“Morning Joe” dedicated some of Tuesday’s show to continuing fallout from the firing of Hollywood titan Harvey Weinstein after explosive allegations of sexual harassment last week.
In the program’s first hour, co-host Joe Scarborough took a shot at his own parent company and NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” Scarborough blasted the show and creator Lorne Michaels for ignoring the Weinstein scandal on Saturday’s broadcast. Michaels told The Daily Mail after Saturday’s Weinstein-less show that the story was only “a New York thing.”
“I know it’s a sacred cow at NBC, but come on, I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t say this,” said Scarborough. “You have Lorne Michaels saying this is a local story. This is a New York story? So he killed all references to Harvey Weinstein in ‘SNL’?” he asked with skepticism.
A rep for “SNL” did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Scarborough continued, going off on a Shakespearean “Morning Joe” rant:
“They bravely go after politicians? Weekend Update has turned into an anti-Trump editorial and good for them. But Lorne Michaels says this is a local story. That’s like saying the Catholic Church scandal was a central Rome story. People have to stop protecting Harvey Weinstein. If we’re really going to move forward, they’re going to have to start saying things that are uncomfortable and I am not really sure why it took Harvey Weinstein losing his power to start doing that.”
After all but ignoring the story on Friday, the morning after the New York Times broke the story about Weinstein’s many settlements for sexual misconduct, the set of “Morning Joe” has dedicated significant attention to the scandal.
On Monday, Scarborough blasted Weinstein and those who remained silent, and co-host Mika Brzezinski warned she would abandon a three-book deal with Weinstein Books if Harvey did not leave the company.
Weinstein was fired by his board of directors on Sunday night.