EXCLUSIVE – The hosts and production team of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" were "shocked" on Monday by the circumstances of their show's benching in the aftermath of the stunning assassination attempt on former President Trump, Fox News Digital has learned.
An MSNBC insider said the show's production team was informed by network leadership Cesar Conde – the chair of NBCUniversal News Group – and Rashida Jones – the president of left-leaning cable affiliate MSNBC – that all MSNBC programming on Monday would be supplanted until primetime by a single NBC News programming feed, which would presumably air across all NBC platforms. Hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were also told and assented.
However, a new episode of "Today" on parent network NBC aired as scheduled on Monday morning with Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb. Those who tuned into MSNBC, NBC's left-leaning cable affiliate, at 6 a.m. to watch "Morning Joe" were greeted with NBC News special reporting from Ana Cabrera and then coverage simulcasting from its streaming service, NBC News Now. The "Morning Joe" X account announced the show would return on Tuesday.
"A lot of people are pissed off," the insider told Fox News Digital. They added Scarborough and Brzezinski would have insisted on going on the air if they'd known there wouldn't be "one feed" for all platforms, as they'd originally been told.
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MSNBC's regular weekend programming and hosts were interrupted, as expected, Saturday and Sunday in favor of NBC News special coverage of the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, which wounded Trump and killed one of his supporters.
After three hours of programming hosted by Cabrera and NBC News Now, José Diaz-Balart began hosting for MSNBC at 9 a.m., and the show's "NBC News Special Report" chyron disappeared in favor of "MSNBC Reports." MSNBC hosts Andrea Mitchell and Chris Jansing did their normal shows at 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. ET. Left-wing MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace took over live coverage of the Republican National Convention coverage at 4 p.m. ET.
As news broke that "Morning Joe" wasn't on the air on Monday morning, observers wondered why MSNBC's flagship AM show was off the air at such a significant time. A CNN report stated a source familiar with the decision said there were worries a guest might make an inappropriate remark about the attempt on Trump's life; a network spokesman strongly denied that report to Fox News Digital.
The network insider told Fox News Digital a "Morning Joe" producer had been given assurances on Sunday that it wasn't the plan to just skip "Morning Joe" on Monday, and the show's hosts were surprised and upset when they woke up to find their program had been seemingly singled out.
"They were shocked," the insider added of the show's production team. "It was supposed to be one feed like it was this weekend. It was supposed to be one feed with all NBC News platforms. And right now, people that run [the] show are having pretty heated conversations internally about when it went from one feed to two feeds."
A second network insider said Monday: "I don't fully understand the decision."
An MSNBC spokesperson did not immediately respond when asked about "Morning Joe" staffers being blindsided on Monday.
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The insider added there was no truth to CNN's report that there was fear that one of the show's guests would say something inappropriate about Trump. The show is a hotbed of anti-Trump commentary, while generally being strongly favorable toward President Biden.
A former NBC News top producer, who has spent decades in the TV news industry, said the optics were brutal for the network.
"How embarrassing that MSNBC had to pull its flagship morning news show off the air when there was a news story," they told Fox News Digital.
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Other critics pointed to the harsh rhetoric that came from the show toward Trump, with whom Scarborough and Brzezinski have a long and complicated relationship. Once highly friendly to him when he first ran for office beginning in 2015, their relationship eventually soured, and they became two of his fiercest critics.
"The whole ball game changes now, after the attempt on Donald Trump's life that he survived by a millimeter. This kind of rhetoric is unacceptable even by management at places like MSNBC and CNN," said Fox News contributor Joe Concha.
NewsBusters executive editor Tim Graham feels the decision to scrap the program – even if it was only for one day – "says so much about how MSNBC sounds on a daily basis."
"Few networks have been more aggressive about calling Trump a fascist or comparing Trump to Hitler than MSNBC. This move could be seen as a tacit admission that their regular content has an overly harsh tone. It certainly clashes badly with President Biden's remarks about how we should all act like friends and neighbors," Graham told Fox News Digital.
Cornell Law professor and media critic William A. Jacobson believes the decision by MSNBC brass crushes the program’s credibility.
"MSNBC's mothballing Morning Joe on what could have been the biggest day in the show's history is humiliating for the hosts and regular guests," Jacobson told Fox News Digital.
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DePauw University journalism professor Jeffrey McCall is shocked that MSNBC would preempt its influential morning show in the aftermath of the assassination attempt, which coincides with the opening of the GOP convention, and the possible naming of Trump’s VP pick.
"It really is quite astounding that MSNBC would even temporarily pull the plug on a show that has been the darling of the anti-Trump east coast liberal audience. The MSNBC leadership should consider that if it can't trust Joe and Mika to keep within the guardrails on such a big news day, then why are they allowed to be on the air the rest of the time? This is a huge news day," McCall told Fox News Digital.
OutKick founder Clay Travis said it was the "biggest Monday" in Scarborough’s TV career.
"Damn. I’d quit if any of my bosses tried this," Travis wrote on X.
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Liberal journalist Jeff Jarvis fumed on X, "What the f---, MSNBC? You preempted your excellent weekend programming… and now you've silenced [Morning Joe] in favor of your anodyne streaming news cos-play called Now?"
Trump was wounded in the ear by a would-be assassin's bullet on Saturday at his Pennsylvania rally. The shooter killed one attendee and critically wounded two others before being killed by law enforcement.
Trump will accept the 2024 Republican nomination for president this week in Milwaukee.
