Morning Joe host reveals ‘takeaway’ from his controversial meeting with Trump as fallout continues

Joe Scarborough has revealed a takeaway from his controversial meeting with President-elect Donald Trump.

The MSNBC star, 61, said on Wednesday’s episode of Morning Joe that Trump had issues with his choice for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Shortly after Trump announced Hegseth for the job, it emerged that the Fox News pundit had made a payment to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017.

“I will say about the background, in our conversation about the background there are a few things that surprised us,” Scarborough said. One was that when his name came up, there wasn’t any withdrawal, just a noticeable “we’ve got problems here.”

Scarborough also alleged that Trump’s transition team was concerned about the choice of Attorney General Matt Gaetz, who has also been accused of sex crimes.

He added, “I’ll tell you that was the conclusion because Gaetz is clearly a problem.

‘But I think there has to be more. I think they were just shocked, perhaps blinded, because there was no vetting process for these four. There have been control processes for this [Secretary of State pick Sen. Marco] Rubio.’

Trump’s unconventional cabinet choices have led to coto assure as he prepares to reenter the White House for a second term in January, and it’s becoming clear that some — like Gaetz and Heseth — will face an uphill battle to be confirmed.

Shortly after Trump announced Pete Hegseth for the job, it emerged that the Fox News pundit made a payment to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017. Hegseth with Donald Trump in the Oval Office when Trump was president

It comes as Scarborough and his wife and co-host Mika Brzezinski have been criticized for meeting with Trump to ‘restart communications’ after calling him a fascist.

MSNBC’s hosts dismissed the criticism, saying it only proves there is a “huge gap” between “social media and the real world.”

Jon Stewart mercilessly ridiculed the married co-hosts on The Daily Show on Monday.

“Joe and Mika Brzezinski Scarborough, who famously warned of the growing threat of Trump’s fascism, had an interesting announcement to make,” Stewart began.

“We haven’t learned anything!” he shouted about the couple’s meeting with Trump.

“Even those who oppose Trump’s agenda don’t seem to understand who they are dealing with.”

Stewart continued his attack on Scarborough: “Oh, I bet you really laid down the gauntlet, Joe.

“I bet you actually made it happen [Trump] You got it, didn’t you, Joey?’

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have defended themselves against the backlash after revealing they met with Donald Trump

Scarborough said she and Trump “didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of issues and we told him that.”

The View’s Ana Navarro was another liberal media figure who unleashed a blistering on-air tirade in response to the couple’s surprise visit to Mar-a-Lago last weekend.

The political strategist attacked the married MSNBC hosts during their trip to see Trump, calling it “opportunistic” during her rant. She asked if the two had “change.”[d] their stripes” because of “who has the power.”

On the MAGA side, Megyn Kelly also went after Scarborough and Brzezinski and told them to “go fuck themselves.”

“Shut the fuck up, you dishonest jokes from fake journalists,” Kelly said Monday, reminding her audience that Morning Joe hosts initially supported Trump’s bid for the presidency in 2016.

“It’s sickening, it’s so stomach-churning,” Kelly added. “They’re so disgusting.”

Kelly then claimed that Scarborough stopped supporting Trump after “Scarborough found out he would not be the vice presidential running mate.”

“He was rejected for that position and they turned on Trump because access to power is everything to that little, little guy,” the former Fox News and NBC News star said.

Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said, “Let’s be clear: Joe and Mika didn’t suddenly see the light, they saw their ratings. They realized they needed Trump to survive.”

Megyn Kelly ripped Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski for hypocrisy after meeting at Mar-a-Lago to make peace with Donald Trump

The View’s Ana Navarro unleashed a blistering on-air tirade in response to Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski’s surprise visit to Mar-a-Lago

Amid the backlash, Morning Joe staffers have insisted the Florida meeting was “f***ing worth it.”

Trump, for his part, told Fox News that he attended the meeting because to make America great again, it is very important, if not essential, to have a free, fair and open media or press.

Trump and the ‘Morning Joe’ stars have had a contentious relationship since the Republican entered politics – resulting in Scarborough leaving the Republican party.

During the 2024 election, Morning Joe repeatedly denounced Trump as a racist, sexist and fascist, telling viewers he did not deserve to be president. At one point, Scarborough said Trump was “acting completely against Hitler” and Brzezinski condemned him for repeating the “dangerous language of infamous fascist leaders.”

Brzezinski said Monday that they decided to reach out to Trump for “the opportunity to speak with the president-elect himself” because their viewers and “ordinary citizens” have expressed fear following Trump’s election and his recent Cabinet selections.

Scarborough continued, saying the three “discussed many issues, including abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retaliation against political opponents and media outlets.”

Trump was a regular contributor to Morning Joe, and Scarborough was an early cheerleader for the billionaire maverick for the 2016 Republican nomination.

But relations soured when Trump won a surprise victory in the Republican primaries and began to look like a serious challenger to Democrats’ Hillary Clinton.

Liberals and conservatives have denounced the pair, with Kelly almost at a loss for words as they “did a 180” before finding a highly profane one.

Trump appeared on the show dozens of times before the couple fell out in spectacular fashion during the 2016 election cycle

The four-hour morning show became a bastion of the Democratic establishment after Trump’s first term, with President Joe Biden routinely listening in as he did his morning exercises to watch his acolytes promote the party’s talking points.

Now that Trump is in the White House and Scarborough is engaged to co-host Brzezinski, he is beginning to cement his show’s identity as an outpost of opposition to the new administration.

The couple even recorded a Christmas album called “A Very Drumpf Christmas” of children’s songs that depicted the president as The Grinch Who Stole Christmas from Dr. Seuss.

It eventually caught the attention of the president himself, who issued a series of scathing criticisms, labeling Scarborough as “Psycho Joe” and his then-fiancée as “crazy Mika with a low IQ,” while mischievously claiming that she was “bleeding profusely from a facelift’ during a visit to his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Brzezinski later confirmed that she was recovering from cosmetic surgery during the trip.

The Morning Joe hosts and the president-elect met at Mar-a-Lago on Friday

And the feud intensified when the president revived long-debunked claims that Scarborough was involved in the death of his former congressional aide, who was found dead on his office floor in 2001.

An autopsy found that Lori Bolterstein Klausutis, 28, hit her head on a desk after collapsing from an undiagnosed heart valve irregularity, but Trump called for a new investigation into the matter.

The allegations earned Trump his first reprimand from Twitter, which would eventually kick him off the platform altogether in January 2021.