Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was a 2024 GOP presidential candidate, said Monday the hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" met with President-elect Donald Trump last week only because the cable network's ratings have tanked since Trump's victory on Election Day.
Joe Scarborough and his wife, Mika Brzezinski, said on their show Monday that they met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida late last week to "reopen communications" with his team, The Hill reported. They said it was their first face-to-face meeting with him in seven years.
Trump told Fox News such a meeting should have happened "long ago."
"Let's be clear, Joe and Mika didn't suddenly see the light, they saw their ratings," Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in Trump's first administration, wrote in a post on X, with a video of Brzezinski and Scarborough revealing their visit with Trump. "They realized they needed Trump for their survival."
MSNBC has averaged 550,000 viewers since Election Day, a 39% decline compared with the network's average in October, The New York Times reported Nov. 13. In prime time, MSNBC's audience has declined 53%, according to Nielsen data.
"In this meeting, he was upbeat, cheerful. And he seemed interested in finding common ground on some of the most divisive issues," Brzezinski said of their talk, according to The Hill.
"For those asking why we would go speak with the president-elect during such fraught times, especially between us ... I guess I would ask back, 'Why wouldn't we?'"
Since Trump became a leading political figure in Republican politics, Scarborough and Brzezinski have been among his harshest critics, which fits the mold of most MSNBC hosts. But now they have pledged to cover him fairly and honestly.
"Don't be mistaken: We're not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump," Scarborough said, according to The Hill. "We're here to report on him and to hopefully provide you insights and better equip all of us to understand these deeply unsettling times."