TV hosts accuse Trump of bizarre smear threat
DONALD TRUMP’S feud with two of America’s most influential political news hosts took a remarkable turn yesterday, after the pair said that White House staff urged them to apologise to the president for their critical coverage, and in return he would prevent the publication of a damaging National Enquirer story.
“What you’ve just said is one of the most frightening things I have ever heard,” said Donny Deutsch, one of the show’s guests, in response to the accusations by Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough. “This story was going to run, unless you grovel to the president.”
The feud began when Scarborough and Brzezinski, co-hosts of MSNBC’S Morning Joe programme, were criticised by Mr Trump on Thursday, after they joked about fake Time magazine covers hanging in his golf clubhouses.
“I heard poorly rated @Morning_joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore),” he tweeted, moments after the segment aired. “Then how come low IQ 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!”
His tweets were greeted with dismay across the political spectrum. Yesterday the hosts returned to the set – despite a planned holiday – to address the president’s remarks. Brzezinski said it was “frightening – and sad for our country. This is nothing for me personally. But I think it’s sad what it means for the President of the United States. He appears to have a fragile, impetuous, childlike ego that we have seen over and over again. Especially with women.”
She added: “It is unbelievably alarming this president is so easily played. What is that saying to our allies? What is that saying to our enemies?”
The co-hosts announced their engagement on May 4 after months of speculation, then told of an encounter with the White House relating to a National Enquirer story. When their show began, in 2007, both co-hosts were married: Scarborough to his second wife, whom he divorced in 2013, and Brzezinski to her husband of 23 years, from whom she split in December 2015.
But rumours of their relationship abounded. The pair insist it did not blossom until they were single.
On June 5, National Enquirer published a story claiming they were both married when they began an affair, and were paying their former partners “hush money”. Scarborough, 54, said: “We got a call that, hey, the National Enquirer is going to run a negative story against you guys. And they said if you call the president up and you apologise for your coverage, then he will pick up the phone and basically spike their story.
“I had three people at the very top of the administration calling me.”
The Daily Beast reported yesterday that one was Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser.
Dylan Howard, of National Enquirer’s parent company, denied knowledge of White House attempts to elicit an apology in exchange for spiking the story. Mr Trump also disputed Scarborough’s story, calling it “FAKE NEWS.”