MAUREEN CALLAHAN: One look at the tawdry scandal behind Morning Joe hosts Mika and Joe's marriage tells you why MSNBC must now fire these smarmy hypocrites
The left-wing media is truly two-faced, and those two faces belong to MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.
What smarmy charlatans they are, spending the entire election cycle defaming Donald Trump as Hitler, as a fascist, as someone who needed to be stopped at all costs because he is 'killing women' along with democracy.
So what did these haughty hypocrites do after the election? Scoot over to kiss the ring at Mar-a-Lago, of course.
If MSNBC wants to retain a shred of credibility, Joe and Mika — who reportedly did not inform their bosses before going — should be fired.
But network execs probably won't cut them loose — not immediately, anyway. After all, aside from fellow hysteric Rachel Maddow, these two are the only so-called 'stars' they've got.
Besides, Mika has a perfectly rational explanation.
'Joe and I realized it's time to do something different,' she told their rapidly declining audience on Monday, 'and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump but also talking with him.'
Right. Because, after having spent the past few months screeching and weeping about Hitler reincarnate, who wouldn't ask for a tete-a-tete at Nazi HQ?
The left-wing media is truly two-faced, and those two faces belong to MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.
What did these haughty hypocrites do after the election? Scoot over to kiss the ring at Mar-a-Lago, of course.
Mika's never been that bright. Her incessant on-air sighs and eyerolls are meant to imply that she's far above the buffoonery on 'Morning Joe', but really, those tics belie an intellectual lightweight afraid, or more likely unable, to say anything serious.
No wonder she loved Kamala Harris. Mika, who peddles her ridiculous 'Know Your Value' summits and books and online courses to unsuspecting women, ironically comports herself like someone in way over her head.
As for her equally odious husband – well, Joe Scarborough has always been a self-impressed, dead-eyed liar who seems to think his folksy accent can push any prevarication or insult over the finish line.
'F*** you,' he told his audience in March, defending his No.1 fanboy, Joe Biden, against rumors that the president was non compos mentis. Scarborough knew better, because, as he often informed the great unwashed at home, he and Mika are — well, were — BFFs with the Bidens.
'We have known him a long time,' Scarborough said in July. 'Mika and her family' — Mika the nepo baby, her late father having served LBJ and Jimmy Carter — '[are] extraordinarily close to the Bidens.'
That is exactly the reason Joe and Mika had no business covering the Biden presidency. But Scarborough loooooves to brag about his proximity to power — you know, the kind of stuff any actual, self-respecting journalist finds disgusting and unethical.
After informing his disciples in March that he had just spent 'a couple of hours with Joe Biden, sitting, talking, going around the world as far as talking issues', Scarborough said that Biden is 'far beyond cogent… He's better than he's ever been intellectually, analytically.'
That didn't age well.
Mika's never been that bright. Her incessant on-air sighs and eyerolls are meant to imply that she's far above the buffoonery on 'Morning Joe', but really, those tics belie an intellectual lightweight afraid to say anything serious.
Joe has always been a self-impressed, dead-eyed liar with that folksy accent which he seems to think can push any prevarication or insult over the finish line. (Pictured: The couple with Donald and Ivanka Trump in 2016).
Four months later, Scarborough plunged the knife in Biden's back, exhorting him on-air to withdraw from the race.
Mika, meanwhile, took her vaudeville act to 'The View', where she camped it up as an overwrought progressive who just wants abortion!
'We're in crisis,' Mika said.
The sighs were heavy, the tears were brimming, the voice a-tremble. Trump's Madison Square Garden rally, she preached, was beyond the pale.
'Nobody gets a pass trashing America,' she inveighed. 'Nobody gets a pass threatening his enemies with using the military against them.'
Almost forgot that whopper!
Anyway, if you win the US presidential election, it turns out you get a huge pass from Joe and Mika. So off they trotted to Mar-a-Lago, Mika telling their disenchanted viewers that she and Joe needed to 'restart communications', as if this were a bilateral negotiation among warring but equal nations.
Ha! Not so fast. Here was Trump on Truth Social: 'This morning, "Morning" Joe and Mika, who owe their careers to me, went on their show and claimed to have met with me. They made it sound like we had a summit. The truth is, Joe begged to meet with me after our Big Win, and when I finally agreed, he approached me like a scolded dog. He should consider himself lucky that I didn't have him thrown out of beautiful Mar-a-Lago.'
Joe and Mika owe Trump in more ways than one. During his 2016 run, Trump was a boon to Morning Joe's ratings and relevancy, appearing on the show constantly.
And years before that, it was Trump who, among others, helped cover for the worst-kept secret in cable news: Joe and Mika, each married to others, had been enjoying a lengthy affair.
Mika even reportedly called over to the Death Star – aka the Fox News building – in 2013 to personally lobby the network's then-CEO Roger Ailes to kill a story about their relationship, which he did.
Once Trump won the nomination, however, Mika and Joe turned on him. Not very smart.
Trump's tweet, dated August 22, 2016: 'Some day, when things calm down, I'll tell the real story of @JoeNBC and his very insecure long-time girlfriend, @morningmika. Two clowns!'
Now there's an observation that's aged well.
Mika and Joe are but the apex of the crisis facing corporate liberal media, who have lied to their audience for so long, and so brazenly, about Donald Trump.
It was Trump who, among others, helped cover for the worst-kept secret in cable news: Joe and Mika, each married to others, had been enjoying a lengthy affair. (Pictured: Mika and Joe are interviewing Trump in 2016).
In fact, parent company Comcast is reportedly now planning to put MSBNC, along with other declining assets, up for sale.
A betrayed audience is finally questioning shameless, transactional, empty mouthpieces like Joe and Mika: so-called truth-tellers devoid of any moral compass, who seemingly care only about scoring that next interview, keeping their celebrity intact, and getting invites to the next state dinner.
An audience now made to feel foolish, if not stupid, for believing and parroting everything these two and their compatriots ever said.
Naturally, Scarborough has doubled down, claiming on Tuesday that, 'Yesterday, I saw for the first time what a massive disconnect there was between social media and the real world, because we were flooded with phone calls from people all day, literally around the world, all very positive, very supportive, "I understand what you did," et cetera.'
Joe: Your own ratings contradict you.
Data obtained by Mediaite shows that 38 percent of viewers in the crucial 25 to 54-year-old age group switched off after their little Trump-meeting disclosure on Monday. 'Morning Joe' then kept shedding eyeballs hour by hour.
Meanwhile, MSNBC is in revolt, with colleagues calling the meeting 'disgusting', 'cowardice' and 'frankly unsurprising… [Mika and Joe] are just opportunistic.'
No kidding. A marriage born in deceit gives way to a morning show built on lies. Who would have thought?
Yet a source close to 'Morning Joe' – Shmika, perhaps? – defended the meeting, saying it 'was f***ing worth it'.
Better be. Or these two may, in fact, find themselves out of a job.
