US president Donald Trump’s “bleeding facelift” attack on a female television host has put even his Republican colleagues offside.

Mr Trump took to Twitter to launch an offensive against MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski after she criticised his administration.

He referred to Ms Brzezinski as “low IQ crazy Mika” and recalled an encounter he had with her and her co-host, former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

“How come low IQ Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came to Mar-a-Lago three nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!” he wrote.

Senior Republicans were quick to distance themselves from the comments.

“Obviously, I don’t see this as an appropriate comment,” Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said.

“What we are trying to do around here is improve the tone and civility of the debate and this obviously doesn’t do that.”

Republican senator Lindsey Graham tweeted: “Mr. President, your tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America.”

Republican senator for Nebraska Ben Sasse didn’t mince his words, tweeting, “Please just stop”.

“This isn’t normal and it’s beneath the dignity of your office,” he wrote.

Another Republican, Senator Susan Collins, said simply, “This has to stop.”

If you can't stifle the press, then you attack them personally. Today's tweets from Donald Trump are unpresidential and warrant an apology.

— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) June 29, 2017

The White House defended Mr Trump and his comments.

“I don’t think that the President has ever been someone that gets attacked and doesn’t push back,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

“People on that show have personally attacked him many times.”

In a statement to CNN, Mr Trump’s wife Melania, who is an anti-cyber bullying campaigner, also stood by her husband’s tweets.

“As the First Lady has stated publicly in the past, when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder,” her communications director Stephanie Grisham said.

Meanwhile, Ms Brzezinski, who is engaged to Mr Scarborough, has kept mum on the attack, except to tweet a photo of a box of Cheerios cereal bearing the slogan, “made for little hands”.

That’s a direct dig at Mr Trump, who is often ridiculed for the size of his hands.

Mr Scarborough has remained similarly quiet, save for retweeting the words of those who have publicly defended him and his fiancee.

According to a Vanity Fair profile of the couple, Mr Trump offered to marry them when they visited the White House in January this year.

“Jared interrupted and said, ‘Hey, you know what? I’ve got my license. I could marry you,’” Mr Scarborough told the magazine.

Mr Trump reportedly then interjected: “Why would you marry them? They could have the President of the United States marry them.”