MEDIAITE
The political media ecosphere has been bitterly divided over Donald Trump, but an effort by Morning Joe’s co-hosts to bridge the divide and “restart communications” has ushered in a harmonic convergence of the chattering class, though not in the manner Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski may have intended.
Monday morning, the MSNBC morning show co-hosts revealed a private meeting with Trump at his Palm Beach residence, Mar-a-Lago. Mediaite’s David Gilmour explained the moment:
The MSNBC hosts led coverage throughout the presidential campaign that was previously critical of Trump and his rhetoric and actions.
Brzezinski began on Monday by acknowledging that many viewers, spanning “regular citizens” and “political leaders”, had expressed feeling “scared” and “dismayed” at Trump’s cabinet selections. As a result, she and Scarborough decided to reach out to Trump’s team to see if they could have “the opportunity to speak with the President-elect, himself.”
She continued: “On Friday, we were given the opportunity to do just that. Joe and I went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with President-elect Trump. It was the first time we have seen him in seven years.”
Scarborough, taking over the monologue to detail the conversation: “We talked about a lot of issues, including abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents and media outlets. We talked about that a good bit.”
Morning Joe has long been more of a centrist opinion program on the progressive MSNBC, but over the past 5+ years, the show has been a place for viewers to see the harshest criticism of Trump and his rhetoric, often calling the once and-future president “authoritarian,” “fascist,” and comparing his approach to that of Hitler.
