Viewership of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” declined after co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski announced Monday that they had met with President-elect Donald Trump last week, their first face-to-face interaction with him in seven years.
Despite painting him as a fascist for years on air, Brzezinski said they all agreed to “restart communications.”
“For those asking why we would go speak with the president-elect during such fraught times, especially between us,” she continued. “I guess I would ask back: ‘Why wouldn’t we?'”
"Five years of political warfare has deeply divided Washington and the country. We have been as clear as we know how in expressing our deep concerns about President Trump’s actions and words in the coarsening of public debate,” Brzezinski said. "But for nearly 80 million Americans, election denialism, public trials, January 6, were not as important as the issues that moved them to send Donald Trump back to the White House with their vote. Joe and I realize it’s time to do something different, and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump, but also talking with him."
The reset took place amid a steep decline in ratings for the network since Election Day, but Mediaite observed that viewers did not seem pleased by the announcement.
It turns out that MSNBC viewers were also not impressed, or at least they tuned out over the next four hours. Nielsen ratings obtained by Mediaite show a significant drop in viewers in the 7 AM hour. Roughly 38% of the lucrative 25-54 demo also turned off MSNBC or switched to another network.
Morning Joe airs for four hours each morning, and given different times that people awake and tune in to cable news, the show regularly builds viewers hour over hour. The fact that people tuned out from the MSNBC morning show, and at such a significant clip, does not spell good fortune for the once influential opinion show that seems to have angered the anti-Trump resistance set and has long given up on the pro-Trump viewers going back roughly eight years. (Mediaite)
Trump described his meeting with the co-hosts as "extremely cordial" and wished the relationship reset could've taken place sooner.
"Many things were discussed, and I very much appreciated the fact that they wanted to have open communication," he told Fox News Digital. "In many ways, it’s too bad that it wasn’t done long ago."
The president-elect also said he's not looking to be vindictive toward the media.
"And while many others are calling for meetings, I am not looking for retribution, grandstanding or to destroy people who treated me very unfairly, or even badly beyond comprehension," he said. "I am always looking to give a second and even third chance, but never willing to give a fourth chance — that is where I hold the line."