“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough told his audience Tuesday he is “very disappointed” his morning talk program did not air on MSNBC the prior morning, following the assassination attempt against former President Trump.
“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, and today’s show would be Lester Holt, other people that, well, you [Willie Geist] worked with on Sunday, and that was going to 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,” Scarborough said. “That did not happen … We don’t know why that was. … 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.”
His comments were first highlighted by Mediaite.
After its flagship morning talk show, hosted by Scarborough and wife Mika Brzezinski, did not air Monday, MSNBC said, “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.”
“As we continue to cover this story into the week, the networks will continue to cross simulcast, alternating between NBC News, NBC News NOW and ‘MSNBC Reports’, so there is one news feed covering this developing situation,” the network added.
CNN reported Monday that the decision to leave “Morning Joe” off the air was made to ensure inappropriate or controversial comments were not made on MSNBC’s air. The network denied the report.
“And I guess after there was such a strong blowback about, yesterday morning, I guess they changed their plans. And so, those plans changed as well,” Scarborough said Tuesday as his show returned to the air. “And, you know, we’ve talked about it, off the air. We’ll talk about it on the air, because we talk about everything on the air. We were very surprised. We were very disappointed. And if we had known that there wasn’t going to be the one news feed, from NBC News across all NBC News channels … we obviously would have been in yesterday morning.”