Donald Trump has had plenty of volatile exchanges with the press since he announced his candidacy, but hes saved some of his most searing personal attacks for Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. In the course of the campaign, Trump went from promoting his many appearances on the show and having off-the-record phone calls with the hosts to calling Brzezinski a neurotic and not very bright mess and suggesting she had a mental breakdown while talking about me last summer.
But Trump unleashed one of his more vicious verbal assaults on the duo Thursday morning when he tweeted: I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (dont watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mike, along with Psycho Joe, cameto Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Years Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no! The tweets were widely derided on both sides of the political spectrum; Speaker Paul Ryan called them inappropriate.Its a sad day for America when the president spends his time bullying, lying and spewing petty personal attacks instead of doing his job, a spokesman for MSNBC said.
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He claims he doesnt watch the show, Scarborough toldRolling Stone of Trump Wednesday in an NBC conference room after taping the show. Everyone inside says he watches the show. He usually tweets in reaction to what were saying on set. He did it this morning to Barnicle.
The host had sat down to talk about the new EP by his band Scarborough, but a conversation about the similarities between songwriting and speechwriting naturally drifted into Trump talk. Scarborough gamely answered questions about how and when he and Brzezinski transitioned from regular off-the-record discussions with the president to targets of his venom.
A friendly chat with Trump? That hasnt happened in quite some time, he says. To say were disappointed would be a pretty dramatic understatement. We attacked him a lot in the campaign and it got really, really nasty. And then after he won, we were talking a little bit. But, you know, he gets into office and the first day hes talking about crowd size when hes got so many other problems. And every day its something else where youre just pulling your hair out saying why? Whys he [still] talking about Hillary now? Why is he saying there was no collusion with Russia, but then theres an article in the Washington Post, so now hes saying there was collusion but Barack Obama was responsible? Its absolute insanity.
Trump appeared on Morning Joe often during the campaign. But Scarborough remembers their relationship fraying as early as December 2015 when then-candidate Trump suggested all Muslims should be banned from entering the U.S. Thats when Mika and I said, I could never vote for him.' On December 11th, 2015, Trump tweeted that the show just went off the rails. I will beat Hillary easily she does not want to run against me. I am tuning them out, waste of time.
Even after that though, Trump, Scarborough and Brzezinski maintained the semblance of a relationship. Then we called him up the morning of the election, because we thought he was gonna lose, Scarborough continues. And I said, Listen. I hope well be friends after this. I know this wasnt easy for you. I know we didnt agree with everything you did. But its tough for you and your family to stick your neck out there. And then he won. And it was like, Oh my god.'
The hosts started talking to the President-elect. But Scarborough increasingly took issue with Trumps positions mainly the race stuff, Scarbrough says, citing Trumps attacks on the Khan family, who lost a son in Iraq, and Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who Trump called a Mexican, despite being from Indiana. Scarborough says Trumps executive order restricting U.S. travel for seven predominately Muslim countries was the final straw.
Still, Scarborough and Brzezinski visited Trump in the White House after he signed the order. Scarborough says it was the day adviser Stephen Miller, talking about the ban, said on NBC that the presidents power will not be questioned on February 13th. We just exploded on set the next day. And then from that point on it just turned really ugly, really quickly.
Trump called Scarbrough out over the change in tone. He screamed at me after we had lunch, because we were being so hard [on him]. He called me up yelling on the phone and said, I know you, I know all about you. You think you have to be tough on me because I invited you to have lunch at the White House. So youre trying to prove you cant be bought. I said, Donald, you should have known that a long time ago! Weve been killing you for a year and a half! You do good things, well compliment you. When you brought in the guys that ran the unions and talked about building the pipeline with American workers, we said, Thats a good move! He just hasnt given us a whole lot of reason to be overly optimistic about the directions hes going in.
The funny thing about Donald is he just doesnt understand, Scarborough says. He doesnt understand that I dont care whether he invites me to the White House. Mika doesnt care whether he invites us to the White House. He expects to get better coverage because of access. And hes never understood that, particularly for our show, we dont need the big interview. Were like John Madden talking about football: Im gonna talk about football whether the quarterback has dinner with me or not. John Madden doesnt get paid to be a cheerleader. He gets paid telling whos gonna win the football game and why. And thats what our job is.
Its a really troubling time, the host adds. I think the best news is this countrys institutions have proven to be pretty resilient. The courts have stood up to him. Congress has even stood up to him. Im glad to hear Mitch McConnell is calling Reince Priebus and saying [the] president is being absolutely idiotic by the way hes handling things. Hes tried to get health care through by intimidating Congress. I tried warning him a year ago when he was saying, Paul Ryan better do what I say or else hes gonna be in trouble. I said no, no, no, Donald it doesnt work that way. I said every President goes in thinking that theyre the person thats unlocked the secrets to Washington, D.C. and they learn pretty quickly that theyre checked by Congress, by the courts, the bureaucracy, the intelligence community. Dont declare war on everybody out there or everyone will declare war against you. And it never ends well. And its not going to.