MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' sheds viewers as liberals rage at Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski over Trump meeting

MSNBC's "Morning Joe" has seen its audience noticeably shrink since co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski told viewers they met face-to-face with President-elect Trump. 

During the program’s 6 a.m. ET hour on Monday, Scarborough and Brzezinski revealed they traveled to Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Friday to meet with Trump, who the married co-hosts spent years insisting was a "fascist" and an overall threat to democracy. It appears thousands of viewers responded by switching off the show.

"Morning Joe" averaged 839,000 total viewers during the 6 a.m. ET hour on Monday with 113,000 in the advertiser-coveted demo ages 25-54. In the 7 a.m. ET hour, its total fell to 694,000 and just 70,000 in the key demo. The drop-off was the opposite of the year-to-date "Morning Joe" ratings that typically see the audience grow as more Americans wake up. 

Then MSNBC's marquee morning show took another hit the next day, averaging only 638,000 total viewers at the 6 a.m. hour with just 81,000 in the key demo, losing about 20% of its total audience between Monday and Tuesday. The average total audience was down 11% across its four hours of programming.

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So far in 2024, "Morning Joe" has averaged a little over one million total viewers during the 6 a.m. hour, compared to 1.1 million starting at 7 a.m. ET.

The meeting between Scarborough, Brzezinski and Trump has infuriated liberals — including some MSNBC colleagues — who took to social media to rage against "Morning Joe." 

Several prominent viewers and media figures have sworn they'll never watch again. 

"It’s the last time I ever watch ‘Morning Joe.’ Period. End of statement," anti-Trump comedian Rosie O’Donnell said in a TikTok post.

Left-wing Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor Jennifer Rubin encouraged viewers to stop watching the show.

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Friday's meeting was the first time the co-hosts had seen Trump in seven years, Brzezinski said, and Scarborough added that they didn't see "eye to eye on a lot of issues, and we told him so." 

Scarborough said they went over such topics as abortion, mass deportation and threats of retribution against political opponents and media outlets. The meeting, according to the hosts, was about an agreement to "restart communications."

"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?" Brzezinski said. "Five years of political warfare has deeply divided Washington and the country. 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."

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"But for nearly 80 million Americans, election denialism, public trials, January 6, were not as important as the issues that moved them to send Donald Trump back to the White House with their vote," she continued. "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."

The exodus of "Morning Joe" viewers comes on the heels of one of MSNBC’s lowest-rated weeks of all time, as liberal viewers continue to tune out the news since a grim Election Day for Democrats. 

"The Rachel Maddow Show," "Inside with Jen Psaki," "The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle," "Alex Wagner Tonight," "Chris Jansing Reports," "Deadline: White House," "Jose Diaz-Balart Reports," "Katy Tur Reports," "The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell," "Morning Joe" and "The ReidOut" all had their worst weeks in key measurables since Election Day.