Mika Brzezinski’s Call for Harris Surrogates to Go on Fox News Spotlights Glaring Lack of Pro-Trump Voices On MSNBC

Mika Brzezinksi urged Vice President Kamala Harris to have her surrogates appear on what she called “MAGA TV” Thursday morning, shouting out “Fox News, Newsmax, Rumble, or whatever” – and to talk about the 2020 election interference case.

Her argument is sound: recent filings from Special Counsel Jack Smith get little airtime on Fox News’ most-watched opinion programs. As I’ve written before, Fox News weighs heavily on the scale of political coverage by ignoring many stories that paint former President Donald Trump in a negative light.

But the adage of “do as I say, not as I do” immediately comes to mind. While it would be great if every cable news outlet were better committed to featuring a more diverse set of ideologically opposed talking heads, MSNBC rarely features a pro-Trump voice on its network, primarily because it’s bad for business.

Brzezinski argued that American voters watching those right-leaning networks were “not hearing anything about this.”

I’m curious, I really think [Democratic running mate] Tim Walz defined the election, defined the choice in that moment during the debate, as much as you could see Vance trying to sane wash it. There’s a lot of use of that word lately. But there are a swath of voters who are watching MAGA TV, whether it’s Fox News, Newsmax, Rumble, or whatever else they have going on out there, and they’re not hearing anything about this, or very little.

I really feel like the Harris campaign needs to get into the arena. They need top surrogates going on Fox News and going to these places and trying to talk to people. I know that might be hard, and perhaps they’re not welcome, but then tell us that. I mean, we need to somehow get the entire conversation out there for all the American people to see. For all the American people to see the facts and the choice.

MSNBC seems loath to share any information with viewers that might be negative towards Harris or, god forbid, in favor of Trump. It’s a time-honored business model pioneered by Fox News.

There are exceptions to the rule, of course. Ari Melber featured Peter Navarro on his show Wednesday evening, and the segment was fascinating. It discussed the latest Jan. 6 revelations. Navarro has made many appearances on Melber’s show, and they are almost always a must-watch. Melber seems to host the only MSNBC program that is brave enough to interview anyone with a pro-Trump point of view, with rare exceptions.

One of those exceptions was Joy Reid’s recent interview with MAGA-forward Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) was more than a fascinating back-and-forth exchange of ideas—it was great television and showed how featuring guests with diametrically opposed views can work.

When I reached out to MSNBC for comment on their apparent one-sided approach, I was provided a list of guests who may have once believed in Trump’s vision but have since turned decidedly against the former president. Olivia Troye, Sarah Matthews, and Cassidy Hutchinson dominated the list, along with a handful of pro-Trump voices like Brian Schimming, Gordan Sondland, and Marc Lotter. It’s not the marquee names of the MAGA world, but it’s fair play. It’s easy to see why the MAGA voices may not want to go on the Lean Forward network.

I recognize serious challenges in booking a pro-Trump voice in today’s partisan climate. There are good reasons not to want to amplify election deniers or conspiracy theorists. However, there are plenty of Republican members of Congress who are less from the Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley school of duplicitous buffoonery and more principled politicians willing to engage in Socratic dialogue. None of them, however, ever seem to feature on MSNBC.

Several Republicans appear on MSNBC as hosts. Scarborough left the party but served in Congress as a member of the Grand Old Party before becoming a TV host in the early aughts. Nicolle Wallace served under the George W. Bush administration, and Michael Steele was a former chair of the RNC. Yes, the Republican party has changed dramatically under Trump, and it’s fair to say that all Republican voices on the left-leaning network are “Never Trumpers.”

There appears to be minimal appetite at MSNBC to feature anyone more on the pro-Trump end of the Republican scale. Who can forget the abject circus after Cesar Conde thought to bring former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel on as a paid contributor and the on-air mutiny that followed? It cost McDaniel airtime and Conde’s industry credibility, which he is still trying to recover.

The irony here, of course, is that in 2015, Brzezinksi and her co-host/husband Joe Scarborough lent their credibility to then-candidate Trump, lending him their platform via interviews and town hall appearances they hosted. Did Trump get elected because of Morning Joe support? Of course not, but any reasonable person could see that Trump was largely the same person then as he is today. And tune in to Morning Joe over the past few years; you quickly learn that they see him as a modern-day authoritarian with loose comparisons to Hitler fired off regularly.

The other curious part of Brezinski’s call for Democratic voices to go on Fox News ignores that her highest-rated cable news competitor — which she admits to frequently watching with morbid curiosity — regularly features Harris-Walz campaign surrogates on its shows.

Campaign spokesman Ian Sams has appeared on Fox News multiple times, recently engaging in a mutually respectful dialogue with Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is a master of debate in his Fox appearances, almost always throwing off content that goes viral. Michael Tyler and Mark Kelly have also recently made appearances on the network.

No one will confuse Fox News with a DNC operation, but at least its dayside programming is willing to occasionally engage in a conversation with members of the Harris campaign or her surrogates. I agree with Brezizinksi — there should be more Democrats making the case on Fox News,  and I’ve argued that Kamala Harris should go on Fox herself.

But respectfully, Brezinski’s call for more Democrats to go on Fox News or for “MAGA TV” to feature more pro-Harris surrogates falls a little flat when MSNBC seems unwilling to feature almost anyone supporting Trump’s reelection bid. The false bubble of partisan like-mindedness may be the short-term comfort food, but it’s not at all nutritious, and it also makes its viewers out of touch with what nearly half of the nation thinks.

Oddly, it does a disservice to the health of the body of politics and ends up hurting the Democratic election efforts more than it helps.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.