MSNBC co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski said in a column Friday responding to President Donald Trump's attacks that White House staffers tried to blackmail them this year with a negative story in the National Enquirer.
Trump received widespread condemnation for tweeting on Thursday, "I hear 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 "Morning Joe" hosts penned a column in the Washington Post slamming Trump for his remarks and questioning his mental fitness for office.
"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," they wrote. "We ignored their desperate pleas."
The pair then addressed the story directly Friday on MSNBC. Scarborough said Trump had a "disturbing obsession with Mika" as he litigated the story, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
"We got a call from the White House that the National Enquirer is going to run a negative story against you guys. Donald is friends with the guy who runs the National Enquirer," Scarborough said, claiming he received multiple calls from three individuals at the top of the Trump administration saying the president would call the Enquirer's owner David Pecker and spike the story if he personally apologized to him for Morning Joe's coverage.
"That's blackmail," Morning Joe co-host Donnie Deutsch said.
"They were pinning the story on my ex-husband," Brzezinski added, "And I knew he would never do that. So I knew it was a lie and they had nothing. These calls persisted for quite some time. They were threatening. They were calling my children."
"These calls persisted for quite some time. Then Joe had the conversations that he had with the White House where they said, 'This could go away,'" Brzezinski said. "Our response, after talking to my ex-husband, talking to Joe, talking to my kids, was 'screw it, let them run it.'"
Deutsch said the story was frightening.
"This is what we've got," Brzezinski said.
Stunning charge from Joe and Mika in today's Washington Post --> pic.twitter.com/DhzLRYR0Dl
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 30, 2017
Trump responded on Twitter shortly afterward.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/880771685460344832
Scarborough responded to Trump that it was "yet another lie" and records showed they had not spoken in months.
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. https://t.co/TZWiElo6Gs
— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) June 30, 2017
Why do you keep lying about things that are so easily disproven? What is wrong with you? https://t.co/aAoUj5HYZS
— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) June 30, 2017