Less surprisingly, left-wing politicians, journalists and public figures also condemned Trump’s tweets. “Surely you are kidding?” tweeted actress Patricia Arquette. “Grow up you embarrassment. I have seen more class and decorum from lice.”

She added: “There is a lot of gossip about you on the street that hasn’t been in the press – yet. At a certain point you are going to open the flood gates of hell against you and people will start talking. People who normally wouldn’t.”

Mark Kornblau, a spokesman for NBC News, said that he had “never imagined a day when I would think to myself, ‘It is beneath my dignity to respond to the President of the United States.’”

CNN’s Brian Stelter, meanwhile, tweeted a photo of Brzezinski from December which appeared to contradict Trump’s claim that she had been “bleeding from a face lift”.

Anti-cyberbullying advocate Melania Trump endorses husband’s cyberbullying