Mika Brzezinski & Joe Scarborough’s excellent adventure

Monday morning was MSNBC’s connubial co-host Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski informed their loyal audience of nearly a million viewers that they had recently ventured south from their home in Jupiter to Mar-a-Lago. There, for the first time in seven year they met Donald Trump– the very man they had used last time several years loud pill. Reading from their respective teleprompters with well-choreographed solemnity, the pair delivered this relatively benign news as if revealing their involvement in a top-secret nuclear negotiation. Or like CNN’s John Berman cheekily put it over to the rival network “as if it were the Yalta Summit.”

Anticipating a pushback from their predominantly liberal coalition, Joe and Mika Trump framed the meeting as an effort to foster constructive dialogue. “For those asking why we would talk to the president-elect in such busy times, especially between us, I think I would ask back, ‘Why wouldn’t we?'” Mika said. “Joe and I realized it’s time to do something different, and that starts by not only talking about Donald Trump, but also talking with him.” Later, Mika also alluded to his father, Zbigniew Brzezinskia top American diplomat who served as Jimmy Carter‘s national security adviser. She explained that maintaining an open dialogue was “a task shared by both journalists and commentators.”