After President Obama mocked Elizabeth Warren for questioning his Democrat-blocked Asia trade deal, Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown accused the president of sexism in his critique of Warren. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest says the president expects an apology.

Speaking with Mika Brzezinksi and Joe Scarborough on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Earnest defended the president's "sexist" treatment of Warren when he dismissed her arguments against the trade deal in a recent interview:

BRZEZINSKI: ...one of the big stories involving the White House in the past 24 hours, and that is President Obama’s criticism of Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the trade deal, how he phrased it. There is one Democratic senator, Sherrod Brown, saying it’s a little disrespectful. Did the president perhaps overplay a bit? Would he have spoken about another senator this way?

EARNEST: Mika, I can give you all the references of the president referring to his former colleagues in the Senate by their first name. And the fact is, Sen. Warren actually used to work for the president here in the administration. So the president has a personal relationship with Sen. Warren. It’s not surprising he would call her by her first name in the same way he calls other senators by their first names.

After Earnest went on at length about how it's okay for the president and Democrats to disagree at times so long as they agree on most things, Scarborough pressed Earnest on Brown's "sexist" accusation. Earnest made clear that Obama is demanding an apology. Describing Brown as a "stand-up guy," Earnest said he thus expects that "he'll find a way to apologize":

SCARBOROUGH: So, what is your reaction to Sherrod Brown, a liberal Democrat from Ohio, suggesting the president was sexist in his comments towards Sen. Warren?

EARNEST: Joe, as somebody who gets paid to talk in public for a living, I ... try to be slow at least to criticize people who say things in public that are so inconsistent with their reputation and with their character. And Sen. Brown is somebody that has a good relationship with the president. They've worked effectively together on a number of issues. ... Sen. Brown is a stand-up guy. And I’m confident after he’s had a chance to take a look at the comments he made yesterday, that he’ll find a way to apologize.

Brown is not the only one on the left to condemn Obama's treatment of Warren as "sexist"; NOW president Terry O'Neill said Wednesday that the "clear subtext" of Obama's dismissal of Warren's concerns about the deal were clearly "sexist" and deliberately "disrespectful" to the Senator.  

Partial transcript, video via TheDC.