A number of studios at MSNBC were closed briefly just hours before the Super Tuesday presidential elections after bed bugs were discovered in the left-wing network’s headquarters in New York, according to a report.
The New York Post reported Monday night it had obtained an internal memo to company staffers informing them of the find and what to do ahead of the busiest voting day of the primary season.
Per the memo, MSNBC alerted employees of the discovery of an “unidentified insect” inside Studio 3A at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan.
The studio is where host Rachel Maddow’s desk sits and will be in use as election returns begin to trickle in from across the country on Tuesday evening.
Studio 3A on the third floor was said to have been shuttered along with other studios “out of an abundance of caution,” the Post reported.
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An exterminator was brought in to sweep the building.
“An environmental K-9 detection team will ensure the remediation efforts were complete and will take an extra pass, through extended areas of newsrooms,” the network memo said, according to the report.
One person described as an insider at the network told the Post the bed bug discovery created a commotion.
“They are scrambling,” the person said of MSNBC staffers. “They’ve already been borrowing an unused local studio for some shows in recent weeks. So studio space is tight.”
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By the end of the day Monday, operations inside the studio had returned to normal.
The MSNBC source said affected studio spaces “reopened an hour or so after [the memo] went out and inspection was complete.”
The Western Journal reached out to the network for comment but did not receive a response before publication.
The building that houses MSNBC’s New York operations, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, first opened its doors in 1933 and sits in the heart of of Manhattan.
According to the city, bed bugs are a common problem for New Yorkers although they generally tend to strike residential buildings.
New York’s website says thousands of exterminators operating in the city are licensed to treat bed bugs.
It does not appear the discovery of the pests would disrupt MSNBC’s coverage of Super Tuesday, when 16 states and voters in American Samoa head to the primary polls.
The network appeared to running normally on Tuesday morning with the broadcast of “Morning Joe.”
