"We got a call that, 'Hey, the National Enquirer is going to run a negative story against you guys...' And they said, 'If you call the president up, and you apologize for your coverage, then he will pick up the phone and basically spike this story," Scarborough said.
Dylan Howard, the chief content officer for the Enquirer's parent company American Media, said "we accurately reported" the story, but "at no time did we threaten either Joe or Mika or their children in connection with our reporting on the story."
Brzezinski suggested otherwise.
"Let me explain what they were threatening," she said. "They were calling my children. They were calling close friends."
She said "these calls persisted for quite some time, and then Joe had the conversations that he had with the White House where they said 'Oh, this could go away.'"
In response, White House press secretary Sean Spicer
told reporters that he is "not aware" of White House officials pressing Scarborough to call up Trump and make nice.
The president himself weighed in via Twitter a few minutes later. He said he heard what Scarborough said on "Morning Joe," but claimed that it's untrue: "He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show."
Scarborough responded quickly to Trump's tweet with one of his own, writing, "Yet another lie. I have texts from your top aides and phone records. Also, those records show I haven't spoken with you in many months."