The Morning Joe hosts held their secret meeting with Donald Trump because they feared that President-elect would allow Matt Gaetz to lead an investigation into conspiracy theories surrounding the 2001 death of Joe Scarborough’s intern.
Scarborough and his co-host/wife Mika Brzezinski have faced a barrage of backlash following the unveiling of the Mar-a-Lago summit, amid dwindling viewership on their beleaguered network.
Some called the recent Trump rally a weak attempt to bring in conservative viewers.
But the couple is reportedly “afraid of retaliation and of Gaetz opening an investigation into Joe and the intern.”
‘That’s what this was about’ a source told Puck about the motive. ‘It has nothing to do with ratings or Comcast. It’s all about fear of retaliation and investigation,’
Since 2020, Trump has spread theories that Scarborough had an affair with intern Lori Klausutis and was responsible for her death.
The 28-year-old intern worked in Scarborough’s Florida office when he was a member of Congress representing the same Florida district as Gaetz.
Klausutis died on the floor of the office after she fell and hit her head. It was later revealed that she had an undiagnosed heart problem.
The Morning Joe hosts held their secret meeting with Donald Trump amid fears that the president would allow Matt Gaetz to lead an investigation into the 2001 death of a Joe Scarborough intern.
Scarborough and Brzezinski have reportedly told friends that they are instead trying to prevent Trump from retaliating against them for their hysterical, negative reporting on the newly elected president and that Gaetz will launch an investigation into the death of Scarborough’s former intern.
The Morning Joe duo has been worried ever since Alyssa Farah Griffin testified During the January 6 hearings, it became apparent that Gaetz was very interested in the long-debunked rumor Puk.
Griffin — a former White House communications director and now co-host of The View — claimed that Gaetz had a folder of “conspiracy theories about Joe Scarborough killing his intern” that he passed to Trump.
Just a week before the election, Scarborough publicly admitted that he was concerned that Trump wanted to bring the story of Klausutis’ death back into the news.
Trump has consistently suggested there was more to the incident and that Scarborough had played a role in her death, an idea that has been debunked.
“When Donald Trump decided to attack me because he didn’t like my reporting on COVID and he lied about a woman working in my office claiming we were involved and that I had her killed,” Scarborough began his rant.
“And her widowed husband begged him to stop lying because of the excruciating pain it had caused her parents and him – the fact that he couldn’t move on for 25 years because of the lies,” he continued.
‘They could find no rest or peace. And Donald Trump didn’t care. He just kept doing it because he didn’t care what the family thought.
“He didn’t care what the man thought. He didn’t care [about] the people whose sorrows he only made worse.”
In 2020, Trump repeatedly insinuated, without evidence, that Scarborough was responsible for the 2001 death of Lori Klausutis (pictured)
The hosts have defended the Mar-a-Lago summit since making the announcement Monday, to the tune of declining ratings and backlash from both sides of the aisle.
Many have wondered if it was a ploy to win over moderate or conservative viewers or defenses in the wake of a bombshell report claiming Comcast is about to abolish MSNBC.
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 “in order 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.
The Morning Joe duo has been concerned since Alyssa Farah Griffin testified during the January 6 hearings that Gaetz was very interested in the long-debunked rumor
Trump was a regular contributor to Morning Joe, and Scarborough was an early cheerleader for the billionaire maverick for the Republican nomination in 2016
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.”
He insinuated that the two were having an affair and wrote: ‘Concast’ should open a highly anticipated Florida Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough.
‘I know him and Crazy Mika well, used them beautifully in the last elections, dumped them nicely and will go on record saying he is ‘crazy’. By the way, bad reviews! #OPENJOECOLDAFFAIR’.
This launched him into a month-long Twitter tirade as he continued to push for the case to be reopened following the death of late Scarborough staffer Lori Klausutis.
“I always felt like he got away with murder,” Trump told Fox News Channel’s Brian Kilmeade on the host’s radio show in June of that year. “That was my feeling, my very strong feeling, and I feel it too.”
Klausutis’ widower Timothy begged then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to delete the tweets because they would hurt the family.
“Please delete those tweets,” Timothy Klausutis said in the letter to Dorsey. ‘My wife deserves better.’
He added: “I have mourned my wife every day since she passed away. I have tried to honor her memory and our marriage.
“As her husband, I feel it is one of my marital obligations to protect her memory as I would have protected her in life.”
Trump had posted a series of messages on his Twitter page about Klausutis’ death while in office in May 2020
Timothy Klausutis (pictured), the husband of the late Lori Klausutis, has asked Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to delete President Trump’s tweets claiming she was murdered by her boss Joe Scarborough, the host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
The autopsy found no foul play in Klausutis’ death, and it was determined that her death was the result of an undiagnosed heart problem that caused her to pass out and fatally hit her head.
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.
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.