Mika Brzezinski is not appearing on Morning Joe Thursday — she’s taking a pre-planned day off.

Co-host Joe Scarborough opened the show by saying “Mika has the day off with her family, a long-planned family event.”

The Morning Joe host’s absence comes the day after she landed in hot water for calling Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a “wannabe dictator’s butt-boy” for his comments defending the U.S. response to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Brzezinski said of Pompeo on Morning Joe Wednesday: “Are the pathetic deflections that we just heard when he appeared on Fox & Friends — is that a patriot speaking? Or a wannabe dictator’s butt-boy? I’m dead serious, I’m asking: are these the words of a patriot?”

The use of a homophobic slur to refer to Pompeo was met with a widespread backlash, and Brzezinski quickly issued an apology via tweet.

“SUPER BAD choice of words,” she wrote. “SO SORRY!”

Totally agree with you -SUPER BAD choice of words .. I should have said “water boy”… like for football teams or something like that.. apologize to @SenatorDurbin too! SO SORRY! https://t.co/zIqsGdK3Tk — Mika Brzezinski (@morningmika) December 12, 2018

Sen. Dick Durbin was on Morning Joe Wednesday.

Her comment was condemned by everyone from NPR’s media reporter David Folkenflik to U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grennell.

This is bad. Will require more from Brzezinski than a Twitterpology. https://t.co/GoTKn23wrl — David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik) December 12, 2018

Watch the video above, courtesy of MSNBC.

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