MSNBC Host Joe Scarborough hit back at New York Times columnist Paul Krugman in an interview with Politico on Wednesday, saying the attack on his claim that the Census Bureau was "cooking the books" on Obamacare was rooted in "his feelings of inadequacy."

"Paul's shrill attack is off target and wrong, as usual. I just hope the good professor can work through the humiliation of his debate performance against me and will soon stop being driven to post silly attacks because of his feelings of inadequacy. I'm pulling for him," Scarborough said in an email to Dylan Byers.

He said the blog post Krugman wrote, which didn't mention Scarborough by name but linked to a clip of him making the claim and referred to "Obamacare truthers," made him "laugh."

"I guess the Nobel Prize winning professor hasn't gotten over being embarrassed in his economics debate against an Alabama grad who read Sports Illustrated in the back of my Econ 101 classes," he wrote, referring to a joint appearance on the Charlie Rose show last year.

TPM