Mitt Romney calls out ‘vile’ Donald Trump murder accusations against ‘psycho’ Joe Scarborough

President escalates his campaign against MSNBC host and Twitter

“Never Trumper” Mitt Romney stepped in to defend his friend and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough on Wednesday after the president renewed his Twitter feud against the MSNBC host.

The Utah senator called the accusations vile and baseless after Donald Trump escalated his campaign against “psycho Joe” over the death of a former staffer Lori Klausutis, who died in Mr Scarborough’s office when he was a Florida congressman, also empathising with Klausutis’ husband.

“I know Joe Scarborough. Joe is a friend of mine. I don’t know TJ Klausutis. Joe can weather vile, baseless accusations but TJ? His heart is breaking. Enough already,” Mr Romney said.

Widower Mr Klausutis wrote a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to remove the president’s tweets, promoting the claims of a cover-up or foul play in the death of his wife, who reportedly had an undiagnosed heart problem at the time of her death.

While Twitter refused to remove the messages, they began adding fact-check warnings to the president’s tweets that Mr Trump has called election interference and vowed to take action on.

“Psycho Joe Scarborough is rattled, not only by his bad ratings but all of the things and facts that are coming out on the Internet about opening a Cold Case. He knows what is happening!” the president said on Wednesday morning.

While the efforts of Mr Klausutis and “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brezezinski failed in their campaign to have Twitter change its policies to ban the president’s claims, Mr Scarborough said he appreciated the kindness shown by old friends and colleagues.

“I assure you that my family is incredibly blessed and asks only that you pray for Lori’s family tonight. May God also soften the hearts of those who continue to slander this good woman’s memory,” he wrote.

When asked at a White House event whether he had seen the letter from Mr Klausutis to Twitter, the president maintained that his continued signal boosting of the claims was in the family’s best interests.

“Yeah, I have,’ Mr Trump said of the letter. “But I’m sure ultimately they want to get to the bottom of it and it’s a very serious situation.

“It’s a very suspicious thing and I hope somebody gets to the bottom of it. As you know there’s no statute of limitations so it would be a very good thing to do.”

Ms Klausutis worked for Mr Scarborough in 2001, and the president has insinuated that the two had an affair around the time that she died.

“I also saw a clip with Joe and Imus where they were having a lot of fun at her expense and I thought it was totally inappropriate,” Mr Trump said, referring to a 2003 interview with radio host Don Imus in which Mr Scarborough appeared to joke about killing an intern.

Ms Brezezinski, the wife of Mr Scarborough, defended the interaction that was raised by White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Tuesday.

“Imus made the callus joke in 2003 during a break and then repeated it on air. Joe was embarrassed and said, ‘what are you going to do?’ trying to move on to talk about the show,” she said in a tweet.