Former Bush official Nicolle Wallace urges White House women to 'go on the record and condemn' Trump's comments

In the wake of President Trump's virulently sexist Twitter attack on Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski on Thursday, MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace urged the White House and its female leaders to stand up to their boss.

"There's a single press strategy for this White House: It's called an apology," said Wallace, who served as the communications director under former President George W. Bush, at the top of her Thursday afternoon show. "All the women collecting paychecks from the U.S. taxpayers — Dina Powell, Kellyanne Conway, Elaine Chao, Betsy DeVos — you should all go on the record and condemn your boss' comments, and you should work behind the scenes to educate him about just how offensive they are."

Wallace also warned Republicans standing on the sidelines that their party "will be permanently associated with misogyny if leaders don't stand up and demand a retraction." Finally, she asked women who are wont to defend the president's remarks "how they plan to raise good men if the most powerful man in the world gets away with this."

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When asked about the president's tweets, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump was simply fighting "fire with fire" and said she did not feel his remarks were inappropriate. "I think the American people elected someone who's smart, who's tough, who's a fighter, and that's Donald Trump," Sanders said.

Watch Wallace's impassioned speech below. Kimberly Alters