There once was a time when Joe Scarborough and his MSNBC cohost-turned-wife, Mika Brzezinski, were considered friendly with Donald Trump. During his initial presidential run in 2016, Scarborough and Trump’s close relationship was called an “increasing source of discomfort” inside NBC News, as reported by CNN.
Scarborough — who before his career in media was a Republican Congressman from Florida — admitted that he gave Trump advice while he was running, although that friendship did not last long. He and the MSNBC host were often at odds during Trump’s presidency, with the Morning Joe show joining the rest of the MSNBC lineup as sharp Trump critics.
Trump described Brzezinski as Scarborough’s “girlfriend” before it became public knowledge that they were a couple, and by early 2020, he was sharing a baseless conspiracy theory that Scarborough was responsible for the 2001 death of an intern in his office when he was a member of Congress. Former Trump White House staffer Alyssa Farah said on TV last week that it was Matt Gaetz, a fellow Florida politician and Trump’s pick for attorney general, who turned Trump on to the Scarborough murder conspiracy.
Alyssa Farah Griffin Reveals Matt Gaetz Gave an Oval Office Presentation to Trump About Bonkers Joe Scarborough Murder Conspiracy https://t.co/oDkPsR81PP
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) November 14, 2024
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Now, with Trump headed back to the Oval Office, it appears there has been a detente between Scarborough and Trump.
On Morning Joe Monday, Scarborough and Brzezinski revealed that they met with Trump over the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, in their first in-person meeting with him in seven years. March of 2020 — during the period when Trump was accusing Scarborough of murder — was the last time they spoke with Trump, although Scarborough did say that he made a call to Trump after this summer’s assassination attempt.
NEW
On MSNBC, @morningmika and @JoeNBC say that they went to Mar-a-Lago this weekend and met with President-elect Trump for the first time in seven years.
Mika says that despite “profound disagreements,” they agreed with Trump to restart communications. pic.twitter.com/7rZwQkleWJ
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) November 18, 2024
“We didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues and we told him so,” Scarborough said on the show. They disagree on many issues, he said, but per Brzezinksi, “what we did agree on was to restart communications.”
How this move plays with the MSNBC audience is an open question, as a big part of the network’s identity, for the past decade, has been about resistance to Trump.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
