Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, longtime co-hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, made a shocking announcement on Monday. After years of not engaging with Donald Trump, the duo went down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with the President-elect. “Joe and I realized it’s time to do something different,” Brzezinski said. “And that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump, but also talking with him.”
The pair’s visit to Trump headquarters marked the first time that Brzezinski and Scarborough had seen the President-elect in person in seven years, according to Brzezinski. They had also not spoken to Trump directly since March of 2020, aside from a short call Scarborough had made to Trump following the assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally, according to the Monday segment.
Scarborough noted that they spoke to Trump about a multitude of concerns, including abortion, immigration, and political retribution, to which he said, “We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of issues.” However, what they did agree on, was the decision to “restart communications” between the two camps. Brzezinski also challenged those who will likely question why the pair willingly met with Trump after covering him so ruthlessly throughout his administration and beyond, saying “Why wouldn’t we,” pointing to “five years of political warfare,” which has divided Washington significantly.
Brzezinski referenced her father, the late diplomat Zbigniew Brzezinski, noting that he spoke with world leaders “he and the United States profoundly disagreed,” a “task shared by reporters and commentators alike.”
While the pair were close with Trump during his first run for office in 2016, the relationship eroded significantly as the hosts became persistent critics and the former president attacked Brzezinski repeatedly while in office. On social media, Trump referred to Brzezinski as “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” and claimed in a series of posts that she had been “bleeding badly from a face-lift” at a social event held at Mar-a-Lago in 2017. Trump even promoted a conspiracy theory that Scarborough had committed murder, a line of attack the host called “extraordinarily cruel.”
News of the Morning Joe hosts détente with Trump comes as MSNBC has struggled with cratering ratings following the election of Trump earlier this month, and amid questions about whether there will be a similar appetite for “resistance” media as there was in Trump’s first term.
The week following Election Day, the cable network saw a 39% decline in viewership compared to the network’s average in October. And primetime ratings saw an even more significant decline, dropping 53% in viewership, according to Nielsen figures.
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