‘Morning Joe’ Hosts Again Defend Mar-A-Lago Meeting; ‘The View’s Sunny Hostin Remains Unswayed
Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski defended their decision to call out what they called a “flippant” comment from commentator David Frum, while the MSNBC personalities provided a further defense of their decision to meet with Donald Trump following his election victory.
On Wednesday, during a segment on former Fox News host Pete Hegseth’s teetering nomination as Trump’s next secretary of defense, Frum quipped, “If you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed.” That was in response to an NBC News report that colleagues on Fox & Friends Weekend had concerns over Hegseth’s drinking.
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Brzezinski followed up the segment by telling viewers that Frum’s comment was “a little too flippant” and that “we have differences in coverage with Fox News, and that’s a good debate that we should have often, but right now I just want to say there’s a lot of good people who work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we will want to leave it at that.
Frum, though, followed up with a column in The Atlantic headlined, “The Sound of Fear in the Air,” writing, “It is a very ominous thing if our leading forums for discussion of public affairs are already feeling the chill of intimidation and responding with efforts to appease.”
“I write these words very aware that I’m probably saying goodbye forever to a television platform that I enjoy and from which I have benefited as both viewer and guest. I have been the recipient of personal kindnesses from the hosts that I have not forgotten,” Frum wrote.
This morning, Scarborough said, “Let me tell you something: You can talk to anybody that’s worked in the front office of NBC and MSNBC over the past 22 years, [they] will tell you I am not fearful. You talk to anybody who has served with me in Congress, they will tell you — not fearful of leadership.” He added that he had a “wonderful conversation” with Frum and that he was supposed to be on the show today, while arguing that his comment would not have passed muster in The Washington Post, The Atlantic and other publications.
Brzezinski, meanwhile, suggested that there was sensitivity about talking about alcoholism. Hegseth has denied the allegations about his drinking, as well as sexual misconduct.
“People from this organization were actually stepping up to help the cause to get a guy who’s grossly unqualified to be Sec Def,” Scarborough added. “Is that the time to say that?”
Scarborough also defended a meeting that he and Brzezinski had earlier this month with Trump. Their revelation of the off-the-record visit to Mar-A-Lago drew a backlash, as they had previously warned of Trump’s authoritarianism and even compared him to a fascist.
He acknowledged that people were upset and that “maybe we should have given them more of a warning,” but “the main complaint was that we called Donald Trump’s rhetoric fascist during the campaign, and then we went down to have an off the record comment with him.” Brzezinski noted that other news outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post and even The Atlantic have done the same.
Scarborough railed against the “outrageously stupid, immature series of articles that lied time and time again about us,” but that reporters said that they would “be fired if I had the opportunity to go and talk to somebody who’s incoming president of the United States.” He said that a difference was that they were “being transparent” and told the audience about the visit.
“You can do two things at the same time. You can say he had fascist rhetoric and still go in and talk to him.”
Frum wrote on X today, “I want to stress: I am very sympathetic to the predicament faced by TV hosts. These are worrying times.”
Today’s “Morning At Mar-A-Lago” debate didn’t end there, though. The cohosts of The View addressed the statements made this morning by Scarborough and Brzezinski, and the opinions, unsurprisingly, varied from host to host. Conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin sided with the Morning Joe hosts, saying, “Dialogue is so important in fraught times.”
Joy Behar agreed with Griffin to an extent, but added, “There’s a certain feeling that they’re normalizing [Trump] and he’s not normal. He’s a very unusual case.” She also noted that she avoided meeting George W. Bush when he was president because she “knew if I had a beer with the guy I would like him, and so I didn’t want to have a beer with him because I had things to say that were critical about him.”
Sunny Hostin, who last month accused Scarborough and Brzezinski of “kissing the ring” by meeting with Trump, remains confident in her opinion. “Any journalist has to be able to report the facts fairly without fear of retribution,” she said, “and I think one of the criticisms they are getting is that they sort of traipsed over to Mar-A-Lago because of their fear of retribution and their fear of losing access.” She raised the specter of Fox News’ Sean Hannity “blurring the lines” between reporting and advocating.
View moderator Whoopi Goldberg took her increasingly Zen approach to politics, saying, “If people feel they need to do something, let them do what they need to do…We can’t get anywhere because everything contains blowback.”
Responded Hostin, “There are consequences to whatever action. When you see that 38% of your audience is saying, ‘Wow that made me so uncomfortable I’m going to turn the channel,’ I do think that requires a little introspection.”
After Frum published his column on Wednesday, the network responded soon after, with spokesperson Richard Hudock writing on X, “Joe and Mika have consistently expressed their strong reservations and perspectives regarding Pete Hegseth’s nomination from the very beginning, and that stance remains unchanged. We would have responded in the same manner regardless of when these comments were made or what news organization was referenced.”
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