--- title: Donald Trump Says 'Morning Joe' Is 'Low-Rated.' It's Not description: President Trump regularly levels ratings-based criticism at media outlets, and his feud with MSNBC's Morning Joe this week was no different canonical: https://time.com/4841176/donald-trump-morning-joe-ratings-fact-check/ author: Katie Reilly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-06-30T15:02:45.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T16:24:03.892Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Trump Keeps Calling 'Morning Joe' 'Low-Rated.' It's Not og:description: The show's viewer total has set records for MSNBC og:url: https://time.com/4841176/donald-trump-morning-joe-ratings-fact-check/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltffa72e1d7c8c894c/6988d41dcf40a8cbb0c4860f/morning-joe-ratings-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: "The Americans" Season 5 Premiere og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump Keeps Calling 'Morning Joe' 'Low-Rated.' It's Not twitter:description: The show's viewer total has set records for MSNBC twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltffa72e1d7c8c894c/6988d41dcf40a8cbb0c4860f/morning-joe-ratings-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Keeps Calling _Morning Joe_ 'Low-Rated.' It's Not > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Jun 30, 2017 3:02 PM UTC  Television hosts Joe Scarborough (L) and Mika Brzezinski attend "The Americans" Season 5 Premiere at DGA Theater on Feb. 25, 2017 in New York City. Television hosts Joe Scarborough (L) and Mika Brzezinski attend "The Americans" Season 5 Premiere at DGA Theater on Feb. 25, 2017 in New York City. Paul Zimmerman—WireImage/ Getty Images  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Jun 30, 2017 3:02 PM UTC President Donald Trump regularly levels ratings-based criticism at media outlets, and his [feud with MSNBC’s _Morning Joe_](http://time.com/4838899/donald-trump-twitter-morning-joe-mike-brzezinski/) this week was no different. “I heard poorly rated @Morning\_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore),” Trump [said Thursday](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/880408582310776832) in a set of tweets, in which he also targeted Mika Brzezinski’s appearance. On Friday, he [followed up](http://time.com/4840993/donald-trump-joe-scarborough-national-inquirer/?xid=homepage) after Brzezinski and her co-host Joe Scarborough [addressed the feud on the air](http://time.com/4840993/donald-trump-joe-scarborough-national-inquirer/?xid=homepage). “Watched low rated @Morning\_Joe for first time in long time. FAKE NEWS. He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show,” Trump [said](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/880771685460344832). But _Morning Joe_ is not low-rated. In the second quarter of 2017, the show reached an average of 997,000 total viewers in the 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. time slot, surpassing CNN’s _New Day_ and marking its ninth straight quarter of growth, according to an NBC Universal [press release](http://www.nbcuniversal.com/press-release/msnbc-weekday-prime-ties-1-a18-49-2q17-1st-time-msnbc-tops-quarter-demo) on Monday. The show’s viewer average set a quarterly record for MSNBC in the 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. period. And, specifically among viewers aged 25 to 54, _Morning Joe_ had “MSNBC’s highest rating ever” in that time slot. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4841176/donald-trump-morning-joe-ratings-fact-check/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4841176/donald-trump-morning-joe-ratings-fact-check/"},"headline":"President Trump Keeps Calling Morning Joe 'Low-Rated.' 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