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Article snippet: President Trump remained embroiled in a rumpus with two cable talk-show hosts on Friday, a surreal dispute featuring allegations of extortion, dueling tweets and low-rent insults that has little precedent in recent political history. With major policy battles over health care and taxation looming, Mr. Trump has devoted two days to squabbling with the stars of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, who on Friday accused the White House of demanding they apologize to the president to keep a gossip magazine from unmasking their romantic relationship. The spectacle might seem too outlandish even for the pages of a supermarket tabloid were The National Enquirer not the magazine in question. In Friday’s installment, Mr. Scarborough told his viewers that the White House had urged him to seek Mr. Trump’s forgiveness for critical coverage, lest The Enquirer, which is controlled by a Trump ally, run a story detailing his involvement with Ms. Brzezinski, who is now his fiancée. Mr. Trump fired back on Twitter that it had been Mr. Scarborough who asked him to quash the story. “I said no!” the president wrote. The bizarre back-and-forth, which has drawn blanket coverage on cable news, left Washington veterans stupefied. “I don’t remember anything quite like this,” said Vin Weber, a Republican lobbyist and former congressman from Minnesota. But the episode also underscores several truths about a president who has yet to shed the habits of his pre-political... Link to the full article to read more