Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were absent during Friday’s broadcast – just a day after a controversial on-air rant.
The husband and wife have been caught up in plenty of drama after making a visit to President-Elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, infuriating their viewers.
Scarborough added fuel to the fire when he went on a 20-minute rant on Thursday responding to critics who said he ‘fears’ Trump.
On Friday, the pair were noticeably absent from their anchor chairs.
However, their absence was pre-planned as Scarborough announced they would be traveling to Arkansas to interview former President Bill Clinton.
The host’s 20-minute rant on Thursday morning began in response to an article by David Frum in The Atlantic where Frum accused the liberal network hosts of surrendering to their fear of the president-elect.
‘Just because some people have said we’re fearful, let me tell you something, you can talk to anybody that’s worked in the front office of NBC or MSNBC over the past 22 years, they’ll tell you I’m not fearful,’ Scarborough said defiantly.
Frum wrote his article on Wednesday about how Mika Brzezinski had apologized on-air following a segment with him where he disparaged Fox News.
Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were absent during Friday’s broadcast – just a day after a controversial on-air rant (pictured)
The pair were noticeably gone from their anchor chairs on Friday (pictured). However, their absence was pre-planned as Scarborough announced they would be traveling to Arkansas to interview former President Bill Clinton
During the segment, Frum made the crack: ‘If you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed’ while talking about allegations against defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth.
Scarborough on Thursday fired back that they were not apologizing but stated the comment about Fox was ‘too flippant’ for the current moment.
Brzezinski noted that MSNBC is a very different place in terms of coverage than Fox News but felt it went over the line.
‘I just want to say there’s a lot of good people that work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we want to leave it at that.’
The accusation of the couple’s fear of Trump, however, appeared to have struck a nerve with Scaborough vehemently defending their trip to Mar-a-Lago after Trump won the election.
‘You talk to anybody who served with me in Congress, they will tell you not fearful of leadership. Now: not fearful,’ Scarborough added.
He said Morning Joe was trying to get Frum back on the show to talk through his accusations and claimed no paper would allow the crack about Fox to be printed.
The host’s 20-minute rant on Thursday morning began in response to an article by David Frum (pictured) in The Atlantic where Frum accused the liberal network hosts of surrendering to fear of the president-elect
They also apologized after Frum made a comment about Pete Hegseth (pictured). During the segment, Frum made the crack: ‘If you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed’ while talking about allegations against the defense secretary nominee
‘I am telling you, the sound of fear, the apology, none of that is true,’ he said. ‘But guess what, this is what has been going on now for several weeks.’
Scarborough continued to defend his and Brzezinski’s visit to Florida to meet with Trump after the election and said people have been writing articles that were ‘just false’ about it.
He slammed the criticism of their on-background conversation with the president-elect arguing other media organizations have spoken to him as well.
‘If they have a chance to talk on the background with the incoming president and president-elect, they would do it,’ he went on.
He called the critical articles being written about it ‘outrageous stupid, immature’ and said they ‘lied time and time again about us.’
Scarborough was nearly shouting as he said trying to speak to the president and have on-background conversations is what reporters do.
‘And by the way, guess what? That’s what I’ve been doing for years,’ he said addressing viewers directly.
He pointed out that he speaks to Middle Eastern leaders also who are not ‘good people’ to get information and ‘give it to you.’
Scarborough said they only difference between what they did with their visit to Mar-a-Lago and other media organizations was they were transparent about it.
‘We actually told you,’ he declared.
