On Friday morning, MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski repeatedly suggested President Donald Trump is not the biological father of 13-year-old Barron Trump.
“We’re going to have Donald Trump, yesterday, I think it was yesterday, in the White House, talking about Melania’s son,” said Joe Scarborough, “Morning Joe” co-host and husband to Brzezinski.
“Maybe it is Melania’s son,” Brzezinski interrupted.
“It is Melania’s son?” Scarborough responded, attempting to squash the implication.
“Well, that’s what he was saying. He was saying it was just her son,” Brzezinski said, referring to President Trump discussing a coming ban on flavored vaping products on Wednesday in the Oval Office. “It’s not — that’s just what he said.”
Scarborough again tried to run interference for his wife: “Let me get back to Biden, because I don’t know exactly what you’re saying.”
“It seems that he didn’t remember Barron’s name or —,” Brzezinski continued.
“Just stop, just stop,” the co-host again tried to quiet his wife.
President Trump, sitting alongside First Lady Melania Trump, welcomed reporters into the Oval on Wednesday to discuss his administration’s coming crackdown on vaping products. While talking to reporters, Trump emphasized the motherhood of the First Lady to explain her push for the ban.
“Vaping has become a very big business as I understand it, like a giant business in a very short period of time. But we can’t allow people to get sick, and we can’t have our youth be so affected,” Trump told reporters. “And I’m hearing it, and that’s how the First Lady got involved. She’s got a son, together, that is a beautiful young man and she feels very, very strongly about it.”
Brzezinski used the momentary pause Trump took before adding the word “together” to apparently rationalize suggesting some bizarre conspiracy on daytime cable television.
WATCH:
The ugly showing from Brzezinski was criticized online. The Hill reporter Joe Concha commented, “The next time you listen to Mika do a speech on the need to raise civility and discourse in the country, take this out of the retort file.”
“If you want to debate policies, that’s one thing,” posted GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. “But there’s no excuse for attacking President Trump’s 13-year-old child. Kids should be off limits.”
“Why don’t MSNBC and Mika Brzezinski think that applies to [Donald Trump]?” she asked. “Her comments are indefensible.”
“The next time [Mika] rages against [Donald Trump]’s ‘attacks on the media’ remember this video,” posted The Reagan Battalion. “This is absolutely disgusting on so many levels!!! Kids should be off limits, always. Vile disgusting trash.”
Last year, Mrs. Trump told Fox New’s Sean Hannity that her son should be “off limits” to the press.
“It does make me angry, because children should be off limits,” the First Lady told Hannity about media attacks on her child, according to Newsweek.
“I protect [Barron], and I want to give him as normal a life as possible. This is not a normal life, but I like to protect him and give him the childhood he deserves,” she said.
“He’s strong, he’s tough, he’s enjoying life in Washington,” Mrs. Trump said of her child, who was then 12 years old, adding that Barron is “a fighter. He has a soft, beautiful heart, but he’s a fighter too.”