Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro were not happy that Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough met with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, as Hostin suggested the "Morning Joe" hosts went there to "kiss his ring."
Liberals rage against 'Morning Joe' 'betrayal' after co-hosts meet with Trump: 'We will not forgive'
by Kristine Parks · Fox News"Morning Joe" co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski set off a firestorm on the left after they announced Monday they had privately met with President-elect Donald Trump last week.
"Joe and I went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with President-elect Trump," Brzezinski told viewers of the meeting, which took place Friday. "It was the first time we have seen him in seven years."
Scarborough added that they didn't see "eye to eye on a lot of issues, and we told him so." Scarborough said they went over such topics as abortion, mass deportation, and threats of retribution against political opponents and media outlets.
The meeting, according to the hosts, was about an agreement to "restart communications." Trump was cheerful during the meeting and appeared interested in finding common ground with Democrats on major issues, the hosts said
Still, the staunch Trump critics' admission enraged liberals, who took to social media to call them "grifters" and "cowards."
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"BREAKING NEWS: I TOLD YOU SO," former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann wrote, calling the pair "Trump collaborators."
"Not a word Mr. and Mrs. Vichy Quisling say can ever be trusted again - not that those words ever should have been trusted. They are confidence tricksters - and grifters," Olbermann added.
"Normalizing Trump is a very bad idea," MSNBC host Katie Phang also wrote on X, in an apparent reference to her network colleagues.
"F— Joe & Mika. F— Morning Joe. And f— MSNBC if they keep them on the f—ing air," popular liberal X user "JoJofromJerz" posted.
"Bowing in advance. Cowards," liberal SiriusXM host Michelangelo Signorile posted.
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"Given Morning Joe and Mika are now sucking up to Trump I wanted to re-share my clip from MSNBC on Friday when I made it clear WE will NEVER surrender to Trump. We will take the fight to him. We will not meet him halfway on his fascism. We know who he is, and more importantly we know who we are," progressive SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah wrote.
Liberals also criticized the MSNBC anchors on the left-leaning social media platform, Bluesky.
"Sold us out for access. We will not forget, and if we survive the next four years, we will not forgive," Bluesky account LocoRunner posted.
"Disgusting," anti-Trump Washington Post columnist and MSNBC analyst Jennifer Rubin posted in response.
"Morning Joe jumped the shark," MeidasNews Editor-in-Chief, Ron Filipkowski, posted on the platform.
"Joe Scarborough and Mika from Morning Joe, their ratings plummeting, made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago because they decided if you can't beat him, grovel for access and help normalize him AGAIN. STOP WATCHING MORNING JOE," popular liberal social media account "Brooklyn Dad Defiant" posted.
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"To those of you waking up at this hour and thinking of watching the rerun of the first hour of @Morning_Joe, this is what you are in for: @JoeNBC's and @morningmika's betrayal of their colleagues, democracy, and us all. It is a disgusting show of obeisance in advance," Jeff Jarvis, a recently retired professor at CUNY's Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, wrote.
On "The View," the left-leaning panel debated the decision from a journalistic perspective. Co-host Sunny Hostin said it wasn't necessary in her view to go and "kiss the ring" to be able to properly cover Trump.
Scarborough and Brzezinski, who are married, stood out in the 2016 cycle for their bullishness on Trump's political chances early in the Republican primary, and they took heat for frequently hosting and interviewing the future president at the time.
But they became two of his staunchest critics once he took office and Trump at times leveled intensely personal attacks on the pair. In turn, the hosts have previously deemed him a fascist, authoritarian threat to democracy and even made Hitler comparisons.
Scarborough appeared to anticipate the progressive backlash to their summit on Monday, saying, "Don't be mistaken. We're not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump. We're here to report on him and to hopefully provide you insights that are going to better equip all of us in understanding these deeply unsettling times."
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Fox News' David Rutz contributed to this article.
Kristine Parks is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Read more.