MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski doesn’t go on frequent weekend jaunts to the south of France, contrary to what her “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough would have you believe.
Scarborough loves to zing Brzezinski with the south-of-France line when they disagree on a heated topic — most recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s disputed address to the U.S. Congress. TPM was speaking to Brzezinski by phone this week about her upcoming five-city “Know Your Value” tour when Scarborough jumped on the line to explain the whole France thing was just an “inside joke.”
“It’s one of the great scams of ‘Morning Joe,’ which I paint Mika out to be an east coast elitist that does all of these things,” Scarborough said. “The truth is I actually travel around a lot more than she does. She’s got two teenage girls, and she basically works and raises teenage girls.”
It may be all in jest, but that perception of Brzezinski as the jet-setting daughter of a former national security adviser masks just how hard she’s worked to earn her spot at the “Morning Joe” table — and stay there after MSNBC initially refused to give her a raise. That story was recounted in Brzezinski’s 2011 bestselling book “Knowing Your Value,” which continues to resonate with so many women that she and MSNBC now have developed a similarly named tour to workshop what women get wrong when they try to articulate their value to their employers.
Brezezinski spoke with TPM on Monday about the tour, her new female-heavy “Mika” segment of the MSNBC show and the one “Knowing Your Value” success story that gave her chills. Scarborough chimed in with some kind words about his co-host’s journey, too.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
TPM: Why did you decide to expand last year’s “Know Your Value” conference in Hartford, Conn. into a whole series of events now?
Mika Brzezinski: I wrote the book “Knowing Your Value” in 2012 and women still come up to me on the street and say, “I read your book, I got a raise.” “I read your book, I got a raise.” The types of women that come up to me are literally the entire spectrum from top to bottom in terms of success and pay scale. So I realized I hadn’t just touched a nerve with a few people in a certain circle, I had really touched some universal nerves in terms of how women really struggle when it comes to advocating for themselves, especially for money.
So I put together the conference in Hartford on my own and it was such a complete success that I went to MSNBC and said “I want to go national with this. Would you join me?” They were so unbelievably supportive and I don’t even think supportive is the word. We joined as partners, as a team. We’re doing five cities and we had a couple of announcements today about what we’re going to be doing and it’s going swimmingly, as they say.
Was this a big vindication moment for you? Because it seems like the original pay dispute was such a seminal moment in your career.
It was a seminal moment in my life as a woman, really. Money is sort of a metaphor for anything, any relationship, quite frankly. If you can’t get value out of your relationship with your employer, how can you get value out of your relationship with your husband or your kids or your friends? You have to get value back and women tend to put themselves aside so much when it comes to advocating for others that we forget to advocate for ourselves. I had done that for so long that I truly broke a cycle, a bad cycle, when that was fixed. The very men I was negotiating with and competing with, meaning Joe and Phil [Griffin, president of MSNBC], are the men who are lifting me up and supporting this movement almost louder than me today.
On the subject of Joe, how is he going to be involved? He’s going to be a speaker, right?
He’s coming. He’s going to be a judge in the bonus competition, but he’s also going to be — we have our first session after [“Today” show host] Hoda Kotb does her fireside chat and the CEO of Johnson & Johnson and I kick things off, and right before Elizabeth Warren in our Philadelphia conference we’re going to do a session called “closing the deal.” We’re going to have Katty Kay, who’s going to be doing the Confidence Code quiz, and Donny Deutch, who’s going to be talking about the differences in the way men and women negotiate. Joe and I are going to role play on stage, showing the different ways we got our raises or lack thereof. Then we’re going to have some other players — successful women who have yet to be named — really giving advice on how to negotiate the best deal for yourself. So Joe’s going to be role playing with me on stage and he’s also going to be a judge in the bonus competition.
So for that bonus competition, what is that going to look like? Is it game-show style, is it a pageant-style question and answer session?
