‘Time for a New Approach’: Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski Reveal ‘Personal’ Visit With Trump To ‘Restart Communications’

BRZEZINSKI: “Over the past week, Joe and I have heard from so many people, from political leaders to regular citizens, deeply dismayed by several of President-Elect Trump’s cabinet selections, and they are scared. Last Thursday, we expressed our own concerns on this broadcast and even said we would appreciate the opportunity to speak with the President-Elect himself. On Friday, we were given the opportunity to do just that. Joe and I went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with President-Elect Trump. It was the first time we have seen him in 7 years.”
SCARBOROUGH: “Now, we talked about a lot of issues, including abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents, and media outlets. We talked about that a good bit. And it’s going to come as no surprise to anybody who watches this show, has watched it over the past year or over the past decade, that we didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues, and we told him so.”
BRZEZINSKI: “What we did agree on was to restart communications. My father often spoke with world leaders with whom he and the United States profoundly disagreed. That’s a task shared by reporters and commentators alike. We had not spoken to President Trump since March of 2020, other than a personal call Joe made to Trump on the morning after the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania. In this meeting, President Trump was cheerful. He was upbeat. He seemed interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues. And 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? 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. But for nearly 80 million Americans, election denialism, public trials, and January 6th 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 realized it’s time to do something different, and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump, but also talking with him.”