Hillary Clinton should go on avoiding press conferences because reporters don't treat her fairly, longtime Clinton backer and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean claimed Wednesday.

"She has no reason to trust the press corps, and the so-called email scandal is one of the reasons," he said in an interview on MSNBC.

His remarks come on the heels of a Tuesday Associated Press story showing that Clinton scheduled meetings with more than 80 Clinton Foundation donors when she served at the State Department, which accounted for more than half of her meetings with non-government officials in the first two years she held the position.

"Look what AP did," Dean continued on MSNBC. "They completely screwed up their story. They had 100 appointments, or 85 or whatever it was that she made, out of 1,800 appointments and tried to make a big deal out of it. Having a press conference, in my view, is not the solution to this. You just get more of the same."

MSNBC's interjected, and asked, "Answering legitimate questions from legitimate press is more of the same?"

"The trouble is the questions aren't legitimate, and the press isn't legitimate," the former governor responded.

Dean then cited an article by Vox.com's Matt Yglesias, which claimed "there's "just nothing here" in the AP's report.

"They were called out by Vox, which is another press organ," Dean said. "So, I mean, that's the problem. The press is gotten to be where it's all about the lowest common denominator."

"They don't treat people in an even-handed way, and that is why, in my view, Hillary Clinton should not do press conferences," Dean said. "The press conference becomes a feeding frenzy, it becomes a one-upmanship and who can get the best story."

The last time Clinton appeared before reporters to face unscripted questions was in December of 2015, before a single vote had been cast in the Democratic presidential primary.