The “Morning Joe” controversy got a little more controversial on Tuesday, with co-host Joe Scarborough seemingly threatening to walk off the show if his program is ever pulled from the air again.

To review, the MSNBC morning show was off the air Monday. The official reason from MSNBC was it was continuing to roll out breaking news coverage of the shooting at the Donald Trump rally last Saturday — and that the same feed would be used across all NBC News platforms.

But CNN’s Oliver Darcy reported the show was off the air “to avoid a scenario in which one of the show’s stable of two dozen-plus guests might make an inappropriate comment on live television that could be used to assail the program and network as a whole.”

MSNBC denied CNN’s story, but Scarborough made it clear on Tuesday that he wasn’t happy to be sidelined on Monday. And other MSNBC shows on Monday, such as those hosted by Nicolle Wallace and Ari Melber, aired as normal.

“Morning Joe” returned Tuesday, and Scarborough said on the air, “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, and today’s show would be Lester Holt, other people that, well, you (co-anchor Willie Geist) worked with on Sunday, and that was going to be one news feed across all NBC news channels that we were going to stay as a network in breaking news mode throughout, all day yesterday. That did not happen. … We don’t know why that was. … Our team was not given a good answer as to why that didn’t happen, but it didn’t happen. We were also told it was going to happen throughout the day.”

Geist said the show was “suited up and ready to go for (Monday) morning, on a big morning, and was told that something else was going to be broadcast.”

As I wrote in Tuesday’s newsletter, “Morning Joe” is one of MSNBC’s signature programs with a dedicated audience. After such a major story as the events at the Trump rally, as well as the start of the Republican National Convention, Monday’s “Morning Joe” should have been appointment viewing for MSNBC. Fans of the show would want to hear what “Morning Joe” had to say, right?

And if the CNN report was correct, keeping the show off the air sends a terrible message: that MSNBC didn’t trust one of its best-known programs to put on a responsible broadcast.

The Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr wrote, “Scarborough’s comments on Tuesday represent an extraordinary pushback against a network, where he has worked for 21 years — comparable to the criticism leveled in March by NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd over the network’s hiring of former RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel as an on-air contributor, an appointment that was soon reversed.”

Scarborough, Geist and co-anchor Mika Brzezinski all spoke out against the decision to keep the show off the air Monday.

Brzezinski said, “I think the reason why is — this show began and continues 17 years later on, being the place where you can go to have the hard conversations, in a civil way. And so it seems like now, more than ever, is a time that we would like to be on.”

Geist said, “We want to be here for our audience, and we know you trust us. And we have the ultimate respect for you guys. So we’re here today. I wish we’d been here yesterday.”

Scarborough added, “We would have liked to have been here yesterday, and we are still trying to figure out exactly why there wasn’t that one news feed.”

Scarborough then closed with this: “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. Yeah. And the news feed will be us, or they can get somebody else to host the show.”

The network had no comment on Scarborough’s remarks, according to The Associated Press’ David Bauder.

Ad-Vancing the story

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, right, talks to Republican presidential candidate  Donald Trump during the Republican National Convention on Tuesday in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

More stories continued to roll out Tuesday about Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who Trump picked to be his running mate.

Politico’s Ian Ward came up with “55 Things to Know About J.D. Vance, Trump’s VP Pick.”

Meanwhile, a common theme through many of the stories is how Vance was formerly considered a “never Trumper,” once calling Trump “America’s Hitler” and saying he was unfit to serve as president. At some point, something changed.

The New York Times’ Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman have a superbly insightful piece in “How J.D. Vance Won Over Donald Trump.” It reveals fascinating details on how Vance perfectly played a meeting at Mar-a-Lago in February 2021 to get back into Trump’s good graces after being so critical of him in the past.

It also laid out how media mogul Rupert Murdoch and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson played a role (or tried to, in the case of Murdoch) in Trump’s decision to pick Vance.

The Times reported that Carlson was pushing hard for Vance and against Trump’s other two considerations: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. The Times wrote, “When word got back to Tucker Carlson a few weeks ago that Mr. Trump might be wavering on Mr. Vance, he intervened. Mr. Carlson, who was visiting Australia on a speaking tour, phoned Mr. Trump and delivered an apocalyptic warning, according to two people briefed on their conversation. He told Mr. Trump that Mr. Rubio could not be trusted — that he would work against him and would try to lead America into nuclear war. Mr. Carlson, who declined to comment for this article, told Mr. Trump that Mr. Burgum could not be trusted, either.”

Meanwhile, Swan and Haberman reported that the Murdoch camp wanted Trump to select Burgum. They wrote, “Mr. Murdoch even went so far as to dispatch senior executives and columnists at The New York Post to meet with Mr. Trump and dissuade him from picking Mr. Vance. … The Murdoch crowd lobbied aggressively for Mr. Burgum, in private and in editorials in The New York Post. When the anti-Vance forces made their arguments to Mr. Trump, they focused on Mr. Vance’s prior criticisms of the former president and on Mr. Vance’s youth and inexperience.”

Murdoch, by the way, showed up at the RNC, according to The New York Times’ Jim Rutenberg.

