Morning Joe lit the media sphere aflame on Monday when co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski revealed they had met with President-elect Donald Trump.
But a source close to the show claimed the meeting “was f---ing worth it,” given it may have spurred Trump’s subsequent public praise of a free press.
“That doesn’t mean there are going to be earth-shaking changes,” the source added. “But the temperature has to come down.”
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Scarborough and Brzezinski revealed on their Monday show they went to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump, after years of vitriolic barbs thrown at each other, to “take a new approach” to thawing their icy relationship.
Critics have since accused the two of trying to curry favor with the incoming administration, especially since Trump has verbally targeted nearly every network—including MSNBC—with threats of revoking their use of public airwaves.
The source close to the show said those attacking the hosts were “part of the problem we’re in” in an era of inflammatory rhetoric. To not try and meet with the incoming U.S. president, they added, would run counter to the anchors' roles as journalists.
“You never turn down that opportunity,” they said. “That would be journalistic malpractice.” Another NBC source noted that “any practicing journalist or news host would take an off the record meeting with the incoming President of the United States. End of discussion.”
The source close to the show argued the meeting, which was not disclosed to MSNBC bosses prior to its arrangement, may have contributed to Trump toning down—at least temporarily—his anti-media rhetoric. In a Fox News interview Monday Trump said it was “very important, if not vital, to have a free, fair and open media or press.”
“We don’t discuss network leadership’s conversations with hosts,” an MSNBC spokesperson said.
According to Trump, the “cordial” meeting took place on Friday morning after Scarborough reached out to set it up. “I agreed that it would be a good thing if such meeting took place,” he said.
“Many things were discussed, and I very much appreciated the fact that they wanted to have open communication,” he said. “In many ways, it’s too bad that it wasn’t done long ago.”
Scarborough and Brzezinski said during Monday’s Morning Joe that they had spoken to Trump about everything from abortion to illegal immigration to threats against the press. Brzezinski described Trump as “upbeat,” “cheerful,” and “interested in finding common ground with Democrats” on divisive issues.
She was also clear on the broadcast to those questioning the meeting: ”I guess I would ask back, ‘Why wouldn’t we?‘"
Still, the subsequent criticism of the meeting has been vocal, particularly since Scarborough once characterized Trump’s tendencies as fascist—“It’s time that fascism is called fascism and Americans know exactly what they’re voting for”—and Brzezinski attacked then-President Trump as “a cruel, sick, disgusting person” for raising the baseless conspiracy theory Scarborough murdered a young staffer during his time as a GOP congressman.
MSNBC’s Katie Phang appeared to subtweet the show on X hours after the announcement, writing that “Normalizing Trump is a bad idea. Period.” Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann attacked Scarborough a “political whore,” while former GOP congressman Adam Kinzinger lamented that no interview emerged from Friday’s conversation.
“The fact that they went without getting an interview, but just to make up, is worse,” he wrote on X.
Scarborough seemed to subtly respond to the couple’s critics on Monday afternoon, quietly posting Trump’s comments to Fox News on X without any additional comment.