It’s a pageant meets a reality show meets a makeover show. But it’s all smart. Don’t call Donald Trump! It’s so cool. We did this in Hartford and we’re doing it again in every city. I just announced today that women need to get on the website, msnbc.com/knowyourvalue, and upload a one-minute video of themselves pitching me for a bonus. All you do is hold your phone up in selfie mode and take a one-minute video of yourself telling Mika why you deserve a bonus.
You can be a stay-at-home mom, you can be a dog walker, you can be a CEO, you can be a working mom, you can be a dental hygienist, you can be a corporate lawyer. Quite frankly, when it comes to actually getting on camera and pitching yourself, you’ll notice women from all walks of life and all challenges and all mediums struggle with the same things and say the same things. We apologize, we self-deprecate, we don’t know how to be forceful and look straight into camera or straight into that boss’ eye and speak your mind about your value. So we’re going to ask women to do that on video and send their videos in and we are going to choose three finalists in each city.
Those three finalists are going to work with the “Know Your Value” team and get a makeover, get a fashion makeover, they’re going to get a lot of counseling on everything from nutrition to fitness to a sense of mindfulness and purpose in life to editing and coaching them on their actual pitches. They’re going to go down to the Johnson & Johnson human performance institute in Orlando, Florida and they’re going to work with a team of coaches down there and then those coaches are going to fly to their homes and work with them one on one. Brook Shields have just joined in and offered to help these women. Michelle Smith of Milly designs is going to be dressing every single one of them to put their best foot forward during their pitch on the big stage. Then on April 10 our first set of finalists will get on stage and have a live pitch-off a minute or less why they have value and one of those women, right there on the spot, are gonna win $10,000.
What are you and the judges looking for in selecting finalists? Can you throw out any tips?
Great stories, confidence and for that woman to truly know her value and communicate it effectively. That can happen in a number of different ways and as long as they’re authentic, they will be effective.
What would you say the tour has to offer for women who would say “Yeah, I’m pretty successful in my career already.” Is there space for them as well?
Absolutely. If you read my book, you’ll see “Oh, I do that. Yep, I do that. Oh, I need to stop doing that!” Because this is the part of the conversation that we can control. There’s a lot about the pay gap out there that we can’t control. But I think 50 percent we can. I’m on a mission to close that gap.
Out of all of those women who’ve come up to you over the years to say that your book helped them, does any one story stand out?
Yeah. Some of them have been amazing, and I’m at a loss of words honestly as to how many have come up to me and how I feel when it happens. But, the one that was just like a “wow!” to me was — I was doing a photo shoot for Adweek with [Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief] Joanna Coles and there was this woman, Nadja Bellan-White.
I had met her at a couple of events and we just sort of were drawn to each other, like we’d totally be better friends if we both had the time. She was really struggling with how to push forward and move ahead in her company, and what could she ask for even if she did. So I saw her at the shoot and we were sitting around waiting for people to take our picture. We were just talking as they were moving us around, like “Yeah, there’s this job for CEO of Ogilvy Africa. I can’t even imagine I would apply for it.” She goes “You know, our company is international, but in some ways its just so weird this job is open.”
I’m like, “Are you kidding me?” I called my office and I’m like, “Can somebody bring a copy of my book over?” So I had someone dash over a copy of the book. I said, “Please read this.” Then I don’t hear anything, move on with my life. Six weeks later I’m doing another event for Arianna Huffington. At the door, when I got out of the elevator before I could walk out and go on stage, Nadja is standing there and she is jumping up and down. She’s like, “Mika. I read the book and I went in there and I did everything. I am now the CEO of Ogilvy Africa and I am moving to Nairobi in four weeks.” I had chills.
She’s cool, she just did not know her value and she read that book and she figured it out. I always think like, “Somebody became the CEO of a major international company because of this book. Thats crazy!” She goes “By the way, not only did I get the job but my family’s getting taken care of. They’re doing it around the school year. They totally hooked up my family and I would have never asked for that stuff. But its the kind of stuff that makes me able to do the job.” And I’m like “Yeah, exactly!”
