MSNBC was back to its regularly scheduled programming a day after yanking “Morning Joe” off the air, in response to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
The liberal broadcaster apparently decided to keep the focus on breaking news on Monday morning after a 20-year-old gunman opened fire at a Trump rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday afternoon.
Trump’s right ear began to bleed after being struck by a bullet. The shooting also claimed the life of a former fire chief and injured two others.
The move didn’t sit well with the staff of hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, sources told the New York Post‘s Page Six.
It was reportedly an attempt by higher-ups to “tone down” the coverage.
A spokesperson for the network denied management had issued the directive to curb the coverage of the Republican presidential nominee and former president.
Other network hosts, including Joy Reid, Rachel Maddow and Nicole Wallace, continued their special coverage of the Republican National Convention throughout the day and for the rest of the week.
On Tuesday, Scarborough spoke about the broadcaster’s decision to drop the show on Monday.
“We were told, in no uncertain terms, on Sunday evening that there was going to be one news feed across all NBC News channels,” Scarborough said.
However, those plans changed as the day progressed, he added.
“We were very surprised,” Scarborough said. “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, we obviously would have been in yesterday morning.”
According to an MSNBC source, the hosts absence was “overblown.”
“This was a moment to cover (the incident) as facts only,” the insider told Page Six. “It was 24 hours a day and the network pulled all the resources in one big feed. Programming will continue as it is.”