Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski visited Mar-a-Lago to meet President-elect Donald Trump, they revealed.
Scarborough and Brzezinski have been highly critical of Trump leading up to the election, calling him “erratic,” slamming his election fraud efforts and warning of “how dark of a place” the US would be if Trump won. But after airing their concerns with a second Trump presidency, the pair met with Trump Friday for the first time in seven years to “restart communications.”
“We talked about a lot of issues including abortion, mass deportations, threats of political retribution against political opponents and media outlets,” Scarborough said on Monday. “It’s gonna come as no surprise to anybody who watches this show…that we didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of issues and we told him so.”
Brzezinski said: “What we did agree on was to restart communications.”
She continued: “We had not spoken to Trump since March of 2020, other than a personal call that Joe made after the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania.”
During the meeting, the president-elect seemed “ cheerful” and “upbeat” and “interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues,” Brzezinski added.
For those wondering why they would meet with Trump at such a “fraught” time, Brzezinski said she would reply: “Why wouldn’t we?”
“Five years of political warfare has deeply divided Washington and the country,” she said.
Morning Joe has been clear in expressing “deep concerns” about Trump’s “actions and words,” but for nearly 80 million Americans, “election denialism, public trials, January 6, were not as important as the issues that moved them to send Donald Trump back to the White House with their vote,” Brzezinski said.
So, the co-hosts realized they wanted to take a different approach today, she continued.
Scarborough tried to instill hope, adding that someone close to Trump told him over the weekend that since he’s not seeking re-election this time around, “maybe, just maybe now could be time for both parties to get to work.”
Given the tightness of the election, it “seems to make sense for leaders of both parties to seek common ground if it’s possible at all,” Scarborough said.
The pair spoke to top Democrats over the weekend as well, who signaled it was time for a new approach and that they were open to working with the president-elect if he’s open to working with them, Scarborough explained.
But, they emphasized, threatening political opponents with arrest, harassment and even jail will not work.
“We know this will be a consequential presidency. The question is whether it will be constructive,” Brzezinski said. “It will take a new approach from all sides, from both parties, and a leader who will bring them together. Only time will tell if Donald Trump is that leader.”
The co-hosts made clear they will still push back on Trump when necessary.
“Don’t be mistaken,” Scarborough said. “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.”
