Joe Scarborough and his “Morning Joe” co-Mika Brzezinski and Willie chided NBC News leadership for pulling the flagship show at the last minute on Monday following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, CNN reported.
Scarborough was not pleased that his show was taken off the air and delivered a blistering on-air response Tuesday, threatening to quit should it happen again.
To their surprise, the “Morning Joe” hosts were told Sunday evening that all of MSNBC’s lineup would be swapped out for a single NBC News broadcast focused on the events at Trump’s weekend rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “Morning Joe” made the announcement of the changed schedule on X, late Sunday night, however, “that did not happen,” Scarborough noted.
The hosts addressed the issue before they started the show’s second hour, on Tuesday morning, the Daily Beast reported.
“We were told in no uncertain terms on Sunday evening that there was going to be one news feed across all NBC news channels yesterday,” Scarborough said, noting he thought there would be “one news feed across all NBC news channels, that we were going to stay — as a network — in breaking news mode throughout all day yesterday.”
This didn’t happen, he said.
“We don’t know why that didn’t happen. Our team was not given a good answer as to why that didn’t happen — but it didn’t happen. We were also told it was going to happen throughout the day, and I guess, after there was such a strong blowback about yesterday morning, I guess they changed their plans,” he said.
“We were very surprised. We were very disappointed,” Scarborough added.
Following comments from Brzezinski and Geist, the hosts were about to resume the show when Scarborough slipped in one last point.
“Let me just say: Next time we’re told there’s going to be a news feed replacing us, we will be in our chairs,” he said. “Yeah. And the news feed will be us, or they can get somebody else to host the show.”
An MSNBC spokesperson defended the move in a statement to The Daily Beast.
“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 statement said.