MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” hosts and their production team were reportedly stunned their show didn’t air on Monday following the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump while other programming on the liberal network continued on as scheduled.
Hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, and their staff were told all shows would run on a single NBC News feed that would presumably air on all NBC platforms until the channel’s primetime lineup Monday.
But instead, MSNBC programming started running on the network hours earlier, according to Fox News.
The “Today” show also aired a new episode on Monday.
“They were shocked,” an MSNBC insider said of the show’s production team, according to Fox News. “It was supposed to be one feed like it was this weekend. It was supposed to be one feed with all NBC News platforms.
“And right now, people that run [the] show are having pretty heated conversations internally about when it went from one feed to two feeds.”
The insider reportedly added “a lot of people are pissed off” and Scarborough and Brzezinski would have demanded they go on air if they knew the one feed across platforms wasn’t the case.
The Post has sought comment from MSNBC.
At 6 a.m. — when “Morning Joe” starts – viewers instead watched NBC News special reporting and then coverage simulcasting from the company’s streaming service, NBC News Now.
When Jose Diaz-Balart began hosting on MSNBC at 9 a.m., the show’s “NBC News Special Report” chyron was replaced with “MSNBC Reports,” with Andrea Mitchell and Chris Jansing doing their afternoon shows, according to Fox News.
MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace handled live coverage of the Republican National Convention starting at 4 p.m.
The left-leaning network stuck with its breaking news programming instead of “Morning Joe” over fear one the show’s ardent anti-Trumpers would say something that could paint the show and network in a bad light, a source familiar with the matter told CNN earlier Monday.
An NBCUniversal spokesperson denied that report.
“Given the gravity and complexity of this unfolding story, NBC News, NBC News NOW and MSNBC have remained in rolling breaking news coverage since Saturday evening,” the rep told The Post on Monday.
The network insider who spoke to Fox News also said CNN’s report was not true.
“Morning Joe” is expected to be back on air Tuesday.