An apparent incident in the middle of MSNBC’s 30 Rock newsroom earlier this month is coming to light today.
The NYPost reports MSNBC’s 6pmET host Ed Schultz, irate over not being included in election night promos, yelled, “I’m going to torch this [bleep]ing place.”
As astonished MSNBC staff members fell silent, Schultz glared around the room and yelled, “[Bleep]ers!”
AdvertisementFuming Schultz was immediately dragged in for a meeting with NBC News President Steve Capus and MSNBC President Phil Griffin following his Aug. 12 meltdown.
Our source added, “Schultz was told: ‘If you do that again, you are fired.’ He broke down crying.”
A spokeswoman for Schultz and the network declined to comment to the Post, but did add, “The only thing that’s on fire are Ed’s ratings, and the only people crying are at CNN.”
For what it’s worth, Schultz came in second in his timeslot on election night beating HLN and CNN, in fact doubling the 6pmET hour of “The Situation Room” in the demo.
• After the jump, ad Ed incident before his MSNBC days…
• More/Video: ICN discovered that the day after the incident, Joe Scarborough mockingly walked off his own set yelling, “I’m going to torch this place.” While it seemed odd at the time, it makes perfect sense now.