President Donald Trump has revealed new details about his meeting with MSNBC co-hosts after viewers mocked the famous television couple for “bowing the knee” to the president-elect they once branded a fascist.
Trump met with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on Friday after a tumultuous relationship over the past seven years.
During the 2024 election, they repeatedly labeled Trump a racist, sexist and fascist, telling viewers he didn’t 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.”
But the president-elect told Fox News said 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.”
“I am not looking for retaliation, grandeur or destroying people who have treated me very unfairly,” he added.
Trump said Scarborough requested the meeting and the couple traveled to Palm Beach, Florida to meet at Mar-a-Lago on Friday morning.
“A lot of things were discussed and I really appreciated that they wanted open communication,” he said. “In many ways it’s a shame this didn’t happen a long time ago.”
Trump said both presenters “congratulated me on running a ‘great and flawless campaign, one for the history books.’
Donald Trump attends a town hall with Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough
The pair had not met Trump in seven years.
But Trump appeared willing to bury the hatchet on Friday, describing the meeting as “extremely cordial.”
“The meeting ended on a very positive note and we agreed to speak in the future,” he said.
Despite developing a warm media relationship when he first ran for president in 2016, Brzezinski and Scarborough fell out with the president after he shocked the world and defeated failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Scarborough and Brzezinski quickly became highly critical of Trump’s presidency after he entered the White House and repeatedly condemned him on their morning news program.
Brzezinski in particular repeatedly criticized Trump for being “mentally ill” and speculated about his need to see a psychiatrist.
In June 2017, Trump fired back at the couple on social media, recalling how “Crazy Mika with a low IQ, along with Psycho Joe” came to Mar-a-Lago three nights in a row on New Year’s Eve and was desperate to spend time with him.
US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump jokes with host Joe Scarborough after an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe cable television show at Java Joe’s CoffeeHouse in Des Moines, Iowa.
‘She was bleeding profusely from a facelift. I said no!’ Trump wrote, referring to Brzezinski.
The relationship entered even more bizarre territory by Christmas 2017, when Brzezinski and Scarborough recorded a holiday-themed album called “A Very Drumpf Christmas” that featured songs mocking the president.
In 2018, the TV couple made it official when they married in a ceremony at the National Archives for the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, signaling their commitment to democracy.
But Trump was gracious on Friday as the couple sought to “restart” communications and map out a “new approach” ahead of his second term.
Brzezinski said they decided to reach out to Trump for “an 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.
‘We got the chance to do that on Friday. Joe and I went to Mar-a-Lago for a personal meeting with President-elect Trump,” Brzezinski revealed Monday morning.
Scarborough said they spoke about several issues putting pressure on the country and reassured viewers that she and Trump “didn’t see eye to eye on many issues and we told him so.”
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski revealed they visited President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-A-Lago this weekend
The Morning Joe hosts and the president-elect met at Mar-a-Lago on Friday
Brzezinski defended their decision, saying, “To those who ask why we would talk to the president-elect in such difficult times, especially between us, I would ask back: why wouldn’t we?”
Brzezinski said Trump was cheerful during their meeting and seemed interested in finding common ground with Democrats.
Scarborough told viewers they would not stop their criticism of the newly elected president.
“Make no mistake,” he said. “We are not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump.”
Morning Joe viewers were outraged by the news and condemned the hosts for their apparent hypocrisy.
“I don’t think you have to sit at Mar-a-Lago for 90 minutes and kiss his ring to tell the truth and tell a story, so maybe they’re not journalists in the true sense of the word, maybe they say they are opinion journalists.’ The View cohost Sunny Hostin noted this during the show on Monday.
“Normalizing Trump is a bad idea. Period,” MSNBC host Katie Phang wrote on X.com, apparently in response to the news.
Journalism professor Jeff Jarvis said the meeting was “a betrayal of their colleagues, democracy and all of us.” It is in advance a disgusting display of obeisance.’
“Making the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago is kissing the ring #MorningJoe, normalizing Trump, surrendering in advance however you try to justify it,” X user “Wendy Spirit” wrote on social media
“I hate to break it to you, Joe and Mika: You’re compromising everything when you compromise yourself like this. Embarrassing stuff, you two,” Ben Meiselas wrote about the viral left-wing politics MeidasTouch Substack. ‘As far as we are concerned: MeidasTouch will never bend the knee. We will never submit. We will never obey.”
‘I’m definitely going to stop watching Morning Joe. “I do not agree with the normalization of racism and misogyny by a rapist.” wrote media publicist Raquel Perazzo on X.
“More than any other media host, these two are responsible for the Dem party’s disastrous obsession with Liz Cheney NeverTrumpers over the working class and the destruction of the first-class Bernie movement,” wrote former MSNBC host and Breaking Points co-host Krystal Ball. “Now that they’ve helped lead the fascists in, they’re going to kiss the ring. Horrible.’