'Morning Joe' Apologizes for Fox News Joke, Then Scolds Its Shrinking Audience

Yesterday on Morning Joe, guest David Frum made an offhand joke while discussing the nomination of Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, referencing NBC’s reporting that Hegseth often drank on the job. “If you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed,” Frum quipped.

The joke might have seemed relatively harmless on a show where its anchors, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, have spent years denouncing Donald Trump as a fascist and deriding Fox News. But this is post-election Morning Joe. Now, they’re cozying up to the man they once declared a threat to democracy and apologizing for mild jokes at Fox News’ expense.

After Frum made the remark, he was told not to repeat it via his earpiece. Later in the show, Brzezinski issued a bizarre apology: “The comment was a little too flippant for this moment that we’re in,” she explained to viewers. “We just want to make that clear. We have differences in coverage with Fox News, and that’s a good debate that we should have often. But right now, I just want to say there are a lot of good people at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we want to leave it at that.”

What “moment” are we in, exactly, Mika? The moment when MSNBC’s ratings are in freefall, and you’re groveling before the incoming administration to stave off potential backlash?

In a short piece in The Atlantic later in the day, Frum described the experience as “unsettling.”

“It is a very ominous thing if our leading forums for discussion of public affairs are already feeling the chill of intimidation and responding with efforts to appease,” he wrote. “I do not write to scold anyone; I write because fear is infectious. Let it spread, and it will paralyze us all.”

So what’s really going on? The Trump Administration has already put the media on notice, threatening lawsuits anytime coverage isn’t flattering. Kash Patel, Trump’s pick for FBI director, is even threatening to sue Olivia Troye — a former Pence aide — for calling him a “delusional liar.” That’s her right under the First Amendment. But when you control the DOJ, you have infinite resources to intimidate critics.

This, however, is something different. This is Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski scrambling to stay in the President-elect’s good graces—at the expense of their credibility.

Reportedly, tensions are running high at MSNBC, which is being spun off from NBCUniversal amid plummeting ratings and growing distrust in legacy media. Rumors are swirling that primetime anchors like Rachel Maddow are furious with Joe and Mika for their high-profile meeting with Trump. Scarborough, apparently still stinging from the backlash over their Mar-a-Lago visit, delivered a rambling 22-minute lecture to viewers defending their actions.

Joe Scarborough just blasted his remaining viewers this morning in the most condescending way for criticizing him & Mika for going to Mar-a-Lago to talk to Trump ‘on background’. (1 of 2)

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— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline.com) December 5, 2024 at 7:36 AM

Lecturing your audience is a bad look, especially when paired with disingenuous appeals to “context”—something Morning Joe had little interest in when it came to criticizing Trump over the last seven years. The only “context” Joe and Mika seem to care about now is, “How can we protect ourselves from the President?”

If you’re going to hide behind lofty journalism norms, at least act like journalists and grow a pair. Or at least admit you’ve abandoned your principles for self-preservation. But please, stop insulting your audience’s intelligence under the guise of “context.”