By Katherine Tinsley
11:11am PST, Feb 5, 2025
"The network saw growth over its pre-election ratings of just over 60 percent the week of January 20, 2025, with 1.3 million primetime viewers compared to just under 800,000 in the three weeks immediately before that, according to Nielsen data," Newscast Studio reported.
"MSNBC is still down slightly over its 1.34 million average viewers the last full week before the election," they added.
Despite catering to a smaller audience, Nielsen ratings show that MSNBC's decision to air The Rachel Maddow Show five nights a week for the first 100 days of Trump's administration was beneficial.
The program is currently averaging around 1.7 million viewers a day.
Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, who are vocal critics of Trump, even hung up on the president while on-air.
However, the duo visited Mar-a-Lago to meet with the real estate tycoon to ease the tension between them before heading into his presidency.
Last year, Scarborough defended his conversation with Trump.
"Yesterday we saw for the first time what massive disconnect there was between social media and the real world," Scarborough said last November.
"Because we were flooded with phone calls from people all day, literally around the world, very positive, very supportive, going, 'we understand why you did what you did,'" he noted.
Some fans of Morning Joe viewed their time with Trump as the journalists acquiescing to the Republican.
"They have portrayed themselves as bastions of integrity standing up to a would-be dictator," former CNN Washington bureau chief Frank Sesno told the Associated Press.
"What the followers see is the daily procession of people on the show constantly talking about the evils of Donald Trump and then Joe and Mika show up and have high tea with the guy," he continued.
Trump often brands left-leaning outlets as "fake news," and expressed his concerns during his campaign.
"ABC, ABC, fake news, CBS, ABC, NBC," Trump told a crowd at a Pennsylvania rally. "These are, these are, in my opinion, in my opinion, these are seriously corrupt people."
