MSNBC 'Morning Joe' hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago 'to restart communications'
MSNBC Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski met with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago this weekend, seven years after their last conversation.
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The pair, who were formerly friends with Trump, became passionate detractors during his first time in office, and he reciprocated by periodically tearing into them in tweets on X (now Twitter). They announced their trip at the beginning of Monday's show, admitting that his emphatic victory impacted their choice.
"Joe and I realized it's time to do something different and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump, but also talking with him," Brzezinski said. "For people who wonder why we would go speak to the president-elect at such difficult times, particularly amongst us, I think I would respond, why wouldn't we? Five years of political strife have severely split Washington and the country."
The pair said that Trump seemed positive during their visit, and that the only communication they have had in recent years was a phone call Scarborough made the day after the assassination attempt last summer.
"We talked about a lot of issues, including abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents and media outlets," Scarborough said. "We spoke about it quite a bit. It will come as no surprise to anyone who has seen this program in the last year or decade that we did not agree on many subjects, and we told him so."
"What we did agree on was to restart communications," Brzezinski added. "My father [former Jimmy Carter national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski] frequently interacted with international leaders with whom he and the United States had significant disagreements. "That is a task shared by both reporters and commentators."
"I will tell you a lot of Democratic leaders we have talked to this past week since the election have told Mika and me, it's time for a new approach," Scarborough added.