'Isn’t going to bring audience back’: Is Morning Joe’s Mar-a-Lago meetup a ratings a Hail Mary?

The hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” are under fire after announcing Monday they visited President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, telling viewers it’s “time to do something different,” and that “threatening” the now-President-elect with prison (they did not name any of his crimes, alleged or convicted,) hasn’t worked. Some critics have suggested the visit by Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski was an effort to shore up the network’s sagging ratings, while others blasted the attempt as “access” journalism.

Jeff Jarvis, the longtime journalism expert and CUNY professor (now retired) called the couple’s move a “betrayal of their colleagues, democracy, and us all. It is a disgusting show of obeisance in advance.” (Obeisance is generally understood to mean bow down, or offer deferential respect.)

Political commentator Craig Crawford responded, “Autocrat scholars call this Anticipatory Obedience.”

Jarvis appeared to sum up the Mar-a-Lago meeting as an effort to gain “access.”

“Oh, Lord. Joe and Mika went to Mar-a-lago. ‘What we did agree on,’ Mika said, ‘was to restart communications.’ Access. ‘He seemed interested in finding common ground with Democrats.’ Credulity. They revert to their mean.”

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Jarvis also blasted Scarborough and Brzezinski for not having on their Monday morning panel any pundit who would push back against them: “Of course, there is no one on the panel to ask, ‘How the fuck could you?’ as we all are at home.”

He also declared the couple created “The Scarborough doctrine,” which he described as, “You can’t root against the president of the United States without rooting against America.”

Scarborough, Jarvis declared, “won’t root against authoritarianism, racism, misogyny (against his own wife), fascism. He won’t root for the people and our Constitution. There you have it.”

“Was there any journalism to come out of this?” Jarvis asked. “No. The meeting was ‘on background.’ Joe assures they asked for an interview. Of course, they did: giving Trump just what he wants–airtime and attention. This is how they helped get him elected in the first place.”

“Right after that pathetic display, Mika reads headlines about attacks on LGBTQ people and Trump drawing up a list of military officers to court martial and there is no nod to the irony. Oh, yes, let’s get along–with the destruction of the nation.”

Nodding to a number of top MSNBC hosts, Jarvis remarked, “I try to envision Joy Reid, @maddow, @Lawrence, @NicolleDWallace, @chrislhayes, alongside frequent guests @esglaude, @MollyJongFast, and others watching @JoeNBC & @morningmika’s betrayal this morning. Did they throw coffee at their TVs or merely shake their heads, knowingly?”

MSNBC host, and legal contributor and correspondent Katie Phang, without naming names, posted on social media: “Normalizing Trump is a bad idea. Period.”

Scarborough and Brzezinski told viewers that at Mar-a-Lago, “we talked about a lot of issues, including abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents, and media outlets.”

And while they “didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of issues, and we told him so,” they “did agree” to “restart communications.”

They described Trump as “cheerful,” and “upbeat,” claiming that “he seemed interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues.”

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“And 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?”

“Five years of political warfare has deeply divided Washington and the country,” they said, not blaming Trump.

“What also does not work is threatening political opponents with arrest, harassment and even jail. That is a failed path,” they said—appearing to blame Democrats for wanting allowing the justice system and the rule of law to rule the day, while ignoring that Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened his political opponents with arrest, harassment and even jail.

“Recent history has proven that impeachments and trials turned those on trial into political martyrs and only make them more popular with the American people, just ask Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.”

“We’re not here to defend our normalize Donald Trump,” they concluded. “We’re here to report on him.”

Democratic strategist Max Burns lamented, “Don’t need to crack down on the free press when the free press will crack down on itself.”

Philadelphia Inquirer national opinion columnist Will Bunch added: “‘Morning Joe’ capitulation is another of my worst fears about life under Trump 47 – that 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.”

Some have suggested the couple went to Mar-a-Lago to help the network’s ratings.

Puck’s Dylan Byers had shared some dismal statistics last week:

“CNN, MSNBC ratings plummeted after elections,” noted SiriusXM host Michelangelo Signorile. He warned, “Morning Joe bowing to Trump, & the rest doing finger-pointing & both sides coverage, isn’t going to bring audience back.”

Similarly, Mediaite editor-in-chief Aidan McLaughlin observed, “The thing about this is that it comes as MSNBC’s audience has collapsed. Imagine if a Fox News host announced they met privately with Biden when the network saw its audience flee after the 2020 election?”

Indeed, some on social media suggested they may be done with “Morning Joe.”

Political podcaster and progressive commentator JoJoFromJerz, who has nearly one million followers on X, offered up a profanity-laced response that effectively urged MSNBC to take “Morning Joe” off the air.

Media critic Susan Bordson explained:

“There are a few news shows I keep as standard in my dvr settings in case I want to check out segments or audit them later. @Morning_Joe was one of them. Today, I eliminated it from my @MSNBC recording list. Ethical news commentary does not require ACCESS practices.”

Podcaster Keith Olbermann, a former MSNBC host, also blasted Scarborough, writing: “Why is anybody surprised? Since 1998 I’ve said Scarborough was the worst person I’d ever encountered in this business. He proves me right, year after year. Today it has become Vichy MSNBC.”

“Let’s face it,” wrote former editor John McIntyre. “Morning Joe and Mika were self-important and tedious. Now we know that they are also craven, and there is no need to give them our attention.”

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