On Tuesday morning, “Morning Joe” returned to its usual 6 a.m. slot, but fans were puzzled about the show’s absence on Monday. Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and Willie Geist were also uncertain about the situation. The show was preempted by MSNBC to provide continuous coverage of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally. The network wanted to ensure uninterrupted reporting on this significant event and avoid any potentially inappropriate comments from guests.
CNN reported Monday that the decision to keep “Morning Joe” off the air was made to prevent any inappropriate or controversial comments from being broadcast on MSNBC. The network stated, “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 well as through Sunday and Monday.”
Top executives at NBCUniversal and MSNBC, including Cesar Conde and Rashida Jones, supported this decision, stating that they planned for “Morning Joe” to resume its regular programming on Tuesday, allowing viewers to return to their usual morning analysis and discussions.
Early in the show on Tuesday, host Joe Scarborough, speaking alongside co-hosts Brzezinski and Geist, mentioned that the show’s staff had been informed on Sunday evening that all of MSNBC’s programming would be pre-empted for a single NBC News feed following the assassination attempt on former President Trump. However, as he noted, “that did not happen”.
“We were very surprised,” Scarborough said on Tuesday. “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, Willie [Geist], we obviously would have been in yesterday morning.”
Scarborough addressed the confusion about why “Morning Joe” was not on air Monday, saying, “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.” He added, “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, they changed their plans. We were very surprised, we were very disappointed”.
Known for his candid remarks, Scarbough quipped that the next time they are informed a news feed will replace them, they will be in their chairs and ready to broadcast. Brzezinski and Geist added that they wished they had been on air the previous day.
“This show began, and continues 17 years later on being the place where you can go to have the hard conversations in a civil way. So it seemed like, now more than ever is a day, a time that we would like to be on. I think our viewers agree with that,” Brzezinski said.
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