MSNBC star Rachel Maddow is angry at Morning Joe anchors Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski over their meeting with incoming President Donald Trump, a source familiar with the matter told The US Sun.
The duo surprised their network colleagues after requesting an invitation to Mar-a-Lago as part of a bridge-building exercise following Trump's criticism.
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Widespread anger
According to a CNN report, the duo decided to contact Trump for fear of “retaliation from his perceived political opponents.”
She said the hosts were “credibly concerned” about potential “government and legal harassment” from the new Trump administration.
However, Scarborough and Brzezinski's decision to interview Trump in Florida angered many at the network, including senior figures like Maddow who led election night coverage.
An MSNBC journalist who worked there for 15 years says the fallout has created a “very tense situation,” with some feeling like they've been “stabbed in the back.”
“This was stupid,” an insider told The US Sun. “They knelt down to ensure they were not targeted by Trump and the entire MAGA world.”
Fight again
MSNBC promotes itself as a progressive media brand and is historically left-leaning.
While some MSNBC staffers are keenly aware that it was shortsighted to decline the invitation to a behind-closed-doors meeting with the 47th president of the United States, others fear they are showing signs of weakness.
Brzezinski, who recently announced her decision to leave X to avoid being a target on the platform now owned by Elon Musk, a new close ally of Trump, expressed her disagreement.
“Joe and I realized it was time to do something different,” she said.
“And that starts with not just talking about Donald Trump, but talking to him. The way I look at it is people are really scared, and that's one of the reasons we're going there.”
In the wake of his comprehensive election victory on November 5, MSNBC warned people about Trump's leadership style.
Host Katie Fang posted on social media that “normalizing Trump is a bad idea,” to which many of her colleagues agreed.
“There has been a huge change in the dynamic since the election, and the mentality is that the bad numbers are not going to change, and they are not going to go up again, unless we practice ‘soft journalism’ and don’t push too hard to criticize the Trump administration.” “, added the veteran MSNBC journalist.
“Submission to authority”
A CNN report claimed that MSNBC bosses had no problem with the Morning Joe host's trip to West Palm Beach to meet with Trump.
But our source says that some in the network are “putting their pants on” because of the possibility of bowing to authority.
Insiders claimed they were concerned about the devaluation of the MSNBC brand and what it stands for.
“Most of us don't want to be part of that,” said the journalist, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Some are considering trying to join other media organizations where we can do our work with respect and value to bring the truth to the table without being pressured by people in power.”
“The meeting at Mar-a-Lago has created a lot of tension between the teams, and many of the other stars who host the channel see both Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski as opportunists who have little respect for themselves and forget their values of being independent journalists.” “And integrity.”
“They've lost a lot of credibility. Rachel Maddow is as angry with them as she is with other presenters like Chris Hayes and Erie Melber. They're very frustrated.”
An MSNBC spokeswoman claimed that Maddow had not said anything about the matter, either on or off the air. “Any suggestion otherwise is just speculation,” she told the US Sun.
It was recently revealed that Maddow, 51, will take home $5 million of her $30 million salary.
MSNBC executives have watched the network's ratings decline since Donald Trump won the presidential election on November 5.
A network insider told The Ankler that some staffers struggled to deal with Vice President Kamala Harris' defeat, describing the network as a “safe space for the liberal TV audience.”
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