There have been some changes at MSNBC, and your favorite Mark Cuban impersonator, Rachel Maddow, isn’t happy about it.
As we previously reported, Joy Reid just got the axe at MSNBC, and other anchors and hosts are also losing their shows. Maddow went off on the downsizing, and her monologue was full of everything you might expect from the host.
She first described Joy Reid’s departure as “very, very, very hard to take.”
“Joy is not taking a different job in the network. She is leaving the network altogether,” Maddow announced, even though I’m sure everyone knew that already.
Then came the obligatory high praise for her cuckoo former coworker. According to Maddow, “…there is no colleague for whom I have had more affection and more respect than Joy Reid. I love everything about her. I have learned so much from her. I have so much more to learn from her.”
I can’t decide if that’s sad, pathetic, or complete horsefeathers. But here’s where it gets really interesting.
“I do not want to lose her as a colleague here at MSNBC,” Maddow continued. “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.”
Wait for it.
“I will tell you it's also unnerving to see that on a network where we have two — count them, two — nonwhite hosts in primetime. Both of our nonwhite hosts in primetime are losing their shows, as is Katie Fang on the weekend. And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them. That feels indefensible, and I do not defend it.”
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And there it is: Rachel Maddow playing the race card against her own network. Because of course she would. As we previously reