Progressives Rip Morning Joe Corporate Duo for 'Ring-Kissing' at Mar-a-Lago

On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Monday, hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough assured viewers that their recent meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago was not meant to "normalize" the Republican leader, whose own former chief of staff said recently would govern as a dictator.

But Trump's warning to the media after the gathering underscored the danger of treating the president-elect as just another politician whose views differ from those of the liberal news network.

Trump toldFox News that the meeting with Brzezinski and Scarborough—who celebrated New Year's Eve with Trump in 2016, only to be called "crazy" and a "psycho" by him months later after their coverage angered him—was "extremely cordial," but then issued a warning.

He told Fox he believes he has "an obligation to the American public, and to our country itself, to be open and available to the press."

"If not treated fairly, however, that will end," Trump said. "The media is very important to the long-term success of the United States of America."

Trump also immediately used Brzezinski and Scarborough's "ring-kissing," as progressive news outlet The Tennessee Holler called it, "as a trophy and saying they praised him effusively."

The Holler wasn't the only critic to compare the hosts' meeting with Trump to a scene out of The Godfather. Krystal Ball, co-host of the online political news show "Breaking Points," accused Brzezinski and Scarborough of helping to "usher the fascists in" before going to Mar-a-Lago to "kiss the ring."

In addition to drawing Trump's ire by warning ahead of the election that he was a threat to democracy and accusing him of "lying every day and destroying the country" during his first term, the hosts and their network have been hostile and dismissive of progressives who have called on Democrats to try to appeal to working-class voters instead of "Liz Cheney Never Trumpers," said Ball.

On "Morning Joe" on Monday, Brzezinski said, "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?'"

"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," she said.

Scarborough said the trio discussed and expressed their different views on issues such as "abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents and media outlets." He claimed Trump "seemed interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues."

The hosts suggested Trump has done an about-face in his views on the media since the election, when he called journalists "the enemy camp" and the days leading up to it, when he said he wouldn't "mind" if reporters at a rally he held were shot.

Ryan Grim of Drop Site News joked on social media that the meeting exposed the hosts as "resistance commanders" who had turned out "to have been collaborating double agents from the beginning."

"We've been played," he added.

While the two journalists said they believe it is "time for a new approach" in covering the president-elect, Julianne McShane at Mother Jonespointed out that journalists "have tried" for years to talk with Trump about his perspective on issues.

"Trump repeatedly rebuffed sit-down interview invitations during the campaign from CBS News and NBC News, both of which Harris did do; Instead, Trump gave interviews to a bevy of right-wing male podcasters. If Trump and his team are serious about respecting the press, they will have to engage with them—respectfully, and on the issues—rather than denigrate them," wrote McShane. "It's ultimately unclear if Trump's sudden friendliness toward the media can be attributed to the MSNBC reunion at Mar-a-Lago. But one thing remains certain: You probably can't trust this one, at all."

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch wrote that Brzezinski and Scarborough's "capitulation is another of my worst fears about life under Trump 47."

"Those of us who plan to keep writing against Trump's autocratic ways are going to be marginalized as 'dead-enders' who aren't getting with the program, which will make it easier to shut us up," said Bunch.

Veteran journalist Jeff Jarvis denounced the "Morning Joe" hosts' Mar-a-Lago meeting as a "betrayal of their colleagues, democracy, and us all" and "a disgusting show of obeisance in advance."

Bunch quoted Yale historian Timothy Snyder, an expert on authoritarianism, who advised Americans as Trump took office for the first time in 2017: "Do. Not. Obey. In. Advance."