MSNBC
Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski was quick to shut down a guest who inaccurately stated that Donald Trump was a “rapist” in an interview Wednesday, seemingly learning from competitor ABC News’ $15 million defamation settlement with the president-elect.
While discussing how Trump beat Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, guest and NYU professor Scott Galloway told Brzezinski: “We are in the midst of a series of small revolutions to correct income inequality. And the reason we put an insurrectionist and a rapist in office is because, for the first time in our nation’s history, a 30-year-old man or woman isn’t doing as well as his or his or her parents were at 30.”
After their conversation ended, Brzezinski quickly corrected Galloway’s wording.
“I want to make a comment about a word that was used in this interview,” she told viewers. “Donald Trump was tried civilly and was found liable of sexual abuse, not rape. The judge in the case likened his actions to rape, but the liability was officially called ‘sexual abuse.’”
ABC News settled a defamation suit with Trump in December, after anchor George Stephanopoulos inaccurately said the president-elect was found “liable for rape” in E. Jean Carroll’s case against him during an on-air interview with Nancy Mace in March.
The network agreed to pay $15 million toward Trump’s presidential library, and also coughed up another $1 million for legal fees.
In November, Brzezinski sat down with The Daily Beast Podcast’s hosts Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee to defend her and her husband/co-host Joe Scarborough’s decision to meet Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate after years of being his staunchest critics.
“I’ve heard from a lot of people… people that I respect a great deal, leaders, people I don’t usually hear from who are really powerful, who just wanted to let me know that that was the right thing to do,” Brzezinski said, adding that she “realized it’s time to do something different.”
“The media landscape right now is dominated by echo chambers,” she continued. “It’s my job to talk to people I don’t agree with—or even feel threatened by.”
