‘Donald, you’re a sick person’: TV host lashes out at Trump for suggesting husband got away with murder

Mika Brzezinski, co-host of Morning Joe on MSNBC, has demanded action from Twitter about tweets from President Donald Trump that she says violate their policies.

Closing out Wednesday morning’s show with a fiery rebuke of the president for pushing conspiracy theories about her co-host and husband, Joe Scarborough, Ms Brzezinski also told Twitter that she would be following up with them.

“Twitter, you shouldn’t be allowing this, and you should be taking these tweets down, and you should be ashamed of yourself. You’ll be hearing from me, on this, because this is BS,” she said.

“Donald, you’re a sick person. You’re really a cruel, sick, disgusting person,” Ms Brzezinski added. “And you can keep tweeting about Joe, but you’re just hurting other people, and of course you’re just hurting yourself.”

The president has been tweeting about the death of Lori Klausutis, an intern for Mr Scarborough when he was in Congress, claiming that the circumstances were suspicious and that the then Florida congressman was responsible.

Ms Klausutis was found dead at her desk in July 2001. An autopsy revealed an undiagnosed heart problem that caused her to lose consciousness and strike her head.

Ms Brzezinski’s anger was not just about the accusations made against her husband, but also on the pain this would cause, again, for Ms Klausutis’ family. She also tied the president’s actions to his response to the coronavirus pandemic.

She said: “To put this family through this, to put her husband through this, to do this just ’cause you’re mad at Joe, because Joe got you again today. Because he speaks the truth, and he speaks plainly about your lack of interest, and empathy in others, and your lack of ability to handle this massive human catastrophe, the fact that you have made it worse and you make it worse every day.”

After the show, Ms Brzezinski took to Twitter herself, following up on her call for a response from the social media company.

“I will be reaching out to head of twitter about their policies being violated every day by President Tump [sic]. Hope my call is taken. Please retweet if you agree,” she said, before addressing Twitter founder Jack Dorsey directly.

“@jack please take my call today. Please stop allowing your platform policies to be abused by the day. It’s called libel.”

In another tweet she called for Mr Trump’s whole account to be taken down.

An hour later she revealed that a call is being set up with Mr Dorsey and the company’s general counsel.

Ms Brzezinski also pointed out that Twitter has deleted misleading tweets from another head of state — Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.

The Morning Joe co-hosts have had a tumultuous relationship with the president since he took office.

During the 2016 campaign Mr Trump would frequently call in live to the broadcast, but after his election things soured and open hostilities ensued via Twitter and editorial comment on the politics-focussed breakfast show.