Update: We reached out to Fox News, which explained that the segment block had come to its end (hence a “hard break” – which means an abrupt end to a segment to allow for break), but that host Megyn Kelly offered Romney the opportunity to return for the next block. 
 
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 On Thursday, the Morning Joe team took a look back on yesterday afternoon’s America Live interview with Mitt Romney, where host Megyn Kelly explained that she had to cut off the GOP presidential hopeful at the end of a segment due to an encroaching “hard break.” While they had mixed feelings concerning some of the responses Romney had given during the interview (panelist Donny Deutsch rather amusingly noted that Romney doesn’t “lean forward”), they seemed to be most taken aback by how the interview ended. 
 
 “Hard break,” they joked. “Hard break. What are you going to do?” 
 
 Host Mika Brzezinski explained that they rarely listen to the folks in the control room. (Whom viewers got to see briefly. Say hello to the Morning Joe Control Room, everyone.) “We don’t listen to them, right? We just stay on with an interview,” particularly “if we have a presidential candidate.” 
 
 RELATED: Romney Responds To Megyn Kelly’s Interrogations: ‘Megyn, Guess What. I Made A Lot Of Money.’ 
 
 “We don’t need Starbucks,” Deutsch joked. 
 
 “That was rude,” continued Brzezinski. “That’s not his fault. Was that supposed to play Mitt being awkward, as well?” 
 
 “They’re treating him terribly,” she concluded. 
 
 Have a look, via MSNBC: 

 The front-runner's response to hostile questioning from Megyn Kelly is to lay the sarcasm on thick. 
 
 Rick Santorum complained Tuesday -- back before he won both Alabama and Mississippi and his mood brightened -- that Fox News was in the bag for his rival Mitt Romney. That charge doesn't really make much sense at all: Not only have many Fox personalities praised Santorum and bashed Romney, it's the former Massachusetts governor who seems to have trouble whenever he goes on the channel. Back in November, there was his very testy interview with Bret Baier. And an appearance on Megyn Kelly's America Live Wednesday continues the trend. 
 
 Romney finds himself in a frustrating situation: his campaign is clearly more disciplined, better organized, and better funded than his rivals', and it's almost mathematically certain at this point that he'll win the nomination. But he can't convince GOP voters to unite around him, and it seems like his annoyance is starting to show in the interview. Kelly came out with some tough questions, and played a clip of him talking about why he thought a federal mandate for health insurance was a good idea. (He instituted such a mandate in Massachusetts and used to support it nationally, but now says he thinks mandates are not an appropriate federal solution.) 
 
 But his greatest moment of pique came when Kelly read aloud from an Associated Press article that stated that his losses in Mississippi and Alabama showed that the "core of his party does not want him." That set Romney off. Not in a scream-and-gnash-teeth sort of way -- that isn't his style: 
 
 I'm sorry, but they have to go back and look at some other states that actually are kind of important. Let's say Florida, for instance, where I won, and Michigan and Ohio and Nevada and New Hampshire .... Oh, and by the way, last night I got more delegates than anybody else. 
 
 This sarcastic tone (watch the video to hear the edge in his voice) seems to be Romney's default when he's backed into a corner. So far, it hasn't been a major problem because he has kept the press at arm's length, but he'll likely be giving more interviews before too long -- either in an effort to seal the deal in the primaries, or else once he's cleared the field and takes on Obama. His tasks for those days ahead: learn to respond to tough questions with more equanimity, and try to avoid insulting diehard Republican states.
– So much for Fox News shilling for Mitt Romney. The GOP frontrunner sat down with Megyn Kelly yesterday, and today the political world is buzzing about how poorly it went. Kelly delivered hard questions, and even cut him off during his final sentence, while Romney looked by turns irritated, defensive, and smug. Confronted on his slip-ups on wealth he replied, "Megyn, guess what? I made a lot of money. … I'm not going to apologize for that." Some reactions from around the blogosphere: The Atlantic says Romney looked thin-skinned, falling into a defensive, sarcastic tone. He has to "learn to respond to tough questions with more equanimity." McKay Coppins of Buzzfeed muses that Romney seems to "save his worst performances" for Fox News, recalling his testy talks with Brett Baier and Chris Wallace. Perhaps "Fox's interviewers—whose conservative audiences have long found Romney's politics suspicious—tend to ask more penetrating questions." "Ever wonder what it looks like when a robot initiates a self-destruct sequence?" quips Jezebel. "It's all the worst of Romney—smug, stiff, rich … his hair doesn't even look that good." But Romney isn't the only one taking heat; MSNBC host Mika Brezinski took issue with Kelly cutting Romney off. "They're treating him terribly," she said, in a clip spotted by Mediaite.