Joe Scarborough took to his regular A.M. spot on MSNBC Tuesday to rail against something irregular that happened the day before: a decision by network bosses to take his show, “Morning Joe,” off the schedule one day prior in the aftermath of an attack on former President Donald Trump.
“We were told in no uncertain terms on Sunday night that there was going to be one news feed against all channels,” Scarborough said on air Tuesday. “I guess after there was such strong blowback about what happened yesterday morning that they changed their plans.” He added that he and his team “were very surprised, we were very disappointed.”
His co-anchors, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist, also weighed in during the program. Geist noted that he had been utilized on Sunday during a special “Today” broadcast with Savannah Guthrie that focused on the aftermath of a Saturday-evening assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in western Pennsylvania. That would indicate that he is viewed as a trusted operative to deliver hard news, he said. “We are here today,” he said. “I wish we’d been here yesterday.”
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The program over 17 years has been “the place where you can go to have the hard conversations in a civil way,” said Brzezinski.
MSNBC raised eyebrows Monday with a decision to pre-empt “Morning Joe” and other programming with a single “special report” feed that contained reporting on the Saturday attenot on Trump’s life at a rally in western Pennsylvania. The feed played out across NBC, MSNBC and the live-streaming service NBC News Now.
By Monday afternoon, however, MSNBC had opinion hosts like Nicolle Wallace on air, from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and their team had been scheduled to kick off RNC reportage Monday morning.
Scarborough’s outburst is not the first from MSNBC talent in recent weeks. Several hosts, including Wallace, Scarborough, Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid, went on air in March to excoriate a decision to make former Republican National Committee chief Ronna McDaniel a contributor to NBC News. NBC News management backed away from the decision, which also spurred pushback from staffers at the company.
MSNBC did not respond immediately to a query seeking comment on Scarborough’s on air remarks.
“Next time we’re told there’s going to be a news feed replacing us, we will be in our chairs,” Scarborough said. “And the news feed will be us or they can get somebody else to host this show.”
