In a humiliating confession, MSNBC admitted this weekend that Friday their flagship show, "Morning Joe" was a long, drawn out lie.

"Day after Thanksgiving! Woo! I'm stuffed," host Mika Brzezinski said in the opening monologue, packaged to appear as if the show was being broadcast live to viewers.

"Joe didn't notice, he ate the bag," co-host Willie Geist joked. "It was good! Well, you know, the game made up for it … How was your Thanksgiving?" host Joe Scarborough asked guest Rick Tyler.

"Very successful, although the conversations were interesting," Tyler replied. "I bet!" chirped Brzezinski.

Of course, it was all a lie.

The MSNBC hosts and their guests repeatedly pretended to be live on-air but avoided talking about the biggest news stories of the day… because the show had previously been recorded Wednesday. Besides removing the small "Live" graphic in the bottom corner of the broadcast, the network did everything they could to present the show as a live broadcast.

MSNBC admitted to the deception over the weekend, but the damage was already done to the network's already-smeared reputation.