Trump, ‘Joe’ hosts trade accusations

National Enquirer drawn into bitter feud

NEW YORK — “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, a couple onscreen and off, say the White House told them a damaging National Enquirer story about their relationship would “go away” if they called the president and apologized for harsh commentary.

President Donald Trump and Scarborough traded accusations the other was lying as the feud between the leader of the free world and two cable television hosts persisted on Friday.

The MSNBC hosts made their claim while responding to Trump’s previous tweet that “crazy” Brzezinski was “bleeding badly from a facelift” when he saw her at his Florida estate just before the New Year. Thursday’s message drew widespread condemnation as sexist and vulgar, even from some of the president’s GOP supporters.

Brzezinski and Scarborough, both divorced, revealed their engagement in a May 4 Vanity Fair article.

Behind the scenes, the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer was in the midst of what it later described as “an exhausting months-long probe” into the relationship. Brzezinski said it involved phone calls to her teenage daughter and a reporter staked out outside her home.

The calls from the White House came in early spring. Scarborough said that he was told that, “if you call the president up and apologize for the coverage, then he would pick up the phone and spike the story.”

Trump, who said he watched “Morning Joe” on Friday, tweeted a contradiction to Scarborough’s claim. He said the MSNBC host “called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no!”

Dylan Howard, chief content officer and vice president at the Enquirer’s parent company, said the newspaper has no knowledge of or involvement in any discussions between the White House and the “Morning Joe’ host about the story.

The Enquirer article was published on June 5 under the headline “‘Morning Joe’ Sleazy Cheating Scandal.”