ON POLITICS

President Trump hurls crude new insults at 'Morning Joe' hosts

USA TODAY

President Trump lashed out against the hosts of MSNBC's Morning Joe on Thursday morning, hurling a series of insults on Twitter including one referencing female host Mika Brzezinski's face "bleeding" from a facelift.

The complete statement about Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, which was denounced by NBC and members of the president's own party: "I heard 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!"

While Trump claimed not to watch their show, it did appear he was responding to criticism from the hosts about his presidency.

On Thursday's show, Brzezinski said the president's Twitter habits were "not normal behavior."

"Let’s say someone came into NBC and took over NBC and started tweeting wildly about people’s appearances, bullying people, talking about people in the competition, lying every day, undermining his managers, throwing them under the — that person would be thrown out. It’s just not normal behavior," she said. "In fact, there would be concern that perhaps the person who runs the company is out of his mind."

It wouldn't be the first time that the president has created a stir by making reference to blood and a female media personality. Back in the early days of his campaign, Megyn Kelly, then at Fox News, asked candidate Trump about his treatment of women. That soon led to Trump to this now infamous response: "She starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions, and you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever."

Brzezinski appeared to reply to Trump's attacks on Twitter, sending out an image referencing "little hands."

Per Bloomberg News, MSNBC released a statement: "It's a sad day for America when the president spends his time bullying, lying and spewing petty personal attacks instead of doing his job."

NBC employees rallied to defense of their colleagues.

Lawmakers also denounced the tweet. House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters, "Obviously I don't see that as an appropriate comment... What we're trying to do around here is improve the tone, the civility of the debate. And this obviously doesn't help do that."

Other lawmakers slammed the attacks on Twitter:

Additionally, others Twitter reacted to the president's statements:

According to CNN, Trump spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said of the president's tweet, "This is a president who fights fire with fire."

First lady Melania Trump's communications director appeared to defend the president's comments, per CNN.

Thursday's attacks appeared to begin with President Trump's social media director, Dan Scavino Jr., who tweeted about half an hour before the president, "#DumbAsARockMika and lover #JealousJoe are lost, confused & saddened since @POTUS @realDonaldTrump stopped returning their calls! Unhinged."

During the early months of his presidential campaign, in 2015 and 2016, Trump was interviewed frequently on Morning Joe; but that stopped after a falling out between the candidates and the talk show hosts.

Was it really only less than two months ago when, in announcing their engagement, Scarborough and Brzezinski said Trump had offered to officiate their wedding?

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