HEATHER CHILDERS (CO-HOST): I was surprised that he tweeted out again this morning. I was very surprised that he did that. What did you think?
HOWARD KURTZ: Well, he is entitled to defend himself and [MSNBC's Morning Joe] spent half an hour bashing him.
CHILDERS: That's true.
KURTZ: They would say they were responding to the tweet about the face lift. By the way, Mika [Brzezinski] denies it's a face lift. She had a little skin work done under her chin -- I'm just repeating what she said on the air. But here's the thing. I mean, very few people -- certainly in the media -- are defending the substance of this tweet, because it was so personal, against a woman, and he has had some problems in that regard before. But the coverage has been pretty one-sided. What's downplayed, minimized, sometimes ignored is that just about every day, Joe [Scarborough] and Mika go on the air and attack Donald Trump in often very harshly personal terms.
CHILDERS: Yeah, very disrespectful.
KURTZ: “Mentally ill, and ”he's a thug." Look, they're entitled to do that under the First Amendment, so when he hits back -- and look, I get it, he's the President, they're a couple of cable news hosts -- but I think when we tell the story here, the context should be that the battering that he has taken -- I think -- either got under his skin, or he just decided it was time to hit back.
