U.S. President Donald Trump personalized his attacks on the news media Thursday, mocking the appearance of a well-known television commentator.
Trump has long described major news outlets as “fake news” for stories he does not like about his five-month tenure in the White House. In a new Twitter comment, he lambasted Mika Brzezinski, who hosts the morning television talk show Morning Joe, with her fiance, Joe Scarborough.
“I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore).” Trump wrote in a two-part message. “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 couple said at the time they had gone to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to arrange an interview with the incoming president less than a month before his inauguration.
Trump used to appear on the Morning Joe show before he took office, but when the television hosts turned critical of his presidency, Trump took to attacking them.
Trump did not say what drew his ire Thursday, but Brzezinski at one point during the show said, “Nothing makes a man feel better than making a fake cover of a mag about himself, lying every day and destroying the country.” A Washington Post story disclosed this week that Trump has displayed a fake Time magazine cover with his picture on it in several of the clubhouses of golf courses he owns.
The White House social media director, Dan Scavino, Jr., also took aim at the show’s hosts Thursday, saying in a tweet from his personal account, “#DumbAsARockMika and lover #JealousJoe are lost, confused & saddened since @POTUS @realDonaldTrump stopped returning their calls! Unhinged.”
‘Little hands’
Brzezinski responded shortly after in a tweet of her own with a photo of a Cheerios cereal box showing a child and the slogan, “Made For Little Hands” — apparently a reference to last year’s campaign, when the size of Trump’s hands briefly became the target of political jokes.
Trump’s White House aides and first lady Melania Trump have often tried — without success — to rein in his penchant for acerbic Twitter comments. Trump says it is his way of reaching millions of followers with comments unfiltered by the national news media he reviles.
During the campaign, Melania Trump called for a kinder and gentler America and said as first lady she would speak out against cyber-bullying.
“Our culture has gotten too mean and too rough, especially to children and teenagers,” she said.
But she stood by her husband after his Thursday tweet. Her spokeswoman said, “As the first lady has stated publicly in the past, when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder.”
NBC, the television network that airs the Morning Joe show, issued a statement saying, “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.”
Lawmakers’ reactions
Two Republican lawmakers and others immediately took offense at Trump’s latest Twitter tirade.
Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse said, “Please just stop. This isn’t normal and it’s beneath the dignity of your office.”
Similarly, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, said, “Mr. President, your tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America.”
Senator Susan Collins of Maine tweeted, “This has to stop – we all have a job – 3 branches of gov’t and media. We don’t have to get along, but we must show respect and civility.”
The leader of the majority Republicans in the House of Representatives, Speaker Paul Ryan, said, “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.”
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said of the brouhaha, “The president again isn’t gonna be someone who’s bullied.”
Capitol Hill correspondent Michael Bowman contributed to this report
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