Mika Brzezinski, co-host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," says she did not anticipate the severity of the controversy sparked by a meeting she and her co-host and husband Joe Scarborough had with President-elect Trump late last week. "I’ve been surprised at the backlash," Brzezinski said during a podcast conversation with The Daily Beast. "And the way I look at it is, people are really scared." One of the reasons she and Scarborough met with Trump is "people are really scared about Donald Trump’s comments that, you know, political adversaries. A lot of people are scared because of what has happened with abortion," she said. "These are all issues that are important to me and in some ways personal to me, but definitely personal to the people I really care about," she added. Brzezinski and Scarborough shocked many across the political media world when they announced they had held a meeting with Trump, which they said was designed to "reopen" lines of communication between the morning talk show and the former president. “Don’t be mistaken: We’re not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump,” Scarborough said Monday. “We’re here to report on him and to hopefully provide you insights and better equip all of us to understand these deeply unsettling times.” The meeting has nonetheless garnered criticism from many liberals and resulted in a dip in the show's ratings. Brzezinski and Scarborough during Trump's time in politics have made a name for themselves on cable news as some of Trump's most harsh media critics.