Donald Trump defends personal comments about TV hosts as 'modern day presidential'

Donald Trump has defended his Twitter usage in the wake of a bitter row over vitriolic comments he made about two high-profile TV hosts.

The US President drew widespread condemnation on Thursday for using a series of early-morning tweets to brand host Mika Brzezinski “low IQ crazy Mika”, and to claim that “she was bleeding badly from a face-lift” during a previous encounter with her.

The tweets, which were shared shortly before the end of the host’s show Morning Joe and condemned as sexist and inappropriate by both Republicans and Democrats, also attacked co-host Joe Scarborough, who Mr Trump dubbed “psycho Joe”.

President Trump, who has a history of making demeaning, misogynistic remarks about women, has now sought to defend the recent comments, tweeting: “My use of social media is not Presidential - it's MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL.”

He added: “The FAKE & FRAUDULENT NEWS MEDIA is working hard to convince Republicans and others I should not use social media - but remember I won the 2016 election with interviews, speeches and social media. I had to beat #FakeNews and did. We will continue to WIN!”

The President made similar remarks later when he addressed supporters at the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC for an evangelical event honouring veterans. He used the speech to lash out at the “fake media” and claim that the media “is trying to silence us”.

The billionaire said: “The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House, but I’m President and they’re not.”

Mr Trump claimed the media “has destroyed themselves because they went too far,” adding that “instead of being subtle and smart they used a hatchet”.

Before taking to the stage for the event, he made the rare move of pinning one of his tweets, which appeared to shift his slogan from fake news to fraud news, to the top of his personal page.

On Friday, Brzezinski and Scarborough postponed a scheduled holiday to pen an op-ed in the Washington Post in which they accused Mr Trump of being “unwell”.

The pair wrote: “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.”

In his fiercely criticised tweets, President Trump claimed Brzezinski was “bleeding badly from a face-lift” when he met the pair at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida around New Year's Eve. The presenters denied the claim that Brzezinski had a face-lift but said she “did have a little skin under her chin tweaked”.

The conflict went from bad to the worse, after the President denied claims that White House staff had warned Brzezinski and Scarborough earlier this year that the National Enquirer tabloid was planning on running a negative story about them.

Writing in the Wash Po article, the pair said White House aides had repeatedly contacted them threatening that the tabloid was going to run a negative story unless they called the President and begged him personally to kill the piece. They wrote that they declined to do so.

Referring to the claim on Friday, Mr Trump tweeted: “Watched low rated @Morning_Joe for first time in long time. FAKE NEWS. He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show.”

Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, and Brzezinski have an on-off relationship with the President. Scarborough has dramatically oscillated between being effusive, and rebuking him – although it has definitely been the latter in recent months.

According to a senior administration official, Mr Trump perceives these criticisms of his presidency to be a personal betrayal.

Until pretty recently, President Trump had a friendly relationship with the hosts, and they were even criticised for their close link to the Republican candidate during the campaign. The co-hosts, who frequently welcomed Mr Trump as a guest on their programme during his presidential bid, were even forced to deny claims they helped elect Mr Trump via their coverage of him.

Morning Joe used to be well-established as one of Mr Trump’s favourite shows.