Scarborough Threatens to Quit Morning Joe after MSNBC Cancels Episode in Wake of Trump Assassination Attempt

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SNBC host Joe Scarborough did not react kindly to the network removing his show from the air Monday following the assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump. Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski, his wife, addressed the situation Tuesday and accused MSNBC of lying to them about replacing the show with breaking news coverage of the fallout from the Trump assassination attempt. If MSNBC does that again, Scarborough said, he will leave the show and they can find a new host.

“We were told, in no uncertain terms on Sunday evening that there was going to be one news feed across all NBC news channels yesterday,” Scarborough said. “That did not happen.” “We were very surprised. 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, we obviously would have been in yesterday morning,” Scarborough added, speaking to guest Willie Geist. When Brzezinski tried to shift the conversation after they addressed the situation, Scarborough cut her off and threatened to quit the network if executives cancel the program on false grounds, pointing out that the network did not cancel all commentary on Monday in favor of straight breaking-news coverage.

“Let me just say, next time we’re told there’s going to be a news feed replacing us, we will be in our chairs,” Scarborough warned. “The news feed will be us, or they can get somebody else to host the show.”

Morning Joe, Scarborough’s show, is among the most-watched programs on MSNBC, and is a favorite of President Joe Biden. The hosts often attack Trump with the kind of inflammatory rhetoric Republicans have strongly criticized following the failed assassination attempt on Trump over the weekend during a campaign rally in Butler, Pa. CNN first reported on MSNBC’s choice to pull Morning Joe from the air Monday, a major news day marked by the beginning of the Republican convention and the fallout from the Trump-assassination attempt.

A person familiar told CNN the decision was made to prevent a situation where one of the show’s guests makes an inappropriate comment about the Trump only days after he was nearly killed. “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,” an NBC Universal spokesperson said in a statement to CNN.

 

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Inmates Running the Asylum: MSNBC Reportedly Facing Mutiny After 'Morning Joe' Debacle​

There's an old adage in business that goes something like, "Anybody can manage people. The best managers know how to manage egos." One's mileage may vary on that sentiment, but one thing that's apparently undeniable: The employees of left-leaning news network MSNBC are increasingly thinking that their managers are unable to manage neither people nor egos.

A blistering report from The Daily Beast chronicled the aftermath of the network's curious decision to abruptly upend its "Morning Joe" program on Monday, less than 48 hours after a failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. MSNBC reportedly felt that the chances of something truly incendiary being uttered on the program -- hosted by well-documented husband-and-wife Trump critics Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski -- wasn't worth the risk. According to The Daily Beast's reporting, that risk calculation wasn't quite calculating enough because employees are none too happy with how any of the ensuing fallout played out. The report noted that employees are grappling with "intense frustration," with much of it aimed at the very top of the company. NBC News Group President Cesar Conde and MSNBC President Rashida Jones have been the prime recipients of this ire.

Even sans the Beast's reporting, it wasn't exactly a secret that Scarborough and Brzezinski weren't happy with this decision from Conde and Jones. As CNN and other outlets chronicled, Scarborough blasted MSNBC leadership for the decision. “We don’t know why that was that didn’t happen. Our team was not given a good answer as to why that didn’t happen,” Scarborough said upon returning to his regularly-scheduled slot on Tuesday. “But it didn’t happen.” “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, I guess they changed their plans,” Scarborough continued. He added: “We were very surprised. We were very disappointed.” Scarborough also threw in a thinly-veiled threat about quitting if this ever happened again. “Let me just say, next time we’re told there’s going to be a news feed replacing us, we will be in our chairs,” Scarborough said defiantly. “The news feed will be us, or they can get somebody else to host the show.”

According to The Daily Beast, that little monologue helped lead to "a crescendo Tuesday, with people inside the network and close to the situation dumbfounded as to how executives could have created a situation that allowed its top stars to go scorched earth on them for the second time in four months." The off-the-record quotes collected in the report buttressed that "crescendo."

"The buck stops with Cesar,” one source said.

"There is a level of disappointment and disillusion in our leadership in a way that is unlike anything before," one MSNBC staffer told The Daily Beast.

One MSNBC staffer suggested that MSNBC was already trying to warm up to a possible Trump administration.

“There’s no world in which any of this makes sense unless Comcast is attempting to curry favor,” one MSNBC employee said.