‘Joe & Mika Just Ended MSNBC’: Morning Hosts’ Rapprochement With Trump Stirs Backlash
Scarborough, Brzezinski reveal Friday meeting with the incoming president at Mar-a-Lago
The co-hosts of MSNBC’s popular Morning Joe dropped the bombshell on their Monday program that they had met Friday with Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
The husband and wife team’s call for a “new approach” with the incoming far-right president was stunning news for the pair, who had spent nearly every morning ahead of the election warning about Trump’s authoritarianism and fascist tendencies as an existential threat to US democracy.
Indeed, Brzezinski seemed to repeat daily the damage Trump has done to women’s healthcare as a result of the right-wing justices he installed on the US Supreme Court during his first term who overturned Roe v Wade and upended nearly half a century of a national right to abortion.
Scarborough and Brzezinski’s disclosure of their sit-down with Trump had the tone of remarks that had been well rehearsed.
The news immediately sparked a sense of betrayal online among Morning Joe’s regular viewers.
“Over the past week, Joe and I have heard from so many people, from political leaders to regular citizens, deeply dismayed by several of President-elect Trump’s Cabinet selections, and they are scared. Last Thursday, we expressed our own concerns on this broadcast and even said we would appreciate the opportunity to speak with the president-elect himself. On Friday, we were given the opportunity to do just that,” Brzezinski began. “Joe and I went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with President-Elect Trump. It was the first time we have seen him in seven years.”
Added Scarborough: “Now, we talked about a lot of issues, including abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents, and media outlets. We talked about that a good bit.
“And it’s going to come as no surprise to anybody who watches this show — has watched it over the past year or over the past decade — that we didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues, and we told him so.”
Brzezinski invoked the memory of her father —the late national security adviser for President Jimmy Carter, Zbignew Brzezinski — in the decision to meet with Trump.
“What we did agree on was to restart communications. My father often spoke with world leaders with whom he and the United States profoundly disagreed. That’s a task shared by reporters and commentators alike,” she said. “We had not spoken to President Trump since March of 2020, other than a personal call Joe made to Trump on the morning after the attempt on his life in Butler, Pa. In this meeting, President Trump was cheerful. He was upbeat. He seemed interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues.
“And for those asking why we would go speak to the president-elect during such fraught times — especially between us — I guess I would ask back, ‘Why wouldn’t we?’ Five years of political warfare has deeply divided Washington and the country. We have been as clear as we know how in expressing our deep concerns about President Trump’s actions and words in the coarsening of public debate,” Brzezinski added. “But for nearly 80 million Americans, election denialism, public trials, and January 6 were not as important as the issues that moved them to send Donald Trump back to the White House with their vote.
“Joe and I realized it’s time to do something different, and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump, but also talking with him.”
The meeting with Trump, however, was on background only and was not recorded.
The program’s viewers were not mollified, however.
Within minutes, one posted on the site Reddit expressing outrage not only at the hosts — but the cable network too.
Under the title, “Joe & Mika Just Ended MSNBC,” this viewer wrote, “This network, with great minds like Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow, has provided one of the few intelligent, deeply-sourced wellsprings for center-liberal-left Americans to make sense of politics over the past decade.
“With this ‘on background’ meeting between these two shiny half wits at Caligula’s mansion with a man who wore a Proud Boys colored cap days before the election and vows retribution, who his own generals called ‘fascist,’ has finally ruined any chance of seeing this network as something other than the vapic [sic] collaborationist corporate megaphone that it is.”
Another viewer believes that the meeting with Trump means that the pair’s reporting will be compromised.
Under the title, “Mika and Joe’s coverage will be skewed going forward. They are not to be trusted,” the viewer posted: “I can hardly believe this, but that’s the real impact of it. They will be—and have clearly already started—moderating their coverage.
“There is zero chance they will be honest with us about how they truly feel on a daily basis. Like they actually have been honest with us the past 8 years.
“Horrific things will happen most likely every day, and Mika and Joe will be parsing their words to try not to be too mean to their Dear Leader.
“You can’t take back the shit they said about him. But they’re trying, for their own personal motivations. And promising ‘different coverage’ going forward. What could that possibly mean besides ‘nicer coverage’?
“This is sickening. It’s time to wrap up the show and get people who aren’t so clearly corrupt and compromised. And I’m someone who has defended them and daily watcher for a decade.”
Hundreds of other viewers had commented on these posts by deadline.
Please support our work…
Please subscribe…