Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, hosts of MSNBC's 'Morning Joe', have accused White House staff of blackmail after claims they were offered a deal to spike a negative tabloid story in exchange for an apology to President Donald Trump.
Scarborough said three senior administration officials called him, warning that the National Enquirer was about to publish an unflattering article about the couple, and that Trump could intervene to stop it if he apologised for the show's critical coverage. 'The calls kept coming, and kept coming, and they were like: "Come on, Joe, just pick up the phone and call him,"' he said on Friday.
Brzezinski alleged that as part of the Enquirer's reporting, her teenage daughters were harassed with frequent phone calls. The National Enquirer denied threatening the couple or their children, stating it had no knowledge of any discussions between the White House and the hosts.
President Trump, in a tweet, claimed Scarborough had called him to stop the article, writing: 'He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show.' Scarborough denied this, saying he declined to call the president.
The hosts also disputed Trump's earlier claim that Brzezinski was 'bleeding badly from a facelift' when he saw her in December, though Brzezinski acknowledged having 'a little skin under her chin tweaked'. They described Trump's behaviour as an 'unhealthy obsession' with their programme and questioned his mental fitness for office.
The controversy comes amid ongoing tensions between the couple and Trump, who they initially supported before turning against him. The New Yorker recently reported on Trump's close ties with the Enquirer's parent company, which has published favourable stories about the president and damaging pieces on his rivals.