Good women will be rewarded for being so good, you just gotta say how good you are! I don’t mean good like well-behaved, I mean like damn good at what they do.
In the New York Times write-up of your tour announcement, the paper spoke with a journalism professor who noted that news organizations that they are moving towards producing live events have to be careful that they don’t create conflicts of interest. I noticed that the designer clothing company Milly is one of the sponsors of the tour and you’ve had the president of Milly on the show a few times. Do you believe you and MSNBC are striking that right balance between producing both your news program and your own series of live events?
Oh yeah, because we’re totally transparent on “Morning Joe” all the time and that’s where I met [the sponsors]. But we never don’t disclose any type of relationship we have with anybody. Because we have all the movers and shakers on our show, clearly that’s going to overlap with who we want at the conferences.
I want to switch gears and ask you about your “Mika” panel that’s been happening for the last half hour of the show for the past few weeks. How did that segment come about?
It came about as we were developing this partnership and these conferences. Joe came up with the idea, just because we’re always looking for ways to change and grow. We’re always looking for counterintuitive ways of doing things. Having me at the helm and him muted in the control room or not even on the set is new! But we like having him on the set, because it’s not “women’s” — it’s, sure, a women’s perspective, but we invite men as well. In fact one of my favorite women’s panels was Tom Brokaw, Mike Barnicle, Joe Scarborough and Tom Hanks. We did that last week. It was hysterical.
Does Joe help pitch ideas for each day’s segment? How is he involved?
We’re totally involved with the whole show. We talk about it together and help each other with everything. It’s not like he’s cordoned off in a closet when we start talking at 8:30 a.m. and a muzzle put in his mouth. We help each other with the entire show. We need as many voices in the room as possible.
Do you know if that’s going to be a permanent part of the show?
It’s permanent. I mean, we’re going to do it. If for some reason we change our minds and find something better to do, we’ll do that. But as far as I’m concerned, we really love it. We feel as strongly about it as we do our show and we’re doing it really well now. It took a while to sort of find the pocket, but we think we’ve found the pocket.
What would you say sets your segment apart from what a morning TV viewer would see if they tuned into “The View” or another talk show?
Well first of all, we’re on first. So we’re the first view. But more importantly — I guess the way I’m looking at it is that I don’t know what the others do, so I don’t want this to in any way sound like anything but what I’m trying to do. I am on the hunt, I’ve culled the Internet, I look around wherever I go for substantial women who have a substantial voice. I’m trying to grow substantial women’s voices and ideas and policy initiatives and philanthropic organizations. I’m trying to grow kind of a group of women who recur on the show. Like, a lot of them. Because there are so many incredible, substantial women out there and I think that’s what we need on television. I think we need substantial women. I think there are a lot of substantial men, but I think we need to have as many substantial women. The criteria is similar to what we look for in men, and that is accomplishments, ideas, points of view first.
Speaking of “The View” — she’s a frequent guest on “Morning Joe” — has Nicolle Wallace given you any feedback on the segment?
Nicolle is going to be one of my guests at the conferences! She’s coming to Washington. I think she’s going to have me on “The View,” I’m waiting for my invitation. She actually did invite me but I forget what happened, so I’m waiting for another invitation. I love her.
One of Joe’s favorite lines on the show lately has been ribbing you for vacationing in the south of France. What’s that all about?
I don’t go to the south of — Joe! Tell her that I don’t go to the south of France!
[Joe Scarborough can be heard shouting.]
JS: Every weekend!
MB: I don’t go to the south of frickin’ France. I’m a mom. It’s so — I’ve been once and I was kidnapped. It’s a long story. I was 18. That’s the only time. In fact, I’m hoping at some point someone takes me to the south of France. But it hasn’t happened any time soon.
