"Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski taunted President Trump on Monday for watching their show, thanking him for apparently responding in real time to their commentary on his proposed travel ban on six Muslim-majority countries.
Earlier in the hour on MSNBC, Scarborough had discussed Trump's renewed call for the ban by calling the president a "dope" for undercutting his administration's own case to the Supreme Court. The panel also discussed how the Trump administration had trouble agreeing on whether it was a "travel ban" or not.
Trump, who made a renewed call for the travel ban on Saturday in response to the London terror attack, wrote a series of tweets Monday morning about the ban, which was recently blocked by a federal appeals court. Trump doubled down on it being a "travel ban" and criticized his own Justice Department for submitting a "watered down" version of it to the Supreme Court.
After the show played a clip of Megyn Kelly's interview with Vladimir Putin, it came back to Scarborough and Brzezinski looking gleeful and admitting they were "distracted."
"You want to say hi to him?" Scarborough asked.
"No, I don't want to say hi," Brzezinski said.
"Hi, Donald," Scarborough said.
The two, who were criticized for being too cozy with Trump during his Republican primary run, said they were now "estranged" from the president. Scarborough then read off the tweets by Trump about the travel ban.
"Last block, we talked about how that was in question," Brzezinski explained to the audience.
"He's doubling down," Scarborough said.
Panelist Mark Halperin said Trump's language made it "substantially easier" for the courts to not reinstate the ban.
"Thank you, Mr. President!" Brzezinski said. "Because I don't agree with the travel ban. He's helping me out."
Scarborough thanked Trump for watching the program.