When Donald Trump Berated 'Morning Joe' Hosts, Called Them 'Crazy' and 'Dumb as Rock'

Former president Donald Trump has always been at odds with MSNBC's Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.  In 2017 he went on a verbal spat with the journalists over a petty issue. According to Variety, Trump ridiculed them saying, "Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a Rock Mika are not bad people, but their low-rated show is dominated by their NBC bosses. Too bad!" 

His response stemmed from an earlier online altercation that deemed Scarborough “Psycho Joe” and Brzezinski “Low I.Q. Crazy Mika” in a low-key sexist tweet, “I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). 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,” Trump wrote. “She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!” 

According to People, Trump's tweets came after Brezinski and Scarborough made fun of his "teenie" hands and for putting phony Time covers of himself in his golf clubs. Moreover, Brezinski noted, that the Republican leader is “lying every day and destroying the country.” As per EW, after feeling the heat of Trump's tweets, Scarborough stated that the former president “for some reason, takes things so much more personally with women. He’s so much more vicious with women.” “He always goes after Mika,” Scarborough added. “It’s always personal with Mika. He attacks women because he fears women.” 

In response to Trump, Brzezinski and Scarborough discussed the issue on MSNBC's Morning Joe as well as via a critic piece published in The Washington Post titled Donald Trump is not Well. “President Trump launched personal attacks against us Thursday, but our concerns about his unmoored behavior go far beyond the personal. America’s leaders and allies are asking themselves yet again whether this man is fit to be president. We have our doubts, but we are both certain that the man is not mentally equipped to continue watching our show, Morning Joe,” they wrote. “Putting aside Mr. Trump’s never-ending obsession with women’s blood, Mika and her face were perfectly intact, as pictures from that night reveal,” they added. 

While appearing in the segment Brzezinski assured the viewers that she was “fine”, and that “my family brought me up really tough”. “This is absolutely nothing for me personally,” she added. “But I’m very concerned about what this once again reveals about the President of the United States.” According to CNN, Trump faced extreme backlash for his comments from Republican lawmakers, "Mr. President, your tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America," Sen. Lindsey Graham wrote on X. GOP Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska criticized saying, "Please just stop. This isn't normal and it's beneath the dignity of your office." 

Meanwhile, former First Lady Melania Trump supported her husband, “As the first lady has stated publicly in the past​, when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder,” communications director, Stephanie Grisham, asserted in a statement. Additionally, the then Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also sided with Trump during the White House press briefing, saying, “Look, the American people elected a fighter. They didn’t elect somebody to sit back and do nothing.”