MSNBC host Joe Scarborough lashed out at the decision to take his popular Morning Joe show off the air yesterday in the wake of the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, warning the co-hosts would quit if it happens again.
MSNBC had denied an earlier report on CNN saying that executives were concerned about the freewheeling punditry on the show, which is consistently hostile to Trump.
Instead, the network told NPR that Morning Joe would be replaced by ongoing coverage from NBC News that would run across NBC and its digital platform NBC News Now, as well as on MSNBC.
Yet, as Scarborough noted in directly addressing viewers this morning, that replacement didn't uniformly 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 said, adding, "We've talked about it off the air, we'll talk about in on the air because we talk about everything on the air."
Scarborough's cohosts Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist chimed in too: All three said they wished they could have been on air yesterday and will be ready if the same scenario arises again.
"Next time we're told there's going to be a news feed replacing us, we will be in our chairs," Scarborough said. "And the news feed will be us or they can get somebody else."
MSNBC has not responded to NPR's request for comment.
Notably, Scarborough has been an adviser to President Biden off-the-air as well as a champion of him on it. Brzezinski, who is married to Scarborough, is also the sister of Biden's ambassador to Poland.
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Scarborough: “Next time we’re told there’s going to be a news feed replacing us…the news feed will be us or they can get somebody else to host the show.”pic.twitter.com/Df7MpU0bc9
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