MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, fierce critics of President-Elect Donald Trump, say they traveled to Mar-a-Lago for a meeting with him to reopen lines of communication that would better serve their morning show viewers. With feelings still raw two weeks after the election, their journey hasn't gone over that well with many fans and critics of “Morning Joe.” The show's anchor team had been so critical of Trump that, in September, Scarborough said that “it's not a reach” to compare him to Hitler.
MSNBC pulled “Morning Joe” from the air the Monday after the assassination attempt on Trump this past summer. On Monday's show, the hosts said they had reached out to Trump last Thursday and met with him the next day in Florida. “It was the first time we have seen him in seven years,” Brzezinski said.
She said Trump was “cheerful, upbeat,” even as the three of them discussed issues they disagreed on. “What we did agree on was to restart communications,” she said. Her father, the late Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser in Jimmy Carter's administration, often spoke with world leaders he disagreed with, and she said that's a job for journalists and commentators too.
“For those asking why we would speak to the president-elect during such fraught times, especially between us, I guess I would ask back, ‘Why wouldn’t we?'” Brzezinski said. Trump confirmed the meeting in an interview with Fox News Digital. “I very much apprecia.