Maddow Slams Her Own Network On Air After MSNBC Fires Several Hosts
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow voiced her disapproval of the network's recent decisions on Monday during her show, following the termination of host Joy Reid and the reassignment of fill-in host Alex Wagner.
Her remarks came after MSNBC announced earlier in the week that both Reid’s and Wagner’s programs would be canceled as part of a larger effort to reshape its programming. In addition to these changes, weekend shows hosted by Katie Phang, Jonathan Capehart, and Ayman Mohyeldin were also set to be discontinued.
Maddow, who made an appearance on Reid’s final broadcast earlier that day, also confirmed that former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki would be taking over Wagner’s time slot.
“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,” Maddow said of her left-leaning colleague.
“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 reportedly spinning off MSNBC, CNBC, USA, E!, Oxygen, SyFy, and other media channels following a major ratings decline for MSNBC. The network reportedly suffered a viewership drop of over 50% after Kamala Harris’s defeat in the 2024 election, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal in November.
“I will tell you. It is also unnerving to see that on a network where we’ve got two — count them — two non-white hosts in primetime, both of our non-white 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 was known for making racially charged statements against white conservatives and Trump supporters on her show. On Nov. 5, she specifically criticized “white women” for not backing Harris in the election.
“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 at the time.
Throughout the 2024 campaign, Reid made several controversial statements, including calling Mark Kelly a “mayonnaise sandwich on Wonder Bread,” alleging that Russia targeted WNBA player Brittney Griner because she was black and queer, laughing when a guest delivered a racially charged rant against Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, and suggesting that wanting to have children was tied to white supremacy.
Reid also dismissed the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government, claiming it served as a vehicle for media-driven conspiracies, despite evidence of FBI surveillance on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.
MSNBC hosts and guests frequently promoted the narrative that Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia to interfere with Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid. The network often invited then-Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who vocally championed the claims of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
The Steele Dossier, which was instrumental in fueling these allegations, was later discredited.
Reid became emotional in a video monologue posted on social media earlier this week, shedding tears over her firing.
“My show had value, and—that what I was doing had value. It had value. And in the end—I’m sorry—I try not to cry on TV. This is kind of like me on TV, so I apologize. And that it kind of… and that it mattered,” Reid sobbed.