'Morning Joe' Hosts Once Accused the White House Staff Members of Blackmail, Here's Why

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, MSNBC's political show Morning Joe's hosts, once claimed that the White House officials had been blackmailing them over a tabloid story back in 2017. The couple who were then engaged to be married slammed the president's staff for threatening to pull negative stories about them had they not toned down their criticism of Donald Trump. 

In a scathing tweet against the hosts, the former president wrote on X, formerly Twitter, "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." 

The following day after Trump's tweet, the show's hosts revealed that they were threatened with a damaging story in National Enquirer, noting that the politician is good friends with the outlet's parent company American Media Inc.'s CEO David Pecker. The White House staff told them Trump would pull the story if they called him and apologized for the negative media coverage, per CNBC. 

Brzezinski called out, "They were calling my children, they were calling close friends of mine, and they were pinning the story on my ex-husband who would absolutely never do that. So I knew immediately it was a lie and they had nothing. These calls persisted for quite some time." Meanwhile, Scarborough, a former Florida Republican congressman, added, "We got a call: 'Hey, the National Enquirer is going to run a negative story against you guys, and Donald is friends with … the president is friends with the guy that runs National Enquirer. If you call the president up and you apologize for your coverage, then he will pick up the phone and basically spike the story.'" 

The alleged blackmail continued as Brzezinski said because Scarborough refused to ring Trump and apologize, the story kept running and as a result, her teenage daughters were harassed with frequent phone calls. "Three people at the very top of the administration calling me. The calls kept coming and kept coming, and they were like: 'Come on, Joe, just pick up the phone and call him.'" 

In response, Trump fired back at the hosts and alleged it was Scarborough who called him regarding the negative story, "Watched low rated @Morning_Joe for [the] first time in [a] long time. FAKE NEWS. He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show." The TV host retweeted Trump's tweet and wrote, "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." 

Apparently, the story in question was published on June 2, 2017, that said Brzezinski and Scarborough had an affair while they were still married to other people. The couple announced their engagement in May.

Amid all the controversy, National Enquirer released a statement that read, "At the beginning of June, we accurately reported a story that recounted the relationship between Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the truth of which is not in dispute. We do not know any discussions between the White House and Joe and Mika about our story and absolutely no involvement in those discussions," as per The Guardian. Both Scarborough and Brzezinski have had a tumultuous relationship with Trump. Firstly they were criticized for their closeness with him but later they became critical of him and his presidency.