Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski Say White House Officials Promised That National Enquirer Hit Piece Would Be Spiked if They Apologized to President Trump

As is usual every day, I woke up to this news in my Twitter feed this morning.

It's like Groundhog's Day of fake news, outrage news.

See, "Statement From The National ENQUIRER."

And the full expose, "AFFAIR GAME! Joe & Mika: TV Couple’s Sleazy Cheating Scandal."

More at Newsweek, via Mediagazer, "'MORNING JOE' HOSTS ACCUSE TRUMP OF BLACKMAILING, THREATENING THEM OVER 'NATIONAL ENQUIRER' STORY."

And from Gabriel Sherman, at New York Magazine, "What Really Happened Between Donald Trump, the Hosts of Morning Joe, and the National Enquirer":

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump used his close alliance with the National Enquirer to attack his enemies. Now that he’s President, he’s continuing to benefit from the tabloid’s support.

This morning in a Washington Post op-ed, Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski disclosed that White House officials offered to spike an Enquirer story about their romance if the pair apologized to Trump for the show’s critical coverage. In recent months, Scarborough and Brzezinski have questioned Trump’s mental state and fitness for office. They elaborated on the op-ed on MSNBC this morning. Morning Joe regular Donny Deutsch said it was “blackmail” for Trump to use a hit-piece in the Enquirer to extract an apology from media critics. Trump then tweeted a quasi-confirmation of the behind-the-scenes conversations, saying that Scarborough called to enlist his help to kill the story. Scarborough called Trump’s version a “lie,” tweeting that he never spoke to the president.

According to three sources familiar with the private conversations, what happened was this: After the inauguration, Morning Joe’s coverage of Trump turned sharply negative. “This presidency is fake and failed,” Brzezinski said on March 6, for example. Around this time, Scarborough and Brzezinski found out the Enquirer was preparing a story about their affair. While Scarborough and Brzezinski’s relationship had been gossiped about in media circles for some time, it was not yet public, and the tabloid was going to report that they had left their spouses to be together...

Still more.