After spending the past eight years demonizing Donald Trump on their MSNBC morning show, a chastened Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski told their audience Monday that they now believe the President-Elect can unify Republicans and Democrats.
Scarborough and his “Morning Joe” cohost/wife Brzezinski have compared Trump to Adolf Hitler and described him as a “dictator,” “autocrat,” “fascist” and “racist” who would have his political enemies “arrested” and “executed” if reelected.
Ten days after his reelection, the couple traveled to Palm Beach Florida to meet with Trump and “restart communications.”
Brzezinski said a “cheerful” Trump appeared “interested in finding common ground with Democrats” during their meeting Friday morning, and that “after five years of political warfare,” it was now time to “not only talk about Donald Trump, but also talk with him.”
Scarborough, 61, noted that in a deeply divided country where the Republican got the majority of votes, it was important for people to seek common ground
He said: “Now, 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. And it’s going to come as no surprise to anyone who watches this show … that we didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of issues and we told him so.”
Despite their differences, the former Republican congressman expressed optimism that the parties can unify and get some work done for the American people.
“This is a president who is not seeking reelection, so maybe—just maybe, now could be the time for both parties to get to work,” he told his audience.
“A lot of Democratic leaders we’ve talked to [said] it’s time for a new approach,” Scarborough added. “They said – we’re open to working with the incoming president.”
Trump told Fox News Digital in an interview published Monday that the meeting was “extremely cordial” and happened at the couple’s request.
“I received a call from Joe Scarborough requesting a meeting for him and Mika, and I agreed that it would be a good thing if such meeting took place,” Trump said. “We met at Mar-a-Lago on Friday morning at 8:00.”
“Many things were discussed, and I very much appreciated the fact that they wanted to have open communication,” he continued. “In many ways, it’s too bad that it wasn’t done long ago.”
Trump added that they “congratulated me on running a ‘great and flawless campaign, one for the history books,’ which I really believe it was, but it was also a campaign where I worked long and hard — perhaps longer and harder than any presidential candidate in history.”
“We talked about various Cabinet members — both announced and to be announced. As expected, they like some very much, but not all,” Trump said. “The meeting ended in a very positive manner, and we agreed to speak in the future.”
Trump added, “I expect this will take place with others in the media, even those that have been extremely hostile.”
The president-elect told Fox News that feels he has “an obligation to the American public, and to our country itself, to be open and available to the press.”
“If not treated fairly, however, that will end,” Trump said. “The media is very important to the long-term success of the United States of America.”
Conservative pundits on Monday flamed the Morning Joe hosts on social media for “bending the knee” to Trump only 22 days after describing his campaign rally at Madison Square Garden as a Nazi rally.
“Hitler getting a lot more meeting requests than I would’ve thought,” Republican strategist and CNN contributor Scott Jennings wrote on X.
Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York posted: “Annals of shamelessness: They call Trump a fascist, and much, much more, and then, just 22 days after his ‘Nazi-like’ rally, they fly to Florida for an audience.”
Free Press columnist Eli Lake wrote, “Why would Trump bother talking to these people other than to urge them to seek mental health counseling?”
“Once again… Democrats never actually thought Trump was Hitler or a fascist dictator,” wrote Geiger Capitol on X. “If you were propagandized, it’s ok. You got played.”
As always happens when I consider the mainstream media & its behavior in the last few years (decades), I am of two minds… One thought is that these to sycophantic propagandists deserve every last bit of public shaming, scorn, recriminations, questions regarding their character( or lack thereof), etc. that could be heaped on their heads. The second is Trump is displaying a great deal more grace in his behavior towards them than I would be able to do. The final thought is the utter satisfaction that it is entirely possible that these two people are very likely going down in flames, all due to the slavering mob they helped create & perpetuated for years.