On Wednesday, MSNBC’s Morning Joe played a clip of President Trump visiting the U.S./Mexico border to inspect wall prototypes, and co-host Mika Brzezinski subsequently suffered an emotional breakdown over the footage.
Recurring panelist Willie Geist began the segment with a short summary of the President’s visit to San Diego. The line in Geist’s introduction that set Brzezinski off was a quote in which Trump appeared to praise the climbing abilities of people attempting to cross the border from Mexico.
“Oh my God,” she burst out as the clip in question to play.
As co-host, Brzezinski’s duties include providing an overview of topics and moderating discussion. However, the trauma induced by hearing the President say, “They are like professional mountain climbers; they’re incredible climbers,” appeared to have short-circuited the portion of her brain responsible for impulse control. She began talking over other panelists, contributing little more to the conversation than shocked gasps and expressions of outrage.
“They’re like mountain climbers,” laughed Geist. “What the, what is – ” Brzezinski fumbled. “Incredible climbers,” NBC News analyst John Heilemann agreed, amid further sputtering from Brzezinski.
Eventually, she managed to organize her thoughts into a concrete question: “I mean, isn’t the – don’t the numbers defy the logic of this stupid wall?”
Heilemann sarcastically chided her for “introducing facts into this discussion,” to which she responded, “Oh, my God, I cannot believe – that’s our President!”
Brzezinski and her co-host, Joe Scarborough, have had a rocky relationship with the President. The MSNBC hosts were on good terms with then-candidate Trump during the 2016 primaries, and he frequently called into their show during the early days of the race. By the general election, however, their relationship with Trump had soured, and Brzezinski soon became one of Trump’s most ardent critics. Her open disdain for the President was only exacerbated when he insulted her on Twitter in June of 2017, calling her “low I.Q. Crazy Mika,” and claiming he’d once seen her “bleeding badly from a face-lift.”
Since then, Brzezinski’s outbursts against the President have become commonplace on Morning Joe. However, her breakdowns are rarely as debilitating as the one she exhibited on Wednesday.
