Just five days after CNN laid off three journalists amid a 'fake news' scandal, the channel reportedly made another slip-up on Jake Tapper's show.

On Friday Tapper reported on claims that the White House had told MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski to apologize for his negative coverage or suffer a National Enquirer 'expose' on their lives.

Unfortunately, the National Enquirer cover that was picked to illustrate the magazine's often salacious content was completely fake, Page Six reported.

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Tapped out: Jake Tapper (pictured) screened a fabricated National Enquirer cover on his show on Friday while covering the Donald Trump-Joe Scarborough blackmail allegations

Fake news: The cover (pictured) was never actually printed. Its origins are unclear. CNN said it is taking the error seriously and has escalated the matter

The cover - which may have been created as clickbait according to Page Six - promises a 'Presidential shocker!'

Dated April 16, 2016, it has the cover line 'Heidi Cruz betrayed by cheating husband!' and claims 'sensational photo proof' of a 'sordid threesome' and 'sleazy love letters.'

It also claimed that Ted Cruz was 'named in madam's black book' and promises 'the most explosive tell-all interview ever.'

Unfortunately for Tapper, the cover is literally fake news: It was never an actual cover of the newspaper, according to insiders at the National Enquirer.

It's not known where it originated, but it was shared to Ted Cruz's Twitter feed by 'DeplorableTrumpEagle' in April 2016.

CNN declined to comment to Page Six, but is reportedly taking the matter seriously and has escalated the incident to networks standards and practices department.

It's especially embarrassing for the channel as it comes less than five days after it laid off three journalists in the wake of a retracted story about Trump and Russia.

'Blackmail': Scarborough (right) and fiancee and co-host Mika Brzezinski (left) say the White House offered to pull an expose in the National Enquirer if they would apologize to Trump

The network's website broke its own protocol by printing a story with only one source about possible ties between Russia and Anthony Scaramucci, one of Trump's transition team.

Thomas Frank, Eric Lichtblau and Lex Haris were all involved in CNN's new investigative unit and left the company on Monday.

Frank wrote the deleted story, Lichtblau was an editor in the unit and Haris oversaw the unit.

Tapper's piece had been looking at claims made by Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski

On Friday Scarborough and Brzezinski claimed that they had been contacted repeatedly by White House staff who demanded they apologize to Trump for their negative coverage of his administration.

They claimed the staff offered to squash a National Enquirer expose on the couple - who are now engaged - in exchange.

That story alleged that the pair had cheated on their previous partners, and was denied by the couple.

But both Trump and White House insiders have not only denied those claims, but said that Scarborough had approached them about stopping the story.

On Friday, an hour after the claims aired, Trump tweeted: 'FAKE NEWS. He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show.'

And inside sources told Fox News that Scarborough had called Jared Kushner and asked him to get Trump to shut down the story.

Trump is friends with David Pecker, who runs the National Enquirer's parent company.

Denial: The White House said Scarborough had in fact contacted them to ask for Trump to speak to his friend David Pecker (pictured with wife Karen and Playboy bunnies), who is chief executive of the National Enquirer's parent company

Scarborough said he couldn't call the president directly because Trump was upset with the negative coverage, the sources said.

Kushner refused to act as a go-between and told him he would have to apologize to Trump, the sources claimed.

Scarborough furiously told Trump that he was a liar online after the tweeted denials.

These latest twists came after Trump lashed out at Brzezinski on Twitter, claiming she had showed up at Mar-a-Lago on New Year's Eve still bleeding from plastic surgery.

She said she'd had a neck tuck but said that she was all healed up - and that Trump had been eager to get the contact info of her plastic surgeon; many derided the president's tweet as sexist.

On Saturday morning Trump reignited the controversy when he tweeted about the pair again, saying: 'Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people, but their low rated show is dominated by their NBC bosses. Too bad!'