exceptionally angry. pointing tiny fingers, wild gesticulating, and eye rolling was his chronic and extremely noticeable sniffing. And it wasn't just here or there, it was literally dozens of sniffs. Twitter was on fire with ideas, from a cold, to allergies to even....this gem from Howard Dean:
As of this posting, that tweet has 42,000 likes and 28,000 shares. Yes, it is on fire.
So today, does Dean regret insinuating the fact that the Republican presidential nominee may have been riding the white pony during the first presidential debate?
Not even a little bit.
Dean was a guest on MSNBC today and this was the first topic Kate Snow addressed. She asked about his tweet and this was his response:
DEAN: "Well, you can't make a diagnosis over the television, 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—“
SNOW: “Well, you are suggesting it, actually, in a Tweet”
DEAN: “No, I’m suggesting we think about it. Here's the interesting constellation. So, he sniffs during the presentation, which is something that users do. He also has grandiosity, which is something that accompanies that problem. He has delusions.
He has trouble with pressured speech. He interrupted Hillary Clinton 29 times. He couldn't keep himself together. So, look, do I think at 70 years old he has a cocaine habit? Probably not. But, you know, it's something that—I think it would be interesting to ask him and see if he ever had a problem with that.”
I am sure many people were thinking the same thing. But Dean did say this at the end:
“No I don't think he has a cocaine habit. I was just struck by the sniffing and then by his behavior, which all sort of came together, these four symptoms."
I'll be honest, I worked with drug addicts for years. Trump did seem...off. But he is always overly animated, always quick to anger and raises his voice frequently. He did sniff a lot, but part of that could be allergies or a cold or just plain nerves. Yes, he is used to large audiences, but this was "bigly", even for him.
I think Trump, for all his craziness, would avoid anything to make him more unhinged.
