Brzezinski and Scarborough of liberal MSNBC meet Trump for ‘new approach’

Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, top morning hosts at the liberal MSNBC cable news network, have revealed that they personally met with Donald Trump about “a new approach” as well as to “restart communications” after vocally opposing his successful campaign for a second presidency.

On Monday’s edition of Morning Joe, Scarborough said he and Brzezinski spoke with the president-elect at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida three days earlier about “abortion, mass deportation, threats of … retribution against political opponents and media outlets”.

“We didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues, and we told him so,” Scarborough remarked. But Brzezinski said she and Scarborough agreed to resume a dialogue with Trump during what was their first in-person meeting in seven years.

The president-elect on Monday claimed to Trump-friendly Fox News that it was Scarborough and Brzezinski who requested the meeting. Trump asserted that the hosts “congratulated” him on his campaign during what he described as “a very positive” conversation.

Accurately anticipating condemnation from Democratic viewers and other liberals who were upset that voters returned Trump to the Oval Office in the 5 November election, Brzezinski said “why wouldn’t” she and Scarborough – her husband – meet with him.

She recounted how she and her co-host expressed “deep concerns” with Trump’s threatening rhetoric on various issues as well as the deadly US Capitol attack that his supporters launched after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. But she said none of those issues proved as important as ones that sent “Trump back to the White House”.

Brzezinski added: “Joe and I realized it’s time to do something different and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump, but also talking with him.”

Scarborough, meanwhile, cited “somebody close to … Trump” who insisted the president-elect would not try to seek a third term in defiance of the US constitution. That comment came after reports that Trump reportedly told members of the US House: “I suspect I won’t be running again, unless you do something – unless you say, ‘He’s so good, we have to just figure it out.”

“This is a president who is not seeking re-election,” Scarborough said of Trump, who served for four years beginning in 2017 and is set to be inaugurated again in January. The Morning Joe co-host then called on leaders of both political parties to find “common ground, if it’s possible at all”.

At least some viewers came away unimpressed in the immediate aftermath of Brzezinski and Scarborough’s revelation Monday. One social media account claiming to have supported Kamala Harris in her defeat to Trump wrote: “In other words, Joe and Mika went to see the king at his castle, and they bent the knee.”

Fellow MSNBC host Katie Phang notably tweeted on Monday, “Normalizing Trump is a bad idea. Period.”

Journalism professor and author Jeff Jarvis accused Brzezinski and Scarborough of inflicting a “betrayal [on] their colleagues, democracy and us all”. He tweeted: “It is a disgusting show of obeisance in advance.”

Furthermore, in a separate post, the liberal commentator and former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann wrote: “I’ve said Scarborough was the worst person I’ve ever encountered in this business. He proves me right, year after year.” Olbermann also wrote that Scarborough and Brzezinski’s network had now become “Vichy MSNBC”, in reference to the French state regime that collaborated with Nazi occupiers during the second world war.

Brzezinski and Scarborough’s show emerged as a go-to early morning option for liberals. Biden is reportedly a big fan as may have been evident when he phoned in during a Morning Joe episode in early July to explain why he was resisting demands to withdraw from re-election after a disastrous debate with Trump, though he eventually caved and made way for Harris.

On the other hand, Morning Joe repeatedly drew ire from Trump during his first presidency, when he called Scarborough “crazy” and Brzezinski “dumb as a rock”.

Scarborough used to be a Florida US congressman who left the Republican party over disagreements with Trump.

Brzezinski on Monday said it was her and Scarborough’s second conversation overall with Trump since March 2020. The first of those was a personal phone call between Scarborough and Trump shortly after the incoming president survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July, she said.

“Don’t be mistaken,” Scarborough said on Monday. “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 in understanding these deeply unsettling times.”