MSNBC host Rachel Maddow tore into the left-leaning corporate network Monday during her show over the firing of host Joy Reid and the demotion of Alex Wagner.
The network announced that shows with Reid and Wagner would be canceled as part of an effort to re-tool its lineup, also nixing weekend shows hosted by Katie Phang, Jonathan Capehart and Ayman Mohyeldin. Maddow, who earlier appeared on Reid’s final show Monday, confirmed former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki would take over Wagner’s timeslot.
“She is leaving the network altogether and that is very, very, very hard to take. I am 51 years old,” Maddow said. “I have been gainfully employed since I was 12 and I have had so many different kinds of jobs, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But in all of the jobs I have had in all of the years I have been alive, there is no colleague for whom I have had more affection and more respect than Joy Reid.”
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“I love everything about her. I have learned so much from her. I have so much more to learn from her,’ Maddow continued. “I do not want to lose her as a colleague here at MSNBC, and personally, I think it is a bad mistake to let her walk out the door. It is not my call and I understand that. But that’s what I think.”
Comcast is spinning off MSNBC, CNBC, USA, E!, Oxygen, SyFy and other news and entertainment channels after MSNBC ratings fell by over 50% following the defeat of Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, The Wall Street Journal reported in November.
“I will tell you. It is also unnerving to see that on a network where we’ve got two — count them — two nonwhite hosts in primetime, both of our nonwhite hosts in primetime are losing their shows, as is Katie Phang on the weekend,” Maddow said. “And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them. That feels indefensible and I do not defend it.”
Reid had a history of racially-inflammatory comments directed towards conservatives on her show. On Nov. 5, she attacked “white women” for not backing Harris.
“In the end, if they didn’t make their numbers and essentially exceed the numbers that Joe Biden had in the suburbs, I think we have to be blunt about why. Black voters came through for Kamala Harris, white women voters did not,” Reid said.
Reid also labeled Mark Kelly as a “mayonnaise sandwich on Wonder Bread” during the 2024 campaign, claimed Russia targeted WNBA player Brittney Grainier for being black and queer, laughed when a guest went on a racial tirade against Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and claimed that a desire to have children was akin to white supremacy.
Reid also dismissed the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government as a vehicle to push conspiracies in the media despite the FBI spying on the Trump campaign during the 2016 campaign.
MSNBC hosts and guests routinely hyped the claims that Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with the Russian government to defeat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and repeatedly had then-Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who often made claims about alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia, on the air.
The Steele Dossier, which was used to further the allegations of collusion, was later discredited.
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