Awkward moment Mika Brzezinski looks away while Joe Scarborough slams influencers in bizarre rant

MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski was spotted in an awkward on-air moment as her co-host and husband Joe Scarborough slammed influencers during a bizarre rant Monday. 

The host of Morning Joe appeared shocked as Scarborough unleashed a foul-mouthed rant against influencers, who he said get away with lying on social media while 'what reporters do matters.'

The intense conversation stemmed from a speech that Axios CEO Jim VandeHei gave at the National Press Club Thursday, where he called out Elon Musk for claiming that the media has been replaced by 'citizen journalists.'  

VandeHei joined the Morning Joe show Monday as the MSNBC team congratulated him on winning the Fourth Estate award alongside his publication's co-founder, Mike Allen - but the conversation quickly took a sharp turn. 

After the Morning Joe team praised VandeHei, Scarborough immediately hopped on the bandwagon, repeating the CEO's comment he made last week about influencers 'popping off on Twitter.' 

As Scarborough grew aggravated, he dropped a curse word, leaving Brezinski speechless. 

'And like you said, this is what gets me,' Scarborough said in reference to VandeHei's speech. 'If someone pops off on Twitter, or some other social media, and they lie, they make mistakes - you know what the cost of that is? Nothing. They do it again. 

'In fact, it helps them because algorithms are rigged, so you stir up sh**,' he added, as Brezinski jumped in her chair before briefly looking away. 

During his speech on Thursday, VandeHei defended journalism while taking jabs at social media users - specifically Musk, the owner of X (formally known as Twitter). 

'Everything we do is under fire. Elon Musk sits on Twitter every day or X today saying like, "We are the media. You are the media." 

'My message to Elon Musk is: Bullsh**!

'You're not the media, you having a blue checkmark, a Twitter handle, and 300 words of cleverness doesn't make you a reporter anymore than me looking at your head, and seeing that you have a brain and telling you have an awesome set of tools makes me a damn neurosurgeon, right?,' VandeHei added. 

The veteran journalist then said that 'being a reporter is hard, like really hard.' 

'You have to care, you have to do the hard work, you have to get up every single day and say "I want to get to the closest approximation of the truth without any fear, without any favoritism." 

'You don't do that by popping off on Twitter,' he explained.

Scarborough told VandeHei that what he said 'continues to need to be said' because there is a lot of 'garbage flying around on social media.'

He dove even deeper as he shouted out specific outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and MSNBC. 

'What The New York Times does matters. What The Wall Street Journal does matters. What Jonathan Lemire does matters. What the Financial Times does matters. What MSNBC News and MSNBC reporters do matters,' he said. 

VandeHei agreed with Scarborough, as he mentioned that journalists aren't perfect. 

'And it doesn't mean there aren't things that we get wrong,' he said, adding that he got so 'hopped up' during his speech because of what he's heard from reporters. 

'I listen to so many reporters who feel like the industry is going to hell. Nobody trusts them, they're demoralized... And the truth is we don't have time to be demoralized!

'We don't have time to whine, we have to do our job! 

'There is an information war out there,' VandeHei said adding, that 'there are still tens of millions of people who depend on great reporting.' 

Scarborough then referred back to those specific publications and stated that reporters that work for them 'don't have to worry' because  they 'print truth all the time.' 

He then shocked his co-anchor with his language before she chimed in and said: 'Right, the more you hate, the more you make.' 

VandeHei suggested that people should read articles from media outlets every day to determine if they can trust them. 

'Use your own eyes - do you feel like they're trying to get to the closest approximation of the truth with every story, and that most of the time, if not almost all of the time, they do? 

'If they do then you can trust it as a news source,' he added. 

Toward the end of the segment, Brzezinski appeared to try to get Scarborough to stop talking as he continued to rant about the issues he sees in the industry. 

'At some point, people have to want to know the truth, and if they don't want to know the truth, well, then go ahead and walk around ignorant,' Scarborough said as his co-host kept saying 'OK' before closing the show.