Scarborough, Dean in Heated Argument Over Clinton Donations

Joe Scarborough and Howard Dean don't agree on much, including the significance of further reports about donations made to the Clinton Foundation over the years.

The former Vermont governor, who openly admitted on Scarborough's "Morning Joe" program on MSNBC Thursday that he's backing Hillary Clinton's run for president, and Scarborough got into a heated debate over the latest donation revelations.

According to a report in The Washington Post, the identifications of some 1,100 Canadian donors have not been reported, even though there was an ethics agreement reached in 2008 that said the foundation would disclose funding sources while Clinton was secretary of state.

What this means, Dean said, is that under Canadian law, donors to the Clinton Foundation's Canadian branch are not required to disclose themselves, and he called the Post's story "a breathless piece of hot air." Scarborough, though, said it's "good reporting."

The donations, Scarborough claimed, are related to former President Bill Clinton's ties to the Canadian mining industry. The foundation is contacting contributors who gave six-figure donations to see if their names can be released, he noted.

But Dean said he would not advise Hillary Clinton, as a candidate, to address the donations to the foundation at some point, because he thinks there is "not much" to these stories.

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"I really do think this is bad press," he continued. "This is pack journalism. I know you guys strongly disagree with me. I think it's the press at its worse. Every time you make a big allegation, you drill down and find out there is not much truth to it or incredible distortions to it. Nobody seriously thinks the law has been broken in any way."

But Scarborough argued that there are others, such as former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who have gotten in trouble for much less severe activities.

"You would never do something that would allow your members of family to make millions from interests before the state of Vermont at the time when you were governor," he told Dean. "The Clintons have a hard time drawing those lines. And I think they have always been too clever, by half, but I think this time they have a lot of explaining to do."

Further, he accused Dean of dismissing information out of hand without even knowing all that is still left that's not known.

"I am really glad we have a New England version of James Carville because sometimes I don't understand what he's saying," he told Dean, comparing him to the Democratic strategist and Clinton family ally. "I mean he goes, 'Does a Billy goat go after a crocodile?' No. I don't know what the New England version of that would be."

Dean also threw out, in the argument, statements Scarborough made earlier in the week that said Algeria was on the U.S. terrorist list, which the show host called another example of "what the Clintons are doing now."

"This is why I love the Internet," he said. "A couple days ago, I accidentally said on the air, and I said I wasn't sure, but I read a report ... they got all of this money and Algeria was on the terror list and then I think allegations are that the State Department may have taken them off after they made all of this money."

But he admitted that he got the terror list part wrong, and said he has apologized on Twitter, but said he actually found "there were horrible human rights violations that may have been whitewashed."

"This is the Clinton's big defense, that I talked about a terror list instead of horrible human rights abuses," Scarborough said. "OK, so I got it wrong. It was about gross horrible human rights violations that may have been whitewashed by the State Department instead of a terror list. And this is the great defense."

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