‘Morning Joe’ meeting with Trump was driven by fears of retribution from incoming administration, sources say

By Brian Stelter, CNN

New York (CNN) — “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski announced Monday, in dramatic fashion, that they went to Mar-a-Lago last week for a fence-mending meeting with President-elect Donald Trump. Then the pair spent the rest of the day dealing with the uncomfortable blowback.

In private conversations, Scarborough argued that having face time with a world leader is a no-brainer. Some of his MSNBC colleagues agreed, but there was more to the Mar-a-Lago meeting.

According to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, Scarborough and Brzezinski were credibly concerned that they could face governmental and legal harassment from the incoming Trump administration.

Knowing that Trump has threatened retribution against his perceived political opponents, and that Trump has promoted lies about Scarborough and Brzezinski in the past, the MSNBC hosts decided to reach out to the president-elect, the sources told CNN.

The two sources generally agreed with Scarborough and Brzezinski’s impression of the situation at hand – namely, that the incoming Trump administration could use its wide-ranging powers to punish people deemed enemies. (Trump ally Elon Musk wrote on X overnight, in a post supporting Matt Gaetz for attorney general, that America needs Gaetz to “put powerful bad actors in prison.”)

Within MSNBC, one of the country’s most prominent progressive media brands, there are a variety of opinions about what Trump and his allies might do. For that reason, there are a wide range of feelings about the “Morning Joe” meeting, according to half a dozen employees who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Some hosts and employees took a realpolitik view of the matter, saying that access to the president-elect is a valuable part of reporting and covering the news. Others said the meeting was a troubling early sign of capitulation to a political leader who MSNBC has portrayed, day after day, as a would-be dictator.

Shortly after the Mar-a-Lago meeting was publicized, lawyer and MSNBC host Katie Phang posted on social media, “Normalizing Trump is a bad idea. Period.” The post was widely perceived to be a response to Scarborough and Brzezinski.

Monday morning’s big reveal led some media observers to suspect that the “Morning Joe” hosts thought they might be singled out for political prosecutions. Other MSNBC personalities have also privately wondered if they will be targeted.

Democratic political consultant Chuck Rocha channeled this view on CNN’s “NewsNight” Monday night: He said “I think Joe and Mika just don’t want to be audited.”

Veteran media critic Jeff Jarvis said on the same show that the “bended knee” was “a betrayal of the staff at MSNBC who do still criticize Donald Trump, who now feel that they are in some jeopardy because of that, because he has threatened the press.”

Last week, Trump ally and former White House adviser Steve Bannon warned MSNBC staffers to “preserve your documents” while predicting Gaetz’s Justice Department would pursue cases against them. Bannon name-checked MSNBC analyst Andrew Weissmann and anchor Ari Melber, cautioning “you young producers” better “lawyer up.”

To be sure, there are others inside MSNBC who believe the fears are overblown. At the management level, there was no concern over Scarborough and Brzezinski’s meeting, according to another source with knowledge of the matter.

An MSNBC spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

But some loyal viewers are not just concerned, they’re outraged. On Monday afternoon, Scarborough posted a link on X to a Fox News story about his meeting with Trump. The president-elect told Fox that “I very much appreciated the fact that they wanted to have open communication.”

Scarborough sought to highlight that quote, but his post was quickly bombarded with scores of negative replies, mostly from MSNBC fans who were furious with him. Scarborough ultimately took down his post altogether, thereby erasing the ugly feedback.

Some at MSNBC drew parallels to The Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block his editorial board’s planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris before election day. The decision prompted days of criticism based on the suspicion that Bezos was trying to appease Trump to protect his own personal interests.

One MSNBC regular said of the Scarborough meeting, “not since Bezos refused to endorse did a news outlet so betray and misread its audience.”

But Scarborough argued on the air Tuesday morning that the testy social media reactions were not reflective of “the real world.”

“We were flooded with phone calls from people all day, literally around the world, very positive, very supportive, going ‘I understand what you did,’ etcetera,” Scarborough said.

“All of us will do the best we can do and we’re all working towards a better America,” he added, prompting Brzezinski to chime in: “Take it day by day, people.”

“Day by day,” Scarborough affirmed, adding, “you can predict the future by shaping the future.”

For now, Scarborough is shaping a less hostile relationship with the incoming president.

The-CNN-Wire
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