If there was any confusion over whether the hosts of "Morning Joe" agreed to be taken off the air following Trump's assassination attempt, there's not anymore. Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski returned with a vengeance on Tuesday morning, railing against the decision. 

SEE: 'Morning Joe' Pulled Off the Air in the Wake of Trump Assassination Attempt, and the Reason Is Telling

In an incredible moment, they went so far as to threaten to quit if MSNBC ever pre-empts them again. The inmates are running the asylum. 

Trump broke MSNBC. @JoeNBC says this morning, the day after his bosses didn’t allow him to go on air, that if @MSNBC bumps them from the air again they can find new hosts. pic.twitter.com/8d0Rkuev8X

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) July 16, 2024

SCARBOROUGH: We want to briefly talk to our friends and viewers that watch us every day and talk about what happened yesterday. We were told, in no uncertain terms, Sunday evening that there was going to be one newsfeed across all NBC News channels yesterday. The Today Show, it'd be Lester Holt, other people you worked with on Sunday, and that was going to be one newsfeed across all NBC News channels, that we were going to stay as a network in breaking news mode, all day yesterday. That did not happen. We don't know why it didn't happen. 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, and I guess, after there was such strong blowback about yesterday morning, I guess they changed their plans and so those plans changed as well. So it didn't, and, you know, we've talked about it off the air and we'll talk about it on the air because we talk about everything on the air. We were very surprised, we were very disappointed, and if we had known there wasn't going to be the one newsfeed from NBC News across all NBC News channels, we obviously would have been in yesterday morning.

After getting a comment from one of the other co-hosts, Scarborough continued. 

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, we all wish we had been here yesterday, and we are still, we'd like to figure out why there wasn't that one newsfeed. 

BRZEZINSKI: Well, and I think the reason why is that this show began and continues 17 years later as the place where you can go to have the hard conversations in a civil way, and so, it seemed like, now more than ever, is a day, a time that we would like to be on, and I think our viewers agree with that so we continue. So we continue. We are five past the top of the hour...

SCARBOROUGH: And let me just say, we, next time we're told there's going to be a newsfeed replacing us, we will be in our chairs. 

BRZEZINSKI: We'll be sitting here (nervous laughter) 

SCARBOROUGH: And the newsfeed will be us or they can get somebody else to host the show.

BRZEZINSKI: We'll still be sitting here.

The truth is, "Morning Joe" was pulled off the air on Monday because it has been ground zero for deranged, hysterical proclamations that Donald Trump is Hitler and that the Republican Party as a whole will "destroy democracy." Scarborough is so unhinged that he recently claimed Trump will immediately start executing his political opponents if he wins the election in November. 

MSNBC may be hopelessly far-left, but even its bosses recognized how insane it would be to put "Morning Joe" on the air to host coverage of an attempted assassination against the guy they've claimed will end the Constitution and turn America into a dictatorship. 

Naturally, no introspection occurred between Scarborough and Brzezinski about why they were pre-empted. Instead, they showed up on Tuesday angry and defiant, basically telling the leadership at their network to pound sand. How will that go? It'll probably go fine given the executives at MSNBC courted this for so many years. What are they going to do now? Fire the hosts of one of their best-rated programs? No, they'll capitulate because, ultimately, they wanted this, even if they intended to escape the consequences for one day.

Honestly, they should have just left "Morning Joe" on air. Later that evening, Joy Reid was on MSNBC blaming Trump for his own assassination attempt. So, was any bad PR really prevented?