Morning Joe saw a ratings nosedive after the hosts revealed their secret Mar-a-Lago meeting with Donald Trump, as the show’s social channels turned off comments to avoid the torrent of backlash from fans.
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski dismissed the criticism on their show Tuesday, saying it just proves there is a ‘massive disconnect’ between ‘social media and the real world.’
However, if ratings are to be believed, the real world and social media may not be as disconnected as they think.
As a morning show that starts every day at 6am, viewership is supposed to climb as the day’s episode goes on.
However, Nielsen ratings show 145,000 viewers turned off MSNBC in the 7am hour just after Scarborough and Brzezinski discussed the meeting, as they went from 839,000 viewers at 6am to 694,000 at 7am.
What’s more, 38% of their audience in the 25-54 age demographic – seen as pivotal to the major cable news networks – tuned out.
The show briefly rebounded in the 8am hour, with 775,000 viewers but the numbers went down again to 770,000 at 9am.
As recently as October, the MSNBC morning anchor was averaging as high as 1.14 million viewers throughout its four hours.
MSNBC’s viewership has already taken a nosedive in the week after Donald Trump’s landslide election victory.
Media reporter Aaron Rupar also noted that the show’s social media feeds have turned off all comments.
The stars of Morning Joe have defended their controversial meeting with Trump after being slammed by their media colleagues.
‘Yesterday I saw for the first time what a massive disconnect there was between social media and the real world because we were flooded with phone calls from people all day, literally around the world, all very positive, very supportive,’ Scarborough said on Tuesday.
‘But once in a while I would get a text or call from someone going, “Oh, man, I hope you’re doing okay.” I would call them back… I’d go: “Are you on Twitter?” And he goes, “I am.” I’d go “Well I’m not so we’ve had a good day.”
‘All of us will do the best we can do and we’re all working towards a better America.’
The View’s Ana Navarro was one of the media figures who unleashed a blistering on-air tirade in response to the pair’s surprise visit to Mar-a-Lago over the weekend.
The political strategist tore into the married MSNBC anchors over their trip to see Trump, calling it ‘opportunistic’ during her rant. She asked whether the two had ‘change[d] their stripes’ because of ‘who’s in power.’
On the MAGA side, Megyn Kelly also went after Scarborough and Brzezinski, telling them to go ‘f**k themselves.’
‘Go f**k yourselves, you dishonest jokes of faux journalists,’ Kelly said on Monday, reminding her audience that the Morning Joe hosts initially supported Trump’s bid for president in 2016.
‘It is nauseating, it’s so stomach-turning,’ Kelly added. ‘They’re so disgusting.’
Former Republican candidate for president Nikki Haley said: ‘Let’s be clear, Joe and Mika didn’t suddenly see the light, they saw their ratings. They realized they needed Trump for their survival.’
Amid the backlash, Morning Joe staffers have insisted the Florida meeting was ‘f***ing worth it.’
Trump, on his part, told Fox News that he took the meeting because in order to ‘Make America Great Again, it is very important, if not vital, to have a free, fair and open media or press.’
Trump and the ‘Morning Joe’ stars have had a contentious relationship since the Republican entered politics – with Scarborough leaving the Republican party as a result.
During the 2024 election, Morning Joe repeatedly denounced Trump as a racist, sexist, fascist, and told viewers he did not deserve to be president. At one point, Scarborough said Trump was acting ‘full-on Hitler’ and Brzezinski condemned him for echoing the ‘dangerous language of infamous fascist leaders.’
Brzezinski said on Monday they decided to reach out to Trump for ‘the opportunity to speak with the President-elect, himself’ because their viewers and ‘regular citizens’ have expressed fear following Trump’s election and his recent cabinet selections.
Scarborough continued, saying the three ‘talked about a lot of issues, including abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents and media outlets.’
But relations soured as Trump pulled off a surprise victory in the Republican primaries and began to look like a serious challenger to the Democrats’ Hillary Clinton.
The four-hour morning show became a bastion of the Democratic establishment after Trump’s first term, with President Joe Biden routinely tuning in while doing his morning exercises to see his acolytes promote the party’s talking points.
With Trump in the White House and Scarborough engaged to co-host Brzezinski he began cementing his show’s identity as an outpost of opposition to the new administration.
