The Morning Joe-Donald Trump relationship has been a turbulent one over the past year and a half. Early in the campaign, some accused Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough of being boosters for the now president-elect, which manifested itself during an appearance on the program during the New Hampshire primary in February: “It was great seeing you, you guys have been supporters and I appreciate it,” Trump said to the duo, quickly adding, “not necessarily supporters but at least believers.”
The niceties seemed to go away this summer. Scarborough called many of Trump’s proposals and comments disqualifying, and slammed him in the form of a music video. Scarborough also said back in August: “Trump says he’s going to win by giving speeches and going on Twitter. You literally can’t win that way … they’re not going to win,” and he accused CNN of ‘kissing up to Trump‘.
Now that Trump is the president-elect, the relationship has seemingly changed again. Brzezinski was spotted at Trump Tower last week , and according to Politico’s Hadas Gold, “the team has been in regular communication with Trump and his circle — so much so that they are fielding criticism for being a house organ for the incoming administration.” New Day anchor Chris Cuomo is one of those critics, tweeting last Tuesday: “They have always been boosters. Things turned south when trump froze them out but coverage always stilted. They are transition spokesmen now.”
According to Gold, the repair may have been the result of what was a family tragedy back in late September.
Scarborough’s 25-year-old son was in a serious accident that landed him in the hospital. Trump, after months of not speaking to Scarborough, reached out.
“He just said when something like this happens nothing else matters, it’s all about the kids,” Scarborough recalled. “We had a nice personal conversation on the phone and he just said none of this [politics] matters. That was the first time we spoke in a long time and that probably made it easier for us to start talking later on.”
Indeed, many of Trump’s inner circle, including his influential son-in-law, Jared Kushner, stayed in close contact with the show in the campaign’s final weeks. An NBC source close to the show says the Trump campaign appreciated that “Morning Joe” never wrote their candidate off, like other media did.
Will what appears to be a reconciliation impact how the program covers the Trump administration going forward? Scarborough has maintained that he did not vote for Trump in the primary or in the general. Post-election, he has criticized some of Trump’s Cabinet picks, including Gen. Michael Flynn and retweets of bizarre conspiracy theory stories, as well as his consideration of Rudy Giuliani for the Secretary of State role.