MSNBC viewers were in an uproar over hosts who visited with President-elect Donald Trump after calling him literally Hitler.
And the incoming 47th president revealed details about last week’s meet-up with “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski and why he decided to meet with the duo who have slandered him for years.
“In order to Make America Great Again, it is very important, if not vital, to have a free, fair and open media or press,” Trump told Fox News on Monday.
“I received a call from Joe Scarborough requesting a meeting for him and Mika, and I agreed that it would be a good thing if such meeting took place,” Trump said of the husband and wife team who have not spoken with him in seven years.
“We met at Mar-a-Lago on Friday morning at 8:00,” Trump recounted, calling the meeting “extremely cordial.”
“Many things were discussed, and I very much appreciated the fact that they wanted to have open communication,” he said. “In many ways, it’s too bad that it wasn’t done long ago.”
The former and future president said the MSNBC hosts “congratulated me on running a ‘great and flawless campaign, one for the history books,’ which I really believe it was, but it was also a campaign where I worked long and hard — perhaps longer and harder than any presidential candidate in history.”
“We talked about various Cabinet members — both announced and to be announced. As expected, they like some very much, but not all,” Trump said. “The meeting ended in a very positive manner, and we agreed to speak in the future.”
“I expect this will take place with others in the media, even those that have been extremely hostile,” he told Fox News, adding that he feels he has “an obligation to the American public, and to our country itself, to be open and available to the press.”
“If not treated fairly, however, that will end,” Trump said. “The media is very important to the long-term success of the United States of America.”
The president-elect vowed he “will do whatever is necessary to bring our country to the highest level that it’s ever seen.”
“We’re off to a good start, and I will be open and free as to further developments as they take place, that includes media relationships,” he added.
With a landslide election victory that saw Trump score the electoral and popular vote as well as scoop up swing states Democrats were depending on, he said he “obviously” has “the upper hand at this moment.”
“And while many others are calling for meetings, I am not looking for retribution, grandstanding or to destroy people who treated me very unfairly, or even badly beyond comprehension,” he clarified. “I am always looking to give a second and even third chance, but never willing to give a fourth chance — that is where I hold the line.”
He did, however, thank the “many reporters, journalists, shows and new media sources, of which there are many, who were truthful, honest and professional over the years of both my presidency and candidacies.”
“They were the ones that kept me in the game, and they were the ones that gave me a victory — the likes of which our country has rarely seen before,” Trump said. “These people and organizations, and they know who they are, should be, and are, very proud of themselves, and they have a right to be proud. And I have a right to say to them — congratulations.”
