MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough said Tuesday he was “surprised and disappointed” the news show was pulled off the air the day before and hasn’t received a good explanation about why.
The four-hour morning news and talk show, a favorite of President Joe Biden and his fans, was pre-empted Monday in favor of a live news feed from the NBC News Now streaming service that was focused on covering the aftermath of Saturday’s assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
Scarborough said he was told Sunday night that all of NBC News channels would be working from a single, consistent feed for the entire day Monday.
“That did not happen,” he said on “Morning Joe” Tuesday. “We don’t know why that didn’t happen. Our team was not given a good answer as to why that did not happen, but it didn’t happen.”
An MSNBC spokesman said the network had no comment on what Scarborough said.
The pre-emption attracted attention on Monday morning, particularly after CNN reported that MSNBC management was concerned that one of the show’s cast of commentators or guests would make an inappropriate comment. MSNBC said that was not true. “Morning Joe,” like other shows on the network, has often been bitingly critical of Trump.
By later Monday afternoon, opinionated hosts like Nicolle Wallace and Ari Melber anchored their regular shows, and Rachel Maddow led the network’s coverage of the Republican national convention.
Scarborough speculated that MSNBC changed its plans because of “blowback” it received from pre-empting his own show.
“We wanted to be here for our audience,” said Willie Geist, another “Morning Joe” host. “We know you trust us, and we have the utmost respect for our audience. We are here today, and we wish we would have been here yesterday.”
Scarborough said that “the next time we are told there is going to be a news feed replacing us, we will be in our chairs and the news feed will be us. Or they can get somebody else to host the show.”
It’s the second notable on-air rebellion by MSNBC personalities in the past few months. Several hosts, including Scarborough and former “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd, objected in March to NBC News hiring former Republican National Committee head Ronna McDaniel as a contributor, a decision the network later rescinded.
Before the assassination attempt, “Morning Joe” spent several days talking about whether Biden should continue running for reelection following the president’s poor performance in a debate against Trump — leading Biden to call in to the show to defend his decision to stay.
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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder.