As fans of MSNBC woke up on Monday morning, many no doubt waiting to be delivered the hottest takes from Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, they were instead greeted by generic news desk coverage. That's because executives at the network made the call to pull "Morning Joe" off the air in the wake of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. The reason why is telling. 

According to CNN, which reported the development, this wasn't a case of routine preemption. After all, "Morning Joe" has been left intact through essentially every other breaking news story since its inception. Instead, the decision came from a much darker place: MSNBC couldn't trust that Joe, Mika, and its stable of lunatics wouldn't compare Trump to Hitler again. 

It's a huge day in politics and MSNBC has pulled 'Morning Joe' off the air. They're apparently worried the MJ crew might say something 'inappropriate' about the Trump assassination attempt. From CNN: https://t.co/uK3u0ZIoU9 pic.twitter.com/AS8E4b5FdQ

— Byron York (@ByronYork) July 15, 2024

A person familiar with the matter told CNN that the decision was made 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. Given the breaking news nature of the story, the person said, it made more sense to continue airing rolling breaking news coverage in the fraught political moment.

"Morning Joe" has long been ground zero for "Trump is Hitler" rhetoric. Just a few months ago, Joe Scarborough claimed Republicans were like nazis excusing Kristallnacht, the violent and deadly attack on Jews that started the Holocaust. In late 2023, the host said Trump was going "full-on Hitler." 

Morning Joe claims Trump is "just going full-on Hitler" pic.twitter.com/8EtGLKj2Ir

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) November 13, 2023

As far back as 2018, guests on the show were comparing the then-president's supporters to nazis. Heck, it was Joe Scarborough who coined the term "Hitlerian" while describing Trump. The list of examples is a mile long. 

The leadership at MSNBC, which itself is far from innocent in this scenario, took one look at the show's history and concluded that they simply couldn't trust that "Morning Joe" wouldn't address Trump's assassination by calling him a fascist who deserved it. It's astonishing, yet somehow not surprising. 

It's also an admission. It's an admission that MSNBC and its litany of deranged hosts, from Nicole Wallace to Joy Reid, played a role in the attempted assassination of Trump. For years, they've been frantically calling Trump and other Republicans not just political opponents but literal "threats to democracy" who will end elections and set up a dictatorship. Those chickens came home to roost on Saturday, and instead of admitting there was a problem, MSNBC chose to cover it up temporarily. 

No worries, though. "Morning Joe" will return on Tuesday, and you can bet there will be zero introspection among its hosts and guests. MSNBC unleashed this, and the genie can't be put back in the bottle.