Joe Scarborough lied when he said that the White House threatened to have a nasty article about him and co-host Mika Brzezinski printed in the National Enquirer, it has been alleged.

On Friday, Scarborough and Brzezinski, who are also engaged, said Donald Trump's staff demanded they apologize to him for their unfavorable coverage or face an Enquirer story about their relationship.

But both the White House and Trump have denied that - and say that Scarborough went to Jared Kushner begging for help with the expose, Fox News reported.

On Friday Joe Scarborough (right) claimed that the White House had threatened him and co-host/fiancee Mika Brzezinski (left) with a National Enquirer story; now sources say that's a lie

Morning Joe host Scarborough, who is friendly with the president's close aide, approached Kushner because he hoped the president would be able to help, sources claimed.

Trump is a long-time friend of David Pecker, who is the chief executive of American Media, which owns the tabloid.

Insiders say Scarborough called Jared Kushner asking if he could ask Donald Trump to squash the story because Trump is mad at negative coverage; they say Kushner told him to apologize rather than act as a go-between

Kushner said Scarborough should talk to the president directly, at which point the host said he couldn't because Trump was mad at his coverage on Morning Joe.

'Well then, maybe you should apologize,' Kushner reportedly told Scarborough.

That story was agreed upon by two White Hosue sources who told the Daily Beast that Scarborough had 'calmly sought' advice from Kushner, who 'recommended he speak with the president.'

'This is getting blown up on Twitter and elsewhere as some kind of blackmail operation,' one of the sources said.

'The truth is far more mundane. In this case, Joe was talking to Jared about his [bad] relationship with the president and a Enquirer hit piece he was uneasy about.'

Trump had made a similar claim an hour after Scarborough and Brzezinski accused his staff of blackmail on Friday.

'Watched low rated @Morning Joe for first time in long time,' he tweeted. 'FAKE NEWS. He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show.'

Trump is friends with David Pecker (pictured with wife Karen and three Playboy bunnies), who is chief executive of the Enquirer's parent company. Scarborough hoped that connection might stop the story, sources said

After the president's tweet, Scarborough replied: '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.'

'Why do you keep lying about things that are so easily disproven? What is wrong with you?' he asked.

Trump, who made the tweets just before going into an Oval Office meeting with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, did not reply.

Scarborough said on Friday's program that three senior White House officials told him: 'If you call the president up and you apologize for your coverage, then he will pick up the phone and basically spike this story.

'The response was like, are you kidding me?' he said.

The Morning Joe hosts had claimed that the White House was demanding an apologetic call in exchange for killing the Enquirer's story, which ran early in June

Trump responded with outrage on Twitter more than an hour after they made their on-air claims, saying Scarborough had called him

Brzezinski said that their home had been staked out and that they had received multiple calls from the White House trying to blackmail them into apologizing to Trump.

She said they then decided: 'Screw it, let them run it... We’re not calling.'

The National Enquirer did run a story about their relationship on June 5, 2017, almost a month after they confirmed their engagement and dished about their love story to Vanity Fair.

It claimed that the couple 'started hooking up while married to other people' and 'used ironclad divorce deals to keep their dirty secret!'

Brzezinski also claimed the tabloid called her children, her ex-husband and her close friends.

Scarborough tweeted back at Trump, furthering the feud on public display. The Enquirer story claimed that Scarborough and Brzezinski had cheated on their former spouses

The news anchor couple claimed their home had been staked out and that they had been contacted multiple times by people telling them to apologize

The Enquirer said in a statement after the Trump-Scarborough dispute on Twitter that the 'truth' of its report is not and never was in dispute.

'At no time did we threaten either Joe or Mika or their children,' the statement said, refuting a key complaint of the couple in their on-air telling of the White House's alleged harassment.

'We have no knowledge of any discussions between the White House and Joe and Mika about our story.'

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told a New York Magazine reporter that he was 'not aware' that anyone working for the president had threatened the MSNBC hosts.

'That would be news to me,' he said of Scarborough and Brzezinski's claims.

Enquirer Editor in Chief Dylan Howard also told the reporter that Pecker never spoke to him about burying the story and does not have control over the tabloid's contents.

'No one controls the editorial decision making process at the National Enquirer other than me,' he said.