Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, responded Friday to U.S. President Donald Trump’s claiming Brzezinski was “bleeding badly from a face-lift,” while referring to the hosts as ““crazy” and “psycho.”
The TV personalities postponed their vacation to respond to the president of the United States of America after he attacked the two on social media Thursday morning.
Calling the last 24 hours “fascinating and frightening and really sad for our country,” Brzezinski said she’s concerned about what Trump’s comments says about the president.
“I am very concerned as to what this once again reveals about the president of the United States,” Brzezinski said. “It’s strange.”
Trump took to Twitter Thursday morning around 9 a.m. ET to call out the hosts.
“I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..” Trump tweeted. “…to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”
Scarborough said the pair had countless of calls, text messages and emails following Trump’s comments.
“We’re OK, the country is not,” Scarborough said.
Scarborough said he wasn’t aware of the tweets until a break in the show.
“I looked at them and I was like ‘This has to be a joke?’” Scarborough said. “The president of the United States, as bad as he’s been in the past, he really hasn’t gone over the cliff. Then, unfortunately, we learned what we always learn and that is that he for some reason takes things so much more personally with women. He’s so much more vicious with women.”
Scarborough said that he has insulted the president in the past over the “Muslim ban, or say that he’s a racist” but Trump “for some reason he always goes after Mika.”
WATCH: Trump’s latest Twitter flap brings condemnation from both sides of the aisle.
“It’s always personal with Mika and he packed about five lies into the tweets, which is very productive to tweets, to pack five or six lies into two tweets, but yesterday was just another example of just how deeply personal he is. He attacks women, because he fears women,” Scarborough said.
The TV hosts penned an op-ed in the Washington Post Thursday, pushing back against Trump before appearing on their show. In the article, Brzezinski and Scarborough refute Trump’s storyline as to why the couple were at his Florida home around New Year’s Eve.
“Mr. Trump claims that we asked to join him at Mar-a-Lago three nights in a row. That is false,” the hosts wrote. “He also claimed that he refused to see us. That is laughable.”
They go on to say in the article that during Trump’s campaign he called Brzezinski “neurotic” and “promised to attack us personally after the campaign ended.”
“This year, top White House staff members warned that the National Enquirer was planning to publish a negative article about us unless we begged the president to have the story spiked,” the couple wrote. “We ignored their desperate pleas.”
Trump responded Friday, calling the show “FAKE NEWS.”
“Watched low rated @Morning_Joe for first time in long time. FAKE NEWS. He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show,” the president tweeted.
Scarborough fired back at Trump, suggesting he has proof over the National Enquirer claim.
“Yet another lie. I have texts from your top aides and phone records. Also, those records show I haven’t spoken with you in many months,” Scarborough tweeted. “Why do you keep lying about things that are so easily disproven? What is wrong with you?”
The National Enquirer issued a statement Friday denying it had any discussions with the White House or Brzezinski and Scarborough over a story.
“At the beginning of June, we accurately reported a story that recounted the relationship between Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the truth of which is not in dispute. At no time did we threaten either Joe or Mika or their children in connection with our reporting on the story,” Dylan Howard, chief content officer and VP of American Media, Inc., said in a statement. “We have no knowledge of any discussions between the White House and Joe and Mika about our story, and absolutely no involvement in those discussions.”
White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders addressed the president’s tweets during Thursday’s daily briefing, saying the president isn’t going stand idly by when he’s attacked.
“I think it’s very clear that when he’s attacked, he’s going to hit back,” she said.
“I don’t think it’s a surprise to anybody that he fights fire with fire.”
She explained that the show has personally attacked Trump along with many of his staff.
WATCH: Sarah Hucakabee-Sanders addresses Donald Trump’s twitter attacks on MSNBC’s morning show hosts
When asked if the tweet is in line with the dignity of a president, she again repeated that Trump would fight back against these types of attacks.
Brzezinski appeared to fire back at Trump shortly after his tweets Thursday, by tweeting a photo of a box of Cheerios cereal which read “Made for Little Hands” – an apparent swipe at the size of Trump’s hands.
It’s unclear what prompted Trump to attack the MSNBC hosts, but during their show Wednesday the pair mocked the president following the revelations the Trump Organization was asked by Time magazine to remove fake covers of its magazine featuring Trump that were on display at several golf clubs owned by the president.
Brzezinski referred to the “phoney, fake, phoney, pathetic, made-up cover of Time” magazine as being “needy.”
On Thursday Brzezinski again mentioned the phoney magazine cover.
“Nothing makes a man feel better than making a fake cover of a magazine about himself, lying every day and destroying the country,” Brzezinski said.
She then goes on to suggest that Trump was covering his hands in photo “because they’re TEENSY.”
Trump’s tweets come after days of media criticism from the White House.
Earlier this week, the president called out CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times, calling the organizations “fake news.”
Trump used the resignations of three CNN journalists involved in a retracted Russia-related story to resume his attack on the network’s credibility Tuesday. The story was about a supposed investigation into a pre-inaugural meeting between a Trump associate and the head of a Russian investment fund. CNN accepted the journalists’ resignations Monday.
“Wow, CNN had to retract big story on ‘Russia,’ with 3 employees forced to resign. What about all the other phony stories they do? FAKE NEWS!” Trump tweeted.
“So they caught Fake News CNN cold, but what about NBC, CBS & ABC? What about the failing @nytimes & @washingtonpost? They are all Fake News!”
In response to Trump’s outburst Thursday, senior vice-president of communications of NBCUniversal News Group Mark Kornblau tweeted: “Never imagined a day when I would think to myself, ‘it is beneath my dignity to respond to the President of the United States.’”
NBC News spokeswoman Lorie Acio also issued a statement calling it a “sad day for America.”
“It’s a sad day for America when the president spends his time bullying, lying and spewing petty personal attacks instead of doing his job,” Acio said in a statement.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham reacted to Trump’s tweet calling it “beneath the office” of the president.
“Mr. President, your tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America,” Graham tweeted.
Fellow Republican Ben Sasse echoed Graham’s remark, asking the president to “just stop.”
“Please just stop. This isn’t normal and it’s beneath the dignity of your office,” Sasse tweeted.
GOP Sen. Susan Collins also called on Trump to stop the attacks on media.
“This has to stop – we all have a job – 3 branches of gov’t and media. We don’t have to get along, but we must show respect and civility,” Collins tweeted.
- Iran fires air defences at military base after suspected Israeli drone attack
- U.S. aid to Ukraine, Israel set to pass. But bills differ in one key area
- Carbon rebate labelling in bank deposits fuelling confusion, minister says
- Conservatives ask interference inquiry judge to rule elections were flawed
Comments