Scarborough said three senior White House officials told him, ‘If you call the president up and you apologize for your coverage, then he will pick up the phone and basically spike this story.’
In the latest episode of the spat between Donald Trump and Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the duo is claiming that the White House pressured them to apologize to the president – or have a nasty article about them in the National Enquirer.
The tabloid is owned by Trump’s friend, David Pecker.
Scarborough said on Friday’s program that three senior White House officials told him, ‘If you call the president up and you apologize for your coverage, then he will pick up the phone and basically spike this story.
‘The response was like, are you kidding me?’
Trump responded with outrage on Twitter more than an hour after he made the on-air claim.
‘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.’
Trump confirmed with the tweet that he spent his morning stewing ahead of a scheduled call with the Turkish president and a White House visit from South Korea’s Moon Jae-in.
Scarborough tweeted back at him: ‘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.’
‘Why do you keep lying about things that are so easily disproven? What is wrong with you?’ he asked in a follow-up.
The couple this morning tore into Trump this morning, calling him a liar and questioning his mental health, after their former friend claimed the duo relentlessly pursued him at Palm Beach property while Mika was recovering from a facelift.
‘We are both certain that the man is not mentally equipped to continue watching our show, “Morning Joe, ” they said in a Washington Post op-ed on Friday morning.
According to their account in the Post, Trump invited them to Mar-a-Lago for dinner. When Brzezinski didn’t show, he asked them back the next night on, New Year’s Eve.
They went – but did not attend the party he was having that night, they maintained.
‘Mr. Trump also claims that Mika was “bleeding badly from a face-lift.” That is also a lie, ‘ the op-ed says. ‘Putting aside Mr. Trump’s never-ending obsession with women’s blood, Mika and her face were perfectly intact, as pictures from that night reveal.’
While Brzezinski ‘never had a face-lift’ they admit that she did ‘have a little skin under her chin tweaked, but this was hardly a state secret.’
Having postponed a Fourth of July holiday by a day, the pair, who revealed their engagement last month, stopped by their show to rebut Trump in person on Friday morning.
Brzezinski says they met privately with Trump and his wife in a bedroom and were led out through the party. ‘Talk about facelifts – woah, Palm Beach!’ she said.
The 50-year-old television host proudly talked about her chin tuck and declared: ‘It looks awesome.’
They also claimed on the show, and in the Post, that senior Trump officials begged them to call the president and apologize for their coverage or have a nasty piece on them run in a tabloid that’s owned and operated by the president’s friend.
Scarborough revealed, in the opening minutes of he and Brzezinski’s on-camera appearance, that he has friends in the White House telling him they have grown increasingly concerned about the president’s erratic behavior.
‘We’re OK. The country’s not, ‘ he said.
A senior member of Congress called him recently, Scarborough, a former congressman said, and told him that Trump went on a rant about Morning Joe in front of 20 or so legislators he was pitching on Obamacare repeal.
‘”I’ ve never made a call like this, “‘ Scarborough say his caller told him. ‘”He scared me, because he was vicious when he turned from you to Mika.” ‘
Scarborough’s friend told him that Trump launched a Megyn Kelly-style attack on Brzezinski and talked ‘”about blood coming out of her ears, out of her eyes.”‘
‘”I was scared for you guys, and I wanted you to know, “‘ the senior Republican lawmaker reportedly told Scarborough.
The Morning Joe hosts assessed that Trump that has a ‘fixation’ with women, and he insults Brzezinski more ferociously than Scarborough.
‘He appears to have a fragile, impetuous child-like ego that we’ve seen over and over again, especially with women. It’s like he can’t take it, ‘ Brzezinski stated.
She said she was aware that Trump would respond to her needling on Thursday over faked Time Magazine covers that hang in his clubhouses but she stands by her joke.
‘It is unbelievably alarming that this president is so easily played. He’s so easily played by a cable news host. Now what is that saying to our allies? What is that saying to our enemies that this president is so easily played?
Kellyanne Conway, the president’s counselor, served at the White House’s sacrificial lamb, appearing on as ABC on Friday morning as Brzezinski and Scarborough went to battle with her boss on MSNBC.
‘I endorse the president’s right to fight back when he is being mercilessly attacked, ‘ she told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.
Clarifying her remarks, Conway said, ‘I didn’ t say I endorsed his attacks; I never said that.
‘Bottom line: I endorse his ability to connect on social media with Americans.’
President Trump tore into the MSNBC hosts in Thursday morning tweets for trash talking him on their show – prompting a huge backlash, with his own party speaking out against him.
‘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…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!’
The tweet appeared to be in reaction to the hosts calling him ‘a proven liar’, and came after a series of clashes between him and Scarborough and Brzezinski, to whom he had previously been close.
But it was the second time in a week he was caught up in a sexism row after he complimented a blonde Irish television reporter on her ‘smile’ and called her over to his Oval Office desk.
The twitter rant appeared to be prompted by the content of Thursday’s Morning Joe.
During the first few minutes of Thursday’s show, Scarborough had called out Trump for being a fake populist, and pointed a finger at Senate Republicans saying their health care bill gave tax cuts to their donors at the expense of robbing the poor.
