TV hosts: Trump tried to blackmail us to stop criticism
TWO US news presenters mauled on Twitter by Donald Trump yesterday questioned the President’s mental health and suggested the White House had tried to blackmail them.
Joe Scarborough, who hosts MSNBC’s Morning Joe breakfast programme with Mika Brzezinski, said he was warned by Trump administration officials that a US tabloid would run a damaging story about them unless they apologised to him for their coverage of his presidency.
The couple, who are engaged, accused the US President of repeatedly lying about them and of having an ‘unhealthy obsession’ with their show.
The broadcasters were on friendly terms with Mr Trump during last year’s election campaign but have been critical of him since he took office.
He called Miss Brzezinski ‘low IQ Crazy
‘Ignored their desperate pleas’
Mika’ and claimed she had been ‘bleeding badly from a face-lift’ when they visited his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida over the New Year. He also referred to Mr Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, as ‘Psycho Joe’.
Writing in the Washington Post yesterday, the couple said: ‘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. We ignored their desperate pleas.’
Condemning Mr Trump’s ‘ petulant attack on yet another woman’s looks’, they said she had never had a face-lift.
The couple added: ‘Our concerns about his unmoored behaviour go far beyond the personal. America’s leaders and allies are asking themselves yet again whether this man is fit to be president.’
Mr Trump responded on Twitter, effectively denying the claims as ‘fake news’ and claiming that Mr Scarborough had actually called him to stop a story from running and he had refused.