'This is pretty nuts': Reporter grills Kayleigh McEnany over Trump's Joe Scarborough murder smear

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany defiantly pushed back on criticism of President Donald Trump for suggesting that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough is guilty of murdering intern Lori Klausutis.

"The opening of a Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough was not a Donald Trump original thought, this has been going on for years, long before I joined the chorus," Trump wrote in a tweet, "about whether or not Joe could have done such a horrible thing? Maybe or maybe not, but I find Joe to be a total Nut Job, and I knew him well, far better than most. So many unanswered & obvious questions, but I won’t bring them up now! Law enforcement eventually will?"

On Tuesday, McEnany was asked if Trump would honor a request from Klausutis' family to take down the tweet.

"I do know that our hearts are with Lori's family at this time," McEnany said without answering the question.

"Why is the president making these unfounded allegations?" ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl asked. "This is pretty nuts, isn't it? The president is accusing somebody of possible murder. The family is pleading with the president to please stop unfounded conspiracy theories. Why is he doing this?"

After glancing at her prepared remarks, McEnany accused Scarborough of "joking about killing an intern" years after Klausutis died.

"I'm sure that was hurtful to Lori's family," she added.

"He's the president of the United States," Karl pointed out, "and he's accusing somebody of possibly murder. This is different. He's not a private citizen. He's the president."

"Yeah," McEnany said, returning to her notes. "Joe Scarborough, if we want to start talking about false accusations, we have quite a few we can go through."

"I'm asking about the president's allegations," Karl pressed.

"And I'm replying to you," McEnany quipped. "Mika [Brzezinski] accused the president of 100,000 deaths and that's incredibly irresponsible. They've dragged his family through the mud. They've made false accusations that I won't go through."

"They should be held to account for their falsehoods!" she complained. "Joe Scarborough should be held to account for saying people will die by taking hydroxychloroquine."

"Does that justify the president spreading a false conspiracy theory?" Karl wondered.

"I will point you back to Joe Scarborough who laughed and joked about this item," McEnany shot back. "It's Joe Scarborough that has to answer these questions."

Watch the video below from Fox News.