'Credibly concerned': Retribution fear reportedly prompted 'Morning Joe' Trump meeting

MSNBC "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski stunned and outraged many of their viewers this week by announcing they went to Mar-a-Lago for a personal sit-down with Donald Trump — painting it as an effort to get back in the loop and into a place where they have the access to hold him accountable.

But according to CNN's "Reliable Sources," this may not be the whole story.

Rather, according to the report, the two anchors may have been trying to ingratiate themselves with the president-elect to avoid his retribution.

A pair of sources privy to the behind-the-scenes decision making told CNN that "Scarborough and Brzezinski were credibly concerned that they could face governmental and legal harassment from the incoming Trump administration. Knowing that Trump has threatened retribution against his perceived political opponents, and that Trump has promoted lies about Scarborough and Brzezinski in the past, the MSNBC hosts decided to reach out to the President-elect."

These two sources "generally agreed with Joe and Mika's impression of the situation at hand — namely, that the incoming Trump administration could use its wide-ranging powers to punish people deemed enemies."

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Trump has repeatedly attacked the press for critical coverage and fact-checking, famously calling them the "enemy of the people" and even saying at a recent rally that he uses the press as human shields against assassins.

Scarborough and Brzezinski have been sharply critical of Trump during the campaign season, with Brzezinski even calling him an "aging BS artist." Trump, for his part, has often targeted them specifically in his attacks on the press, and has even pushed a baseless conspiracy theory that Scarborough murdered a staffer while he was a Republican member of Congress.

All of this comes as experts set off alarm bells over Trump's selection of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a loyalist who has often endorsed Trump's legal revenge schemes on his political enemies and has himself faced ethics investigations, to head up the Justice Department — a move that even took many Republican senators aback.