MSNBC host Joe Scarborough acknowledged that staffers for former President Joe Biden routinely monitored Morning Joe and privately urged him to soften his criticism when Biden was watching the show.
Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Scarborough said he would occasionally hear from senior members of Biden’s team who were keenly aware of the president’s viewing habits.
“And I would hear from the chiefs of staff that worked for him,” Scarborough said. “‘Be nice to the president. Because when you’re critical, well, it kind of screws up our day.’”
Scarborough insisted those requests did not affect how he approached his job, saying his commentary was driven by what he believed was best for the country, regardless of whether he was discussing Biden or President Donald Trump.
“The thing is, whether I was talking about Joe Biden or talking about what Donald Trump’s doing, my goal is your goal, which I think is everybody’s goal. We want a better country,” he said.
During the interview, Scarborough also suggested Trump is a regular viewer of Morning Joe. He recounted personally calling Trump after the president’s recent conversation with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz regarding unrest in Minneapolis.
“I said, ‘If you don’t mind, off the record, tell me about the call,’” Scarborough told Kimmel. “He told me about the call. And I said, ‘Mr. President, I think it’s a good thing for Americans to see you and Tim Walz and the mayor of Minneapolis talking to each other. We need more of that.’”
Scarborough’s comments revived scrutiny of his past on-air defense of Biden, particularly a March 2024 segment in which he dismissed concerns about the president’s mental fitness and declared Biden to be operating at peak capacity.
“I’ve said it for years now, he’s cogent. But I undersold it when I said he was cogent,” Scarborough said at the time. “He’s far beyond cogent. In fact, I think he’s better than he’s ever been, intellectually, analytically, because he’s been around for 50 years.”
In that same segment, Scarborough emphatically told viewers, “This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever.”
Those comments came back to haunt him following Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race and the publication of multiple books detailing internal concerns among aides about Biden’s health and cognitive decline. The accounts suggested senior staff were aware of limitations that were not publicly acknowledged at the time.
In May 2025, Scarborough conceded he had been “obviously wrong” about Biden being at his best, insisting that his earlier assessments were based on personal interactions rather than behind-the-scenes knowledge.
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Goes Both ways OK make=
End the damn Bias
They must not have known to whom they were talking. The jerk is so in-the-bag for the far left that he wouldn’t mention it if Biden had drawn a pistol and shot someone while he was watching.