After facing a Twitter attack courtesy of President Donald Trump, MSNBC's "Morning Joe" was rewarded with its highest viewer ratings yet.
Almost 1.7 million people tuned in to see "Morning Joe" co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough respond to Trump's tweets on Friday, making it the number one morning news show of the day. It knocked the Fox News show "Fox and Friends" straight off its winning pedestal, which drew close to 1.6 million viewers that morning.
According to Nielsen Data, the second quarter of 2017 averaged only 997,000 viewers for "Morning Joe." That means Friday's episode received a 70 percent spike in its total viewership — all thanks to Trump.
Trump's vicious Twitter attacks on Brzezinski and Scarborough caused the dramatic rise in viewership, as people were eager to hear their responses. During his Twitter rant Thursday morning, Trump called the duo "Psycho Joe" and "low I.Q. Crazy Mika". Trump even claimed Brzezinski "was bleeding badly from a face-lift" during an encounter on New Year's Eve.
"Unfortunately we learned what we've always learned," said Scarborough during Friday's show. "And that is — for some reason — he takes things personally with women." He continued to say Trump is "so much more vicious with women."
"He appears to have a fragile, impetuous, childlike ego that we see over and over again, especially with women," said Brzezinski. "Its like he can't take it."
On Saturday, Trump continued his attack on the "Morning Joe" team. "Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people, but their low rated show is dominated by their NBC bosses. Too bad!" said Trump in an early morning tweet.
He finished the day's rant by telling his Twitter followers "My use of social media is not Presidential - it’s modern day presidential."
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