MSNBC anchor Mika Brzezinski said Tuesday that she and her husband and co-host Joe Scarborough have maintained contact with former President Donald Trump since their high-profile visit to Mar-a-Lago in the weeks after the 2024 election.
Speaking on SiriusXM’s "Andy Cohen Live," Brzezinski said the continued engagement with Trump followed the November meeting that the couple said at the time was meant to "restart communications" in a fractured political climate. When Cohen expressed surprise that the contacts had continued, she replied, "It's called our job."
Brzezinski acknowledged she could not always tell whether Trump remained angry with the pair, saying, "I have a hard time answering that because he could be mad right now." She defended ongoing engagement with major political figures as fundamental to reporting, saying reporters should "know the people that you're covering and to have as much insight as possible." She added that she and Scarborough have approached every administration similarly, trying to cultivate on- and off-the-record insight.
The on-the-record acknowledgment that contact continued beyond the initial trip to Mar-a-Lago is the first such confirmation from the couple. Their appearance at Trump’s Florida club last year drew swift criticism from colleagues, progressive commentators and social media users who accused the hosts of normalizing a president they had often criticized on air.
Internal unrest at MSNBC followed the disclosure, and the show experienced an audience decline in the weeks after the revelation. Nielsen data cited by the network showed a 15% drop in total viewers and a 41% decline among adults 25 to 54, the demographic closely watched by advertisers.
Brzezinski and Scarborough said at the time that the visit was not an endorsement of Trump but an effort to preserve reporting access and to guard against potential retaliation, given the president’s history of singling out critics. Critics did not accept that defense. On ABC’s "The View," co-host Sunny Hostin said the pair had been "kissing his ring," and former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley suggested their tone toward Trump shifted after the ratings dip, saying, "They saw their ratings."
On Cohen’s show, Brzezinski also commented on Democratic politics, praising California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s use of social media to counter Trump. She said, "Half of the stuff he does is freaking hilarious," and added that Newsom can sometimes "articulate it probably better than anybody," arguing that his blend of humor and substance resonated amid what she described as weak Democratic messaging at times.
The disclosures about the Mar-a-Lago meeting and subsequent contacts have continued to prompt debate about the line between access journalism and perceived coziness with political figures. Brzezinski and Scarborough have maintained that cultivating relationships across administrations is standard practice for reporters seeking deeper insight.
The New York Post first reported Brzezinski’s comments, and the Post sought comment from the White House.
