Politics

Donald Trump launches verbal attack on MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski

President Trump calls Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski ‘crazy’ in apparent reaction to remark about his hands

Trump face title

United States President Donald Trump took to his preferred communications medium, Twitter, Thursday morning to launch a verbal attack on MSNBC ‘Morning Joe’ co-host, Mika Brzezinski.

“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!,” the president wrote over two tweets.

Some speculated quickly the inflammatory attack was prompted by comments Brzezinski made on Thursday morning’s program, as the panel discussed the news that Trump had a fake Time magazine cover displayed at his properties.

“Nothing makes a man feel better than making a fake cover of a magazine about himself, lying every day, and destroying the country,” Brzezinski said. A moment later, Brzezinski said Trump was covering his hands in the photo used on the fake Time cover because they are “teensy”. The suggestion that Trump has small hands has been a long-standing joke that started in 1988 when Graydon Carter (now editor in chief of Vanity Fair) called Trump a “short-fingered vulgarian” in piece for Spy Magazine.

Doubling down on the remark after the attack from Trump, Brzezinski tweeted a picture of the back of a Cheerios box featuring the slogan “Made for little hands”.

According to CNN, Trump was mistaken in his tweets about the Morning Joe duo.

Referring to Trump’s suggestion that he turned Brzezinski and her co-host and fiancé, Joe Scarborough, away from his resort, CNN’s Brian Stelter wrote: “He actually said yes, according to accounts of their meeting. Trump, Scarborough and Brzezinski mingled with guests and had a private chat.” And, Stelter wrote, “for the record, photos from Mar-a-Lago do not show any blood or bandages on Brzezinski’s face.”

Later, on Fox News, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump’s remarks.

“I don’t think that the president has ever been someone who gets attacked and doesn’t push back,” Huckabee Sanders said. “This is a president who fights fire with fire, and certainly will not be allowed to be bullied by liberal media and the liberal elites within the media or Hollywood or anywhere else.”

Scarborough is a former Republican congressman. Brzezinski is the daughter of former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Republican House leader Paul Ryan, however, took a different line when asked about the Twitter tirade.

“Obviously I don’t see that as an appropriate comment,” Ryan told reporters. “What we’re trying to do around here is improve the tone and the civility of the debate, and this obviously doesn’t help do that.”

Shortly before Trump’s election as president, his wife, Melania, vowed that as First Lady, she would campaign against cyberbullying.

According to CNN, Melania Trump’s communications director Stephanie Grisham said this morning: “As the First Lady has stated publicly in the past, when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder.”

Trump has a long relationship with the co-hosts of ‘Morning Joe’. He has reportedly had a personal friendship with Scarborough for many years, and during his campaign for president, Trump routinely appeared on the program. However, in recent months, the pair have become increasingly critical of Trump’s performance as president, and in February Trump’s communications adviser, Kellyanne Conway, from the show. At the time, Brzezinski said Conway was “not credible anymore.”

Reaction from media to Trump’s comments Thursday morning on Twitter was largely that of shock.

However, there were some who cheered the comments.

Looking for more?

Get the Best of Maclean's sent straight to your inbox. Sign up for news, commentary and analysis.
  • By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.