Journalist Mika Brzezinski and President Donald Trump‘s relationship has taken multiple dramatic turns over the years, with a recently resurfaced video showing just how amicable their connection once was.
The clip, according to the Daily Mail, is from March 12, 2010, long before Trump’s political career took off, and captures an affectionate moment between the “Morning Joe” co-host and the future president that stands in stark contrast to their later contentious relationship.
The video shows Brzezinski warmly greeting Trump as he enters the MSNBC morning show set, embracing him with such enthusiasm that she lifts her leg romantically during their hug.
“Watch your head. You’re very tall!” she warns Trump before respectfully addressing him as “sir” while guiding him to his seat.
“Is Mika Brzezinski not as beautiful today as the first time you called into our show in 2007 and embarrassed her?” Joe Scarborough asked Trump during the segment.
Trump responded, “I didn’t embarrass her. I thought she was very beautiful and I watched the show because of her beauty, not because of any politics or anything. … Yes, she’s gotten more beautiful.”
The interaction grows more affectionate when Scarborough instructs Brzezinski to check Trump’s hair.
She obliges, running her fingers through his locks in a moment that has sparked renewed interest on social media.
“Does it feel good?” Trump asks during the hair examination.
“Yeah,” Brzezinski replies. “It’s all there.”
The video has gained new attention following months adter the revelation that Brzezinski and Scarborough visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago to “restart communications” after his election victory.
This meeting came as a surprise to many viewers, given the years of harsh criticism the “Morning Joe” hosts — who married each other in 2018 — have directed at Trump since he entered politics.
Social media users have been quick to respond to the resurfaced clip.
“This is sickening!” wrote one person on Instagram when the clip was shared by Dems Might.
Another commenter noted, “Trump is flirting with her too. Forgot to mention this.”
A third observer suggested, “So I guess their disdain for Trump was all an act,” while someone else characterized the interaction differently: “More like he was mauling her.. as he does.”
One particularly dramatic comment exclaimed, “He’s Cheating on Melania OMG.”
President-elect Donald Trump arrived across from the White House at St. John's Episcopal Church Monday morning with his wife Melania, upholding the tradition of attending an Inauguration Day worship service. pic.twitter.com/1ZrHh6qavd
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 20, 2025
The relationship between Trump and the “Morning Joe” hosts has undergone several transformations over the years.
During the early stages of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Brzezinski and Scarborough regularly invited him on their show, effectively boosting his candidacy. Trump even thanked the two in February 2016 for being “believers” in his campaign.
According to reports, the chumminess between Trump and the hosts unsettled MSNBC staff, who found the relationship “over the top” and “unseemly.”
As Trump’s campaign gained momentum, however, Scarborough and Brzezinski became increasingly critical of his policies and rhetoric, leading to a dramatic falling-out.
By May 2016, Trump was tweeting that “Morning Joe” had become “hostile” and misrepresented his opinions, Business Insider reported.
The attacks intensified, with Trump calling Brzezinski “crazy” and “very dumb” and accusing her of having a “mental breakdown” in a September tweet.
The hostility reached its peak in June 2017 when Trump viciously attacked Brzezinski on Twitter, calling her “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” and claiming she was “bleeding badly from a face-lift.”
Brzezinski responded by posting a photo of Cheerios with “Made For Little Hands” printed on the box, mocking Trump’s reportedly sensitive issue about his hand size.
Despite their complicated history, Scarborough recently defended their Mar-a-Lago meeting in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
“I was surprised, but there were two different reactions. There was the social media reaction, and then there was a reaction from every publisher and editor and reporter and news director that I spoke to, and all of them were like, ‘of course you went there,'” Scarborough explained.
He added that reporters from major publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal have all spoken with Trump and his chief of staff.
“The only difference is we were transparent about it, and we told our audience that we had done it,” Scarborough said, dismissing the social media backlash as “sound and fury signifying nothing.”
As “Morning Joe” plans to evolve under MSNBC’s upcoming spinoff from Comcast, Scarborough has expressed a desire to return to the show’s original concept, which balanced politics with cultural conversations.
Whether the renewed communication with Trump signals another shift in their relationship remains to be seen, but the resurfaced video serves as a reminder of just how dramatically things have changed since those friendly hair-touching days of 2010.
