Joe Scarborough is prepared for much more adjustments to come back into play at MSNBC. Following Rashida Jones’ exit from the community earlier this month, Scarborough mentioned he sees issues heading in a distinct path.
For one, he’s prepared to begin increasing the scope of his Morning Joe interviews to cultural icons, reasonably than simply political figures. “We had achieved a number of that previously,” he identified to The Hollywood Reporter. “Within the pre-[Donald] Trump days, I’d say pre-2015, it will be very regular for us to have Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Bradley Cooper, Pete Townsend, all of those popular culture figures on the present. After which when Donald Trump was working and obtained elected, he consumed many of the bandwidth of not solely the present but in addition information usually.”
Scarborough mentioned he’s been making an attempt to return to the present’s “unique idea” of blending politics, overseas coverage, and the economic system, with music, movie, and Broadway for “years.” He added, “We’ve needed to do it. And in 2022, every little thing was simply so sizzling. I knew that if I needed to truly interview artists and actors and administrators, folks that I’ve all the time liked, whether or not it’s Christopher Nolan or Al Pacino, that I wanted to create a distinct area for it. So we initially created a primetime present the place we’d do it [Joe Scarborough Presents], and we’d interview these individuals and popular culture figures and influential artists. However then after some time, I mentioned, ‘Wait, these items is so good. I don’t need to have Christopher Nolan on at eight o’clock at evening. I need my Morning Joe household to have the ability to hear Christopher Nolan and Robert Downey, Jr., and all of the Oppenheimer individuals.’ I needed that within the morning. So we moved it again to the morning, and we’ve simply centered on it much more.”
It additionally helps that the extra culture-driven interviews have carried out nicely on the community’s YouTube web page. “It’s nice. One of many issues that I had been anxious about, that Mika [Brzezinski] and I all the time went backwards and forwards on, was the worry that we had been simply preaching to the choir. Whether or not you’re speaking about YouTube, whether or not you’re speaking concerning the e-newsletter, whether or not you’re speaking about writing in different codecs, whether or not you’re speaking about these city corridor conferences, all of them open up the viewers and allow you to attain new individuals and get new insights,” Scarborough defined.
If he will get his want for the community to pivot on this path, Scarborough has one dream visitor: Paul McCartney. “That’s the one particular person,” he admitted. “Right here I’m, 18 years later, nonetheless reaching for the brass ring. One among lately, one in every of lately, one tremendous day.”
Morning Joe, Weekdays, 6a/7c, MSNBC