The hosts of MSNBC’s Morning JoeJoe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, allegedly met with President-elect Donald Trump over fears that then-attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz would investigate the death of an intern in Scarborough’s office during his time as a Florida Republican congressman, according to a Puck News report.
On Monday, Brzezinski said: “For those asking why we would go speak to the president-elect during such fraught times, especially between us, I guess I would ask back, ‘Why wouldn’t we?’”
“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,” she added.
Their mostly liberal audience dropped by 17 percent in the hour after they made the revelation about the Trump meeting, and their ratings were down 38 percent the following day compared to the average for the year.
Scarborough and Brzezinski have reportedly told friends since the election that they’re concerned about retribution from Trump over their consistent criticism of the president-elect since they last met with him seven years ago. Those worries grew when Trump nominated former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general. Gaetz announced on Thursday that he would be stepping down as the nominee.
The Morning Joe hosts told friends and allies before the departure that they were concerned that Trump and Gaetz would bring back up baseless conspiracy theories regarding the death of 28-year-old intern Lori Klausutis, who died from complications from a heart condition in 2001, Puck News noted. The concerns were linked to worries that Gaetz and Trump would use the conspiracy to put legal pressure on Scarborough.
In 2022, former White House communications director and current The View co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin testified before the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot, saying that she once encountered Gaetz outside the Oval Office, adding that Gaetz was carrying a folder with “conspiracy theories about Joe Scarborough murdering his intern.” Gaetz presented the contents to Trump, who subsequently posted about it on what was then Twitter.
Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough attend Forbes x Know Your Value 50 Over 50 on December 15, 2021 in New York City. Their ratings took a nosedive after they agreed to meet with President-elect Donald Trump (Getty Images)
A source told Puck that the hosts were “petrified of retribution” and concerned that Gaetz, who represented the same Florida congressional district as Scarborough, would probe the death of the intern. The source said the fears had “nothing to do with ratings or Comcast.”
A separate source told Puck that Scarborough and Brzezinski thought that by meeting Trump, they could lessen his desire for revenge.
A spokesperson for MSNBC told Puck that this characterization of the motivations for the meeting was false and inaccurate.
The Independent has contacted MSNBC for comment.
Trump said on Fox News on Monday morning that the meeting with the Morning Joe hosts had been “very cordial.”
“Many things were discussed, and I very much appreciated the fact that they wanted to have open communication,” he said.
“The meeting ended in a very positive manner, and we agreed to speak in the future,” Trump added. The president-elect went on to say that he expected that other meetings would occur with others in the press “even those that have been extremely hostile.”
The former president said 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. The media is very important to the long-term success of the United States of America.”
