Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski may be more like former President Donald Trump than they’d like to admit.
“They have a flair for the dramatic,” a network source told Page Six, and the source added that they know how to use that flair in front of the camera.
The MSNBC couple returned to “Morning Joe” on Tuesday. The network canceled the show. for special coverage of Saturday’s shocking incident. Assassination attempt Trump’s life.
Scarborough, Brzezinski and anchor Willie Geist addressed the issue at the beginning of the show, with Scarborough explaining, “We were told explicitly on Sunday evening that all of NBC’s news channels would have one news feed yesterday – the Today show, Lester Holt…. that as a network we intended to remain in breaking news mode all day yesterday.”
“It didn’t happen. I don’t know why it didn’t happen. Our team was never given a clear answer as to why it didn’t happen, but it didn’t happen,” a disappointed Scarborough told viewers.
Their revelations left some network insiders stunned.
The overall consensus at NBC News and MSNBC is that “Joe and Mika are acting childish and immature. They need to grow up,” our insider told us.
An MSNBC spokesman said they were not aware of any such feelings about the couple.
“We’re proud of the programming Morning Joe produces every morning,” the rep said, without commenting on what the host said on air about the network.
Through their representatives, Messrs. Scarborough and Brzezinski declined to comment on the company rumors.
Our insider also noted that “Morning Joe” producers helped craft the delayed two-hour segment of the four-hour show. “The fine print is, they knew this was going to happen. The special ran all day, all the way up until 4 p.m.,” they said.
Geist covered the shooting at the Trump rally over the weekend with Savannah Guthrie and appeared to corroborate some of the couple’s story.
“I was here Sunday morning covering the NBC story. Savannah and I led the coverage on Sunday. We spoke with authorities about what happened. [and we were] Clearly suited up and ready to go [Monday] “In the morning… I was told there was something else going to be on,” he said.
Scarborough said he had heard there would be special updates aired throughout the day but “there was such a strong backlash about the report yesterday morning that they changed their plans.”
“We were very surprised. Very disappointed. If we had known there was only one news feed, it would have obviously been out yesterday morning,” he added.
Yet another source speculated that the uncertainty about the breaking news program could have been a misunderstanding or deliberate miscommunication by executives who didn’t want to be targeted by Scarborough and Brzezinski.
“Anyone who knows Joe and Micah knows they wouldn’t agree if they found out,” the source said.
When the show returned on Tuesday, Brzezinski gave her approval, describing the show as “a place where we can have difficult conversations in a civil way,” adding, “Now, more than ever, seems like a good time to be on the show, and I think our viewers feel that way too.”
A source said late Monday afternoon that “everyone was furious” that network bosses had pulled the show from the air.
He also said he had been instructed to tone down negative comments about Trump and sideline promising hosts.
A spokesman denied that hosts received instructions from above to go easy on Trump, and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid and Nicolle Wallace, some of Trump’s most vocal critics, were at the host’s desk for the network’s special coverage of the Republican National Convention on Monday night.
“The next time someone tells us that news feeds are going to replace us, we’ll be sitting on our chairs,” Scarborough concluded.
