What a difference a year makes.
In his new book Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff writes that President Donald Trump was incredibly eager to officiate the wedding of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski last January, months before the two were even engaged.
President Trump was so excited about the idea that he even volunteered to host the wedding, and made fun of his son-in-law when he offered his services for the ceremony.
It is a story Scarborough himself told back in May when he and Brzezinski did get engaged in the South of France, and their relationship with President Trump had deteriorated from cordial to combative.
They do: In his new book Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff reveals that President Donald Trump offered to officiate the wedding of Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough (Morning Joe hosts and President Trump above in 2016 interview)
The Morning Joe hosts were having lunch at Mar-a-Lago in January of last year after being invited down to Palm Beach by the Commander-in-Chief following his first full week in office.
The conversation had become a bit heated when Scarborough informed President Trump that he thought the roll-out of his controversial immigration order had been disastrous, prompting the newly inaugurated host to switch topic.
‘So what about you guys? What’s going on?’ asked President Trump according to an excerpt from the book obtained by Daily Intelligencer, referencing Brzezinski and Scarborough’s not-so-secret relationship.
‘You should just get married.’
That is when Jared Kushner, less than a week into his new role at the White House, jumped in and said: ‘I can marry you! I’m an internet Unitarian minister.’
Kushner’s eagerness to join Scarborough and Brzezinski in holy matrimony did not sit well with his father-in-law however, who scoffed at the notion.
‘What are you talking about? Why would they want you to marry them when I could marry them?’ asked President Trump.
‘When they could be married by the president! At Mar-a-Lago!’
Scarborough told a very similar version of this story to Vanity Fair four months later after her and Brzezinski did in fact become engaged.
He told Vanity Fair that while eating a lunch of fish and scalloped potatoes, the topic of conversation turned at one point to his relationship with Brzezisnki, with President Trump saying the two should have their ceremony at Mar-a-Lago or the White House.
‘That’s when Jared interrupted and said, “Hey, you know what? I’ve got my license. I could marry you,”‘ said Scarborough.
Scarborough went on to state in the interview that President Trump then said: ‘What? What are you talking about? Why would they want you to marry them when I could marry them? When they could be married by the president! At Mar-a-Lago!’
It was shortly after this lunch that the relationship between President Trump and the Morning Joe hosts began to fall apart.
The affianced co-hosts recounted back in July how President Trump called them up ‘screaming’ weeks after the lunch, taking issue with Scarborough’s treatment of Stephen Miller on their program.
‘He said, “I invited you over to lunch and you’re so rude! You’re killing this kid!”‘ Scarborough told New York.
He went on to claim that President Trump told him he should have invited Sean Hannity to the lunch.
Not to be outdone, Brzezinski told her own salacious tale about a frustrated Ivanka Trump being forced to shout at her father during a White House meeting when he ignored her attempts to discuss woman’s issues.
Brzezinski said that the ‘disturbing’ interaction made it clear that the billionaire businessman was ‘way too into’ being president.
At that point the two already believed that President Trump was ‘long gone,’ with Scarborough claiming that winning the election ‘has just amplified as of his insecurities,’ a conclusion he came too just hours after the inauguration when he got a phone call from the new Commander-in-Chief.
‘I talked to him for three seconds. You know when you talk to somebody and you know they’re gone,’ explained Scarborough.
‘Oh, this place is so great!,’ he recalled the President saying during that call, while also ‘talking about the phone system and all the, basically, toys, new toys he had — not his words.’
Scarborough added: ‘I remember getting off the phone really fast and, to Mika, I said, ‘He’s long gone. This is bad.’
Brzezinski soon found out first hand she said in the interview.
‘When I spoke to Ivanka that morning, she was like, “We’re really going to talk to him about some of these things that I want to do,”‘ recalled Brzezinski.
‘And I was all about supporting anything that’s good for empowering women, whether it’s a Republican as president or a Democrat. I’m open to hearing it all.’
Ivanka was still months away from actually having a formal position in the White House at the time, but that did not excuse the way her father treated her that day said Brzezinski.
She claimed that the First Daughter tried to bring up a discussion of woman’s issues, but was ignored by her father, who eventually offered up a ‘what?’
That eventually resulted in Ivanka shouting out ‘Women!’ and then ‘Woah-men!’ for emphasis said Brzezisnki.
Ivanka also began drawing the figure of a woman in the air with her fingers to try and help her father.
Brzezinski went on to state that President Trump finally responded to his frustrated daughter’s outburst by saying: ‘Oh, women. Yeah, honey. Yeah, honey. We can do that.’
On top of all this, President Trump also kicked things off that day by asking Brzezinski if she had been to the White House prior to visiting him in the Oval Office earlier that month.
Brzezinski explained that she first visited when she was 9 because her father Zbigniew Brzezinski was the national security adviser to former president Jimmy Carter.
President Trump tried to bounce back by then saying: ‘Well, I bet it was your first time, Joe.’
Scarborough informed President Trump that he got the chance to previously visit as well when he served in Congress two decades prior.
‘That was pretty much it for both of us,’ said Scarborough.
And the title of that cover story? Donald Trump Is Not Invited to the Wedding.