“Morning Joe” host Mika Brzezinski apologized on Friday morning for using a gay slur to describe Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The MSNBC anchor was criticized heavily on social media platforms and by President Donald Trump after she mused during Wednesday’s broadcast that Pompeo wanted to be a “wannabe dictator’s butt boy.” Brzezinski’s comments were in reference to the secretary’s attempts to duck questions about Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s alleged involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“The term is crass and offensive, and I apologize to everyone, especially the LGBTQ community and to my colleagues, for using it,” Brzezinski said during Friday’s show.
The “Morning Joe” host was off on Thursday dealing with a “family matter.” She tweeted an apology for her remarks on Wednesday, but elaborated during her return to the broadcast, by referencing the imagined reaction of her father, the late Zbigniew Brzezinski, a diplomat and former national security advisor.
“It was a mistake,” Brzezinski said. “My father would have found it so unbecoming and disrespectful and he would have told me. I will work hard to be better. But I just wanted to say, on camera, looking viewers straight in the eye, I am really, really sorry.”
Trump, a frequent critic of “Morning Joe,” seized on Brzezinski’s remarks to claim that there was a double standard at play.
“If it was a Conservative that said what ‘crazed’ Mika Brzezinski stated on her show yesterday, using a certain horrible term, that person would be banned permanently from television,” he tweeted.