Mailing It In at Morning Joe? Joe and Mika’s Summer of Absence Speaks Volumes

Screenshot via MSNBC

Since Memorial Day, Morning Joe has often felt like Morning Guest Host.

Over the past two months, roughly two-thirds of the show’s episodes have aired without one — or often both — of its marquee stars, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. For regular viewers, it’s become something of a parlor game: Which fill-in will be leading the table today? Will it be Willie Geist solo in the NYC studio,  Jonathan Lemire capably holding down the fort, or Katty Kay playing the lead role?

This isn’t a new trend. I wrote about this very phenomenon back in 2021, when fewer than half the episodes that summer featured both Scarborough and Brzezinski. But in 2025, the stakes are different—and potentially more meaningful.

Since Memorial Day, Morning Joe has aired on 49 business days. Both Scarborough and Brzezinski have appeared together on just 18 shows — about 38% of the summer so far. On 19 days, or 40%, only one of the two lead hosts was present. And on 12 days — 25% of the time — neither host appeared at all. Brzezinski has been off for 26 days, representing 53% of the summer, while Scarborough has missed 18 days, or 37%.

There are multiple ways to frame this: while one or both hosts showed up for 77% of episodes (37/49), a more telling figure is that for a majority of the summer — 59% of the time (29/49) — viewers saw either just one host or none at all. For a show that thrives on the dynamic between its co-hosts, the pattern is hard to ignore.

All of this time off comes as MSNBC undergoes a significant transformation with the upcoming launch of Versant, the new publicly traded cable network spun off from under the NBCU News Group umbrella. And against that backdrop, Joe and Mika’s months-long off-air pattern reads less like standard-issue summer R&R and more like a power play.

Is the dynamic duo trying to send a message of “who runs the show?”  There’s no question that, in Joe and Mika’s eyes, they do, at least for now. Their ample time off can easily be read as a sign that they no longer care as much as they used to under a second Trump term. Are they quiet quitting or about considering hanging it up, as was rumored? Or are they just leveraging their stature inside the network and taking a lot of vacation days. The latter seems most likely, but there are whispers around 30 Rock that something more might be at play.

A source familiar with the MSNBC’s shifting power dynamic, particularly regarding talent relations, confirms that questions about the network’s leadership over the past year, in particular their ill-fated decision to take Morning Joe off the air following the attempted assassination of candidate Donald Trump did little to broker a growing divide between the network’s top talent and the direction it is going. Again, the Morning Joe hosts were reportedly very upset by that decision — The Daily Beast reported that they threatened to quit.

For years, MSNBC has allowed its top stars extraordinary editorial and scheduling latitude. That’s partly due to the network’s structure, but mostly because the hosts themselves hold outsized influence. And no one has more pull than Joe and Mika. Morning Joe is not just a three-hour political gabfest; it’s a destination for Beltway players, a signal-booster for Democrats, and a daily briefing for political junkies, donors, and power players alike. When Scarborough and Brzezinski speak, people in D.C. listen — even if they won’t admit it.

But absence can speak just as loudly.

There are sources at the network insist their time off is normal vacation time, and hasn’t raised any red flags. They are big starts who have negotiated an absurd amount of vacation time and are taking full advantage.

But it’s hard to ignore the timing. With MSNBC’s realignment on the horizon and talent contracts under review, Joe and Mika’s extended absences feel like a flex — a reminder that Morning Joe doesn’t work without them. The show lacks its signature fire-and-ice dynamic in their absence, and the result is a softer, less authoritative product.

To be clear: they’ve earned their vacation. Hosting a daily three-hour political show is grueling, and they’ve helped redefine the genre. But the sheer volume of missed shows — particularly during such a pivotal political season — feels conspicuous. Most of their peers, Rachel Maddow aside, still show up five days a week.

For MSNBC, this raises deeper questions — not just about optics, but identity. As the network pivots toward a streaming-first future, what does Morning Joe become if its stars are only sporadically present? Is MSNBC — or its next iteration — really comfortable letting its flagship morning program drift into ghost-ship territory for weeks at a time?

All of this comes as Morning Joe’s influence continues to wane across the political spectrum. The right dismissed the show years ago as partisan theater, and now feels vindicated by recent Democratic losses and current aimlessness. Meanwhile, many on the left haven’t forgotten the off-the-record visit to Mar-a-Lago—an effort to “make nice” with a man they once warned was a neo-fascist.

For example, Morning Joe averaged a paltry 579,000 viewers and 53,000 in the demo on Tuesday. A cable news insider called it “embarrassing and what they get for mailing it in.” And that’s not a one off — According to Nielsen monthly ratings released this week, the show averaged 54,000 in the 25-54 demo in July.

When stars act like they own the show, it’s often because they do — and they know it.

Joe and Mika may be relaxing poolside, and fair enough. But their absence sends a message. The only question now is whether MSNBC is listening — and how they plan to respond.