If I’m not mistaken, one of the more recent times he’s used that line is in the context of your discussion earlier this month about whether [House Speaker John] Boehner should’ve invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to address Congress. He’s speaking tomorrow. The discussion of it on your show this morning was more subdued than it had been earlier this month. Do you and Joe continue to agree to disagree on that subject?
Oh, we disagree. But I think there are shades of agreement. If you listen closely, you see Joe agrees with me. But you know, it’s up to the viewer to decide. But he agrees with me. [Laughs.] He’s talking but you can’t hear him.
Throw him on the line. He can chime in!
[Scarborough gets on the phone.]
JS: It makes me sad that Mika just makes things up.
I was just asking her about why you love to rib her for going to the south of France and she tells me that she hasn’t been since she was 18.
JS: It’s one of the great scams of “Morning Joe,” which I paint Mika out to be an East Coast elitist that does all of these things. The truth is I actually travel around a lot more than she does. She’s got two teenage girls and she basically works and raises teenage girls. When you learn what she does on the weekends it is such a slog … she basically is playing Westchester suburban mom all weekend and she’s actually more exhausted when she comes back to work on Monday. That’s when I go, “Oh Mika went to the south of France this weekend.” It’s a little inside joke.
So it’s actually you jetting off to the south of France.
JS: No, but maybe London. Yeah, going to soccer matches in London and doing things that Mika just would not do, or going down to south Florida. It’s one of the great ironies that people go up to Mika and ask her what her favorite hotel is in the south of France and what’s her favorite resort on the Riviera. That’s not the case though. She basically works and just raises her kids.
What about the conference? Are you excited? Can you tell me about what you’re gonna do?
JS: You know. the last conference we went to she just had me carrying around really heavy boxes. When I go to these things I carry her purse around. She’ll hand me her purse and I’m one of those guys, I’ve got absolutely no problem carrying around women’s purses. Mika treats me like the handler on “Veep.” If she needs like lipgloss or mints or whatever she’ll scream and yell and I’ll grab her purse and I’ll run scared through the room and get it for her.
MB: Crying like a little girl.
JS: She says crying like a little girl, not quite. It’s really exciting, and it’s especially exciting looking at what Mika is doing now compared to where we were in 2008 during the early primaries. Mika told me time and time again that she was going to have to quit her job that she loved on “Morning Joe” because they just weren’t giving her what she deserved. She was so frustrated and angry and talks about all the mistakes that she made and to see her go from there to where she is now, where she is obviously one of the most successful people financially and in many other ways in TV news. It’s a remarkable turnaround.
That’s a nice sentiment.
JS: Yeah, it is. She always talks in these conferences about how the default for her and too many women is always “I’m sorry.” “I’m sorry to be here, but I really deserve a raise.“ We actually had Brooke Shields on the show this morning talking about how she spent her life apologizing and self-deprecating. What has really been surprising watching this process as Mika’s been going through it is how every woman from Valerie Jarrett to Claire McCaskill to Sheila Bair — when Sheila Bair was still in government — it’s remarkable how these women seem to all fall into the same habits that actually undercut their negotiating powers. Not how they do, but how they did during their careers. They all eventually learned to stop apologizing whenever they went to their bosses and go in like men do — except men have too much confidence — and demand their worth. Mika always makes fun of men, saying they have absolutely no problem going in and asking more than their worth and having no shame about it while women always go in and undervalue their worth and apologize throughout the entire process.
Mika, I’m sure she’s going to ask you about what was my most inspiring moment on “Morning Joe.”
MB: Did you want to hear that? What was the most inspiring “Morning Joe” moment with Joe?
Sure, give it to me.
MB: God, when you left the set and let me talk? No. He’s actually had a few. I would say the Monday morning after Newtown was one of the most inspiring moments in “Morning Joe” history to me in terms of Joe’s performance. Because he really thought about what he was going to say and didn’t go halfway and I think had a huge impact on the debate out there, especially among those in his party.
