Colby Hall Calls Out NBC News ‘Circus’ Under Cesar Conde: ‘Joe Scarborough Is Pissed!’

Mediaite Founding Editor Colby Hall appeared on NewsNation’s Morning in America to discuss the on-air drama on the set of Morning Joe Tuesday morning after Joe Scarborough called out NBC News executives pulling their show from air on Monday.

NBC News executives decided to pull two of their most popular hosts from MSNBC on the Monday morning that followed the weekend assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump .

Morning Joe was replaced on Monday by a feed of NBC News, straight news coverage instead of the opinion-heavy programming led by co-hosts Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski , causing a backlash and open concern that this was some sort of admission that NBC News didn’t trust their on-air talent as Hall wrote in a Monday column. The pair, as well as their regular stable of guests, are known for their support of President Joe Biden and antagonism of former President Trump . Reports stated that the decision was made to avoid an “inappropriate” comment , but on the record, that was not the given reason for the change.

But Joe and Mika’s absence was conspicuous, and when they returned to the air on Tuesday, Scarborough openly expressed that he was “very surprised” and “very disappointed” in what many saw as an “ on-air swipe ” at NBC execs.

Hall spoke to NewsNation anchor Anna Kooiman about the kerfuffle, explicitly calling out Cesar Conde , chairman of the NBCUniversal News Group:

Hall: I mean, it was not a brave moment for NBC News executives and candidly, Joe and Mika and Willie Geist, they’re pissed. They’re angry that basically the NBC executives sort of ostensibly said that they didn’t trust them with breaking news. And, of course, they have a lot of high-profile guests that are known, like a lot of opinion programming that’s not real straight news. They try to say stuff that’s over-the-top to try to get attention, and Saturday afternoon or the evening was a grave and sad day in American political history with the attempted assassination of Trump. And it’s a very progressive show. So you can understand some of the logic, but you also have to be able to believe that the people you put on air will be disciplined enough to not say something inflammatory or wrong. So it’s stunning drama that these top talent are basically calling out NBC News executives. It’s not something we typically see on a Morning Joe program.

Kooiman: And look, we can pull back the curtain a little bit for our viewers. You know, we have some inside info on this in our own lives as broadcasters. I once had another shot before here and set to host a morning show the day after the Boston Marathon bombing. And Megyn Kelly kind of bumped me out of the chair. It wasn’t her decision to make that, the executives made that decision, and it was hurtful to me as a young anchor. But the audience knew her better. She was more seasoned. That made sense. These two anchors are the main anchors. They’re two of the most recognizable faces at MSNBC. Then coming out and saying they are disappointed that this happened. Do you think they handled it properly on air? Because it’s a touchy subject. It’s difficult.

Hall: I think they went right up to the line. I don’t think that they crossed the line. I think they they needed to say their piece. There was a lot of pushback yesterday. And he’s right. You know, some of the news feeds that they aired looked like sort of almost public access. It was just not what you would expect from a major cable news network. I’ll say also, this is another in a string of sort of questionable decisions from the brass. Remember Ronna McDaniel ? She’s the former RNC chair that was brought on by MSNBC to be a Republican contributor. And then, great outrage. And they eventually, Cesar Conde, the head of NBC news, pulled the plug because it seemed as though the inmates are running the asylum. So one wonders how many mistakes at the high level will this current executive, sort of executives be able to stomach before people are saying that this is just a circus?

Watch the video above via NewsNation.