At Morning Joe, good news for the Trump administration is bad news for Joe and Mika. So it was surely no fun for the pair on Wednesday to report the developments out of Saudi Arabia, where Ukraine announced its agreement to a plan negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio for a 30-day ceasefire, and the US in response agreed to lift its halt on intelligence sharing and military assistance.
Scarborough, to his credit, did describe the news as a "very positive" step forward. David Ignatius of the Washington Post, a Morning Joe regular, took it even further, calling it "extremely positive."
And it must have been a bitter pill for Morning Joe to report that Zelensky "expressed gratitude to President Trump." Volodymyr thanking a "full-on Hitler?" Say it ain't so!
Speaking of Zelensky, the worst moment was reserved for Mika. She opened the segment by describing the recent Oval Office meeting among Zelensky, President Trump, and VP JD Vance as "disastrous."
But Mika was contradicted by another Morning Joe regular, Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times. Bumiller said that the Oval Office meeting, despite being a "debacle" and "horrible to watch," was a "pressure tactic" that while "ugly, got us somewhere." Ignatius agreed: "it did."
Mika didn't respond to Bumiller's positive appraisal of the outcome of the Oval Office meeting, other than with a curt "all right," moving immediately to other matters.
International diplomacy isn't always sipping tea and smiling for the cameras. It can be rough, and the Oval Office encounter was played out on live TV for all to witness. So, sorry Mika: it wasn't "disastrous." It was a success.
Imagine that Kamala Harris had won the election. Odds that in her first 50 days she would have successfully orchestrated Zelensky's agreement to a cease-fire? Better or worse than those of the Jets and Giants meeting in the next Super Bowl?
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
3-12-25
6:01 am ETMIKA BRZEZINSKI: U.S. and Ukrainian relations appear to be back on track after that disastrous White House meeting last month.
. . .
So last night in his evening address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he welcomed the U.S. ceasefire proposal and expressed gratitude to President Trump.
. . .
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well David, if this U.S. policy holds, it certainly does sound like a very positive, a very positive step forward that Secretary Rubio announced yesterday. And they have said now the ball is in Russia's court. What do we expect?
DAVID IGNATIUS: So, Joe, first, it is extremely positive that this terrible war, has been going on for three years. As National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said, it's a meat grinder.
And trying to stop that meat grinder is something that I think everyone supports. Certainly the Ukrainians do.
. . .
ELISABETH BUMILLER: But I would add, I think that that that debacle in the Oval Office with with Trump and Zelensky and J.D. Vance, as horrible as that was to watch, obviously it was a pressure tactic that, how ugly it was, it got us somewhere.
IGNATIUS: It did.
MIKA: [moving on] All right.
