MSNBC's “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski violated some of the cardinal rules of journalism. Journalists, so those maxims go, should never make themselves the story or get too close to those they are covering.
During a twenty-four-minute segment, Scarborough and Brezinski told their views that they “went to Mar-a-Lago to meet with President-elect Trump on the previous Friday.” Scarborough said they “talked about a lot of issues…It should come as no surprise to people who watch the show that we didn’t see eye-to-eye…, and we told him so.”
Brezinski then chimed in, reading from a carefully prepared script, “What we did agree on was to restart communications.” She compared the meeting with Trump to meetings her late father, and former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, would have with world leaders with whom he disagreed.
Brezinski reported that Trump was “cheerful, upbeat, and interested in finding common ground with Democrats…” She claimed it is “time to do something different…not just to talk about Donald Trump, but to talk with him.”
This unexpected announcement ignored the threat Trump poses to the United States. It focused on why it was okay for Scarborough and Brezinski to make a pilgrimage to Trump’s Florida estate.
As a long-time viewer of “Morning Joe,” I am quite used to Joe and Mika’s self-aggrandizing soliloquies. But I was still shocked by Monday’s self-dramatizing use of their platform.
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In truth, this was their Kevin McCarty moment. Recall that McCarthy, then House Minority Leader, denounced Trump in the immediate aftermath of January 6. However, two weeks later, McCarthy made his own journey to Mar-a-Lago.
He got photographed, smiling with the man who he had said “bears responsibility” for what happened when Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol. McCarthy had even told his Republican colleagues that he would urge Trump to resign.
When McCarthy met Trump, all that was quickly forgotten.
Like McCarthy, Scarborough and Brezinski want us to forget. As Megyn Kelly noted, prior to their meeting with the president-elect, they “repeatedly slammed Trump as a racist and........