MSNBC co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski denied the statements made by President Donald Trump in his harsh tweets aimed at them and expressed concern over his emotional and mental state.
"Donald Trump is not well," is the headline of a Washington Post column they co-authored and then used as talking points during a Friday appearance on "Morning Joe."
Scarborough and Brzezinski were scheduled to be on vacation but came on the air to address the president's behavior in a stunning 37-minute segment at the top of the second hour of their program that denied the details of the president's Thursday tweets and condemned his behavior. They also recounted an attempt by the White House to silence their criticism of Trump with the threat of having an unflattering story about them run in a supermarket tabloid.
"He appears to have a fragile, impetuous, childlike ego that we have seen over and over again _ especially with women. He can't take it," Brzezinski said on the program.
Scarborough and Brzezinski wrote that they think the president is "unmoored" and said he has "a disturbing obsession with Mika."
The hosts were responding to the remarks Trump tweeted Thursday that called Brzezinski "low I.Q. Crazy Mika" and Scarborough "Psycho Joe." Trump also claimed that he had at one point seen Brzezinski "bleeding badly from a face-lift."
Trump also said that the pair had invited themselves to Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Fla., over the New Year's holiday and that he refused to see them.
"That is laughable," Scarborough wrote in the op-ed.
The column said the president-elect invited them to dinner on Dec. 30. Scarborough attended because Brzezinski did not want to go.
"After listening to the president-elect talk about his foreign policy plans, Joe was asked by a disappointed Mr. Trump the next day if Mika could also visit Mar-a-Lago that night," they wrote. "She reluctantly agreed to go. After we arrived, the president-elect pulled us into his family's living quarters with his wife, Melania, where we had a pleasant conversation. We politely declined his repeated invitations to attend a New Year's Eve party, and we were back in our car within 15 minutes."
They said the claim that Brzezinski was "bleeding badly from a face-lift is also a lie."
"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," they wrote. "And though it is no one's business, the president's petulant personal attack against yet another woman's looks compels us to report that Mika has never had a face-lift. If she had, it would be evident to anyone watching 'Morning Joe' on their high-definition TV. She did have a little skin under her chin tweaked, but this was hardly a state secret. Her mother suggested she do so, and all those around her were aware of this mundane fact."
On his show, Scarborough said Trump "attacks women because he fears women." He described a conversation with a member of Congress who recounted how Trump once described Brzezinski as having blood coming out of her eyes and ears _ a remark similar to what Trump said about Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News anchor, following the August 2015 Republican primary debate. Trump made the remark about Brzezinski in a meeting with 20 members of Congress.
Scarborough also described several calls from the White House in which he was told the National Enquirer was preparing an unflattering story about him and Brzezinski. Scarborough said he was told that if they called Trump and "apologize for your coverage, he will pick up the phone and basically spike the story."
David Pecker, the chief executive of American Media _ the company that owns the National Enquirer _ is a friend of the president's. Scarborough said Trump told him during the 2016 campaign that the paper ran various negative stories about his Republican opponents.
Brzezinski said the Enquirer was calling her teenage children and were "pinning the story on my ex-husband." When Scarborough had a conversation about the story with the White House, Brzezinski said her co-host was told, "This can go away."
Trump's brutish remarks about Brzezinski were immediately condemned across the political spectrum for being inappropriate and undignified coming from the president of the United States.
Trump's tweets were rebuked by many Republicans who believe the president's crude, vituperative remarks risk derailing the party's legislative agenda. Even Trump's staunchest supporters in the media, including conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh and Fox News host Sean Hannity, said the tweets were ill-advised.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump's tweet, claiming that the president was fighting back against a steady barrage of on-air insults from Brzezinski and Scarborough.
In an April 13 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Brzezinski and Scarborough noted that their once-cordial relationship with Trump had deteriorated since the inauguration as they have expressed dismay at what they think has been a chaotic, undisciplined presidency. "Morning Joe" was considered one of the friendlier TV forums for Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Brzezinski said at the time that Trump is less tolerant of criticism coming from a woman.
"He just won't even engage," she said. "Joe will punch him in the face, and he'll come back for more."
In the Washington Post column that ran Friday, Scarborough recounted that during the height of the campaign, he often "listened to Trump staff members complain about their boss' erratic behavior, including a top campaign official who was as close to the Republican candidate as anyone."
