On Iowa caucus night, Ron Paul sent a snarky tweet about Jon Huntsman’s voter support (or lack thereof):

But on Wednesday afternoon, Paul appeared confused when Soledad O’Brien grilled him about the tweet, Mediaite reported. “I didn’t quite understand even what you just read, but, obviously, I didn’t send it. So, I don’t even understand,” Paul said. “I haven’t talked about Jon Huntsman in a long time. I don’t know what’s going on there.” When pressed, Paul admitted he “has some help” with tweeting. 

By the time primetime rolled around, Paul had polished his response, and on Piers Morgan’s CNN talk show, the congressman explained that a staffer had written the tweet and it was meant in good humor. “It was supposed to be something lightspirited and funny but it turned out to be a national incident,” Paul told Morgan.

Across the split screen, Huntsman smirked and sneaked in a jab, Politico reported. “You’d think he would have learned the perils of ghost-written subject matter by now,” Huntsman said, referencing the newsletters containing racist sentiments from the ’80s and ’90s that bear Paul’s name but that the congressman has denied writing. But Huntsman quickly added that he found Paul’s tweet funny. “You’ve got to have a little bit of levity and humor in this business or you’ll go crazy,” he said.

Morgan pointed out Paul’s staff doing things he knows nothing about is becoming a theme for him. “I would urge a little caution . . . [there now is] a pattern of you being completely unaware of what your staff are doing half the time,” Morgan said.