Onetime friends turned bitter critics, "Morning Joe" co-anchors Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on Monday said they paid President-elect Donald Trump a visit Friday to "restart communications."
"It will come as no surprise to anybody who watches this show, has watched it over the past year or over the past decade, that we didn't see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues and we told him so," Scarborough said.
His wife, Brzezinski, acknowledged the married couple realized "it's time to do something different" and "time for a new approach" with the incoming president they have been fiercely critical of.
"What we did agree on was to restart communications," she said.
Trump acknowledged in an interview Monday the "extremely cordial" meeting took place after Scarborough "and Mika, and I agreed that it would be a good thing if such meeting took place."
"I very much appreciated the fact that they wanted to have open communication," Trump said in that Monday morning acknowledgement. "In many ways, it’s too bad that it wasn’t done long ago."
The longtime critics "congratulated me on running a 'great and flawless campaign, one for the history books,' which I really believe it was, but it was also a campaign where I worked long and hard — perhaps longer and harder than any presidential candidate in history," Trump continued.
"We talked about various Cabinet members — both announced and to be announced. As expected, they like some very much, but not all. The meeting ended in a very positive manner, and we agreed to speak in the future."
Trump vowed to talk with even the most "extremely hostile" of media members in his next presidential term and before.
"I expect this will take place with others in the media, even those that have been extremely hostile," he said.
It was reportedly the first meeting between the couple and Trump in seven years. The couple broke from Trump after his first presidential run, and former Republican House member Scarborough even left the Republican Party due to his ideology on the MSNBC network.
Scarborough served as Florida's representative from its 1st Congressional District, a seat that was most recently held by former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who resigned once he was announced as Trump's attorney general nominee.
Scarborough and Brzezinski said they had not spoken with Trump since 2020, but Scarborough did place a call after the July 13 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Brzezinski said Trump was "cheerful," "upbeat," and "interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues."
"Five years of political warfare has deeply divided Washington and the country," Brzezinski said to open Monday's show. "We have been as clear as we know how in expressing our deep concerns about President Trump's actions and words in the coarsening of public debate.
"But for nearly 80 million Americans, election denialism, public trials, Jan. 6 were not as important as the issues that moved them to send Donald Trump back to the White House with their vote.
"Joe and I realize it's time to do something different, and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump, but also talking with him."
Trump has long mocked their show for being tone-deaf with Americans and having low ratings.
The hosts suggested they see change in Trump with regard to their ideology.
"Somebody close to Donald Trump told me this past weekend this is a president who is not seeking reelection, so maybe, just maybe now could be time for both parties to get to work," Scarborough said.
But do not expect the hardliner leftist ideologues from MSNBC to bend like Trump might, he warned.
"Don't be mistaken, we are not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump," he said. "We are here to report on him and to hopefully provide you insights that are going to better equip all of us in understanding these deeply unsettling times."