MSNBC pulled Morning Joe from the air on Monday, July 15, following the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on July 13, noting that the network would be rolling breaking news coverage all day instead.
Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and Willie Geist returned to the network on Tuesday morning (July 16) and aired their grievances with NBC News for pulling their show. They pointed out how the network did not stay in breaking news coverage all day Monday, which left them “very surprised” and “very disappointed.”
“We were told in no uncertain terms on Sunday evening, that there was gonna be one news feed across all NBC News channels yesterday… that we were gonna stay, as a network, in breaking news mode,” Scarborough explained on Tuesday’s edition of Morning Joe. “That did not happen. We don’t know why that didn’t happen. Our team was not given a good answer as to why that didn’t happen.”
He continued, “We were also told it was gonna happen throughout the day. And I guess, after there was such strong blowback about yesterday morning, I guess they changed their plans. We’ve talked about it off the air, and 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’d have known there wasn’t gonna be the one news feed from NBC News, we would have obviously been in yesterday morning,” Scarborough stated.
“We were very surprised. We were very disappointed.” Joe Scarborough expresses frustration with NBC News for pulling Morning Joe from the air Monday. (Video: MSNBC) pic.twitter.com/h5SA6WH4Hr
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) July 16, 2024
Geist then shared his thoughts, noting how he led Sunday’s coverage of the shooting with Savannah Guthrie. “I was obviously suited up and ready to go for [Monday] morning, and we’re told that something else was gonna be broadcast. But we are here today, going through a lot, catching up a little bit… we wanna be here for our audience. We’re here today and wished we’d been here yesterday.”
“Yeah, we all wish we would have been here yesterday,” Scarborough added. “We still would like to figure out exactly why there wasn’t that one news feed.”
After Monday’s show was pulled, many fans took to social media to express their shock and disappointment with NBC’s decision. One fan called it “perplexing,” and another wrote, “Imagine a network not even trusting its own hosts.”
“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,” a spokesperson for NBCUniversal News Group previously told CNN. “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.”
Brzezinski said she understood viewers’ disappointment, explaining how Morning Joe is “the show where you can go to have the hard conversations in a civil way. And so, it seemed like now more than ever, is a day, a time, that we would like to be on [the air], and I think our viewers agree with that.”
Before moving on, Scarborough added, “Let me just say, the next time we’re told there’s gonna 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.”
Morning Joe, Weekdays, 6a/5c, MSNBC
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