MS NOW host Joe Scarborough on Sunday poked gentle fun at the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), whom he dubbed "a great loss for reporters" because he couldn't keep a secret.
The morning after Graham's "sudden" death shocked the nation, Morning Joe called the station to share memories of joining Congress alongside the late senator in 1994.
"We always joked," Scarborough said, "Where two or more reporters were gathered, there too would be Lindsey."
Scarborough recalled a specific instance when Graham's fondness for the presence of the press presented a major problem.
In the late 1990s, he and Graham were both involved in what Scarborough, a former Florida Republican congressman, described as a "coup" to oust Newt Gingrich as House Speaker.
Graham volunteered to host discussions in his office and after two or three meetings, Scarborough began to notice something strange, he said Sunday.
"We realized that every time we walked through for these secret meetings to overthrow the Speaker of the House, we would walk through a gauntlet of reporters," Scarborough said. "We get inside, we go, 'Lindsey, you can't tell the press where our secret meetings are!'"
As his MS NOW colleagues laughed, Scarborough concluded, "The joke would always go around, 'Love the guy, but you don't want him guarding the Pentagon.'"