Meanwhile, The New York Times’ Santul Nerkar wrote, “How Outlets on the Right and Left Covered Trump’s Pick of J.D. Vance.”

The coverage really wasn’t all that unexpected.

Nerkar wrote, “Many conservative commentators and outlets applauded the former president’s choice, focusing on Mr. Vance’s conservative credentials as a senator and his loyalty to Mr. Trump, both in his policy positions and his efforts to downplay Mr. Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Some conservative publications, however, saw the choice as a boon to Democrats.”

He added, “Most liberal sites characterized Mr. Vance as an opportunist by focusing on his past status as a prominent critic of Mr. Trump, highlighting Mr. Vance’s denunciations of Mr. Trump during his first presidential campaign. They also showcased the senator’s turn toward Mr. Trump, including his hard-line positions on abortion and the Jan. 6 attack, to paint him as a political extremist.”

Here are a few other notable pieces about JD Vance …

• The Washington Post’s Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey and Marianne LeVine with “How Trump got to ‘yes’ on Vance.”
• Politico’s Meredith McGraw with “‘One Handsome Son-of-a-Bitch’: How Donald Trump Fell for J.D. Vance.”
• The Wall Street Journal’s Catherine Lucey and John McCormick with “J.D. Vance Offers Trump a Fresh Face With a MAGA Profile.”
• PolitiFact’s Maria Ramirez Uribe with “Trump VP pick J.D. Vance says media twisted remarks on abortion, domestic violence. We looked closer.”

Attacking the media

Kari Lake speaks during the Republican National Convention on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

So all that talk about the Republican National Convention lowering the temperature on divisive political talk? Yeah, apparently Kari Lake didn’t get the memo. She raged against the media during a speech on Tuesday at the RNC. The senatorial candidate from Arizona started her speech by welcoming everyone, except for one particular group.

Lake said, “Hello, America. Welcome, everybody who’s watching at home. And welcome everybody in this great arena tonight. We love you all. Actually, actually, wait a minute. I don’t mean that. I don’t welcome everybody in this meeting, in this room. The guys up in the fake news, frankly — frankly, you guys up there in the fake news have worn out your welcome.”

It’s always interesting to remember that Lake is a former TV news anchor.

According to Mediaite’s Alex Griffing, Lake railed against the media for what she perceived as negative coverage of Trump and favorable coverage of President Joe Biden.

Working the story

Be sure to check out this piece by my Poynter colleague Angela Fu: “How reporters pieced together details about the Trump assassination attempt.”

Fu writes, “Coverage of the shooting — the first assassination attempt to injure a U.S. president since the 1981 plot against Ronald Reagan — has been an enormous undertaking. Hundreds of journalists, perhaps more, have worked around the clock since Saturday, painstakingly confirming details about the shooting even as rumors and conspiracy theories fly on social media.”

Fu talked to journalists at The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times about how those organizations worked to get the correct information to the public. It’s an excellent and informative look at how news organizations responsibly, yet effectively covered one of the biggest stories in recent memory.

Media tidbits

• The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson talks about the apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump and what impact it could have moving forward in “Stop Pretending You Know How This Will End.” Many have opined that Trump has all but secured the presidency because of what happened Saturday, but Thompson does some deep reporting and writes, “Let me offer another interpretation of Saturday’s shocking event: Nobody knows anything. Anyone who claims to have already figured out precisely how Trump’s bloody ear will influence the 2024 election or strain the nation’s civic bonds is lying to you and to themselves. The history of failed assassination attempts in the United States and abroad offers only the murkiest indication of the path forward.”
• Axios’ Sara Fischer with “Nate Silver joins prediction market startup as more people bet on news.”
• Following the big sports media news that Skip Bayless will no longer be on FS1’s “Undisputed” later this summer, many are wondering where — if anywhere — Bayless will end up. Sports Illustrated’s Liam McKeone has “Three Different Landing Spots for Skip Bayless After Leaving ‘Undisputed.’”
• Meanwhile, don’t look for Bayless to return to his old seat alongside Stephen A. Smith on ESPN’s “First Take.” Front Office Sports’ Michael McCarthy tweeted, “Ouch. ESPN Is Not Interested In A Reunion with former morning star Skip Bayless Once He Leaves FS1. ‘We are set with the current First Take rotation, and wish Skip the best on his future endeavors,’ an ESPN spokesman tells @FOS.”

Hot type

• The Washington Post’s Kara Voght and Maeve Reston with “How Lara Trump found her place in the family business.”
• The Athletic’s Paul Tenorio, Jack Lang, Felipe Cardenas with “‘It was inhuman’: Why the Copa America final was delayed and dangerously close to disaster.”
• Los Angeles Times columnist Glenn Whipp has an interesting Q&A with actress Nicole Kidman and it’s entirely about the making of the film “Eyes Wide Shut” with director Stanley Kubrick and her then-husband Tom Cruise.

More resources for journalists

• Try our free Grant Writing for Journalists self-directed course
• Immigration Matters: a tip sheet with resources and story ideas.
• Beat Academy offers eight trainings for one low price.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.

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