MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski defended their relationship with president-elect Donald Trump saying “no one has been tougher” on the president-elect than them.
In a Vanity Fair piece published Friday, the morning talk show hosts respond to the criticism from the press over their friendship with Trump. (RELATED: MSNBC’s Scarborough Pushes Back On CNN Report That He Met With Trump Last Week)
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“It’s not fair,” Brzezinski said. “No one has been tougher on Donald Trump than Joe and I. I also would challenge you — and I say this with great respect for our counterparts in the media, to George Stephanopoulos, Chris Cuomo, Scott Pelley, John Dickerson, women, as well — I challenge you to find anybody who has said or written comments that are more tough and more serious and more critical when necessary of Donald Trump.”
“I’d ask them to send you their toughest stuff,” she added. “You can’t find anyone on CNN, you can’t find someone on MSNBC, who has been tougher.” (RELATED: ‘League Of Angry White Guys’ — ‘Morning Joe’ Panel Goes After Trump’s Base [VIDEO])
Both hosts pushed back on the notion that they helped get Trump elected.
“Let me just tell you, if Trump voters watched our show, we’d be making $100 million because we’d be the biggest morning show,” Brzezinski said. “Let’s just be real. We didn’t elect him.”
“Trump voters don’t wake up in the morning and say, ‘Hey I think I’m going to watch “Morning Joe” to see what the smart set in Washington and Manhattan are thinking this morning,'” Scarborough said.
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They argue the access they have to Trump is the same thing dozens of reporters have had over time and it’s nothing new.
“The conversations we’ve had, I talk about them on the air,” Scarborough said. “I don’t say anything to him and Mika doesn’t say anything to him that we don’t say on the show. It’s transparent.”
“In our most recent conversation, I told him I want him to do something big for women,” Brzezinski said. “I said that on the air this morning. So I’m not sure why this is being translated by our competitors, and the narrative they want to create as dirty. What we have is access, and we’re literally being as transparent as we can about it.”
“As we have said, find anybody that has been harsher on Donald Trump than Mika or myself,” Scarborough added. “Find anyone who’s had more personal attacks. He attacked us personally. He called Mika neurotic. He called Mika stupid.”
“He accused us of committing adultery over eight years,” he continued. “It got personal. And you know what we did? We didn’t strike out. We kept doing what we did. When Hillary Clinton deserved to be praised, we praised her. When Donald Trump did, as well, we did that, too. How much more could we prove?”