The hosts of MSNBC‘s Morning Joe met with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday to speak with him for the first time in several years, according to the hosts.
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski went to Trump to express their concerns after several of his Cabinet nominations “deeply dismayed” the public.
“Joe and I went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with President-elect Trump,” Brzezinski said. “It was the first time we have seen him in seven years.”
Brzezinski’s husband and co-host, Scarborough, said the pair talked with Trump on “a lot of issues,” including abortion, mass deportation, and threats against political opponents and media outlets.
“It’s gonna come as no surprise to anybody who watches this show … that we didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues and we told him so,” he said.
The pair did agree to restart communications with Trump.
Brzezinski said Trump was “cheerful,” upbeat, and interested in finding common ground with Democrats “on some of the most divisive issues.” She also explained the pair’s desire to meet with him, given that they’ve compared Trump to Hitler in the past and openly aired their hostility toward him.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Brzezinski asked. “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.”
” … Joe and I realized it’s time to do something different,” she continued. “That starts with not only talking about Donald Trump but also talking with him.”
Trump expressed his side of the story in an interview with Fox News on Monday. He said the meeting was “extremely cordial.”
“Many things were discussed, and I very much appreciated the fact that they wanted to have open communication,” he said. “In many ways, it’s too bad that it wasn’t done long ago.”
The president-elect added that the pair “congratulated me on running a ‘great and flawless campaign, one for the history books,’ which I really believe it was, but it was also a campaign where I worked long and hard — perhaps longer and harder than any presidential candidate in history.”
“We talked about various Cabinet members — both announced and to be announced. As expected, they like some very much, but not all,” Trump said. “The meeting ended in a very positive manner, and we agreed to speak in the future.”
He expects future meetings with the media, “even those that have been extremely hostile,” to take place.
Trump has had a hot-and-cold relationship with media throughout his presidential campaigns. While he has expressed his satisfaction with the substantial media attention his campaign received, he also relentlessly criticized them when he felt they were unfair.
Trump added that he has “an obligation to the American public, and to our country itself, to be open and available to the press.”
“If not treated fairly, however, that will end,” Trump said. “The media is very important to the long-term success of the United States of America.”
The president-elect expressed that he’s willing to give the media three chances but will “hold the line” at a fourth one. Nevertheless, he thanked the “many reporters, journalists, shows, and new media sources, of which there are many, who were truthful, honest and professional over the years of both my presidency and candidacies.”
Scarborough and Brzezinski’s meeting with Trump quickly ignited an uproar among liberals and liberal commentators who opposed the dialogue with Trump.
“To political reporters, commentators, liberals, moderates: After this fawning, humiliating, network-destroying surrender, if you go on @Morning_Joe you have endorsed and bought into #VichyMSNBC,” former MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann posted on X.
Scarborough preempted some of those attacks on the show.
“We are not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump. We are here to report on him and to hopefully provide you insights that are going to better equip all of us to understand these deeply unsettling times,” he said.
The meeting comes shortly before Trump nominated his FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr, who pointed out NBC’s possible violation of the “equal time” rules after the network hosted Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday Night Live. The network later broadcast two 60-second Trump ads to meet the rule, but the meeting between Trump and the hosts could be seen as pandering from the network as it braces for any consequences headed its way.
In a recent post on X, Carr laid out his plans to enforce FCC rules.
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“Broadcast media have had the privilege of using a scarce and valuable public resource — our airwaves. In turn, they are required by law to operate in the public interest. When the transition is complete, the FCC will enforce this public interest obligation,” he wrote.
It could also serve to insulate NBC from Trump’s criticism and litigation. He showed little fear in blasting 60 Minutes for its editing of a Harris interview in October, and the campaign later sued the network for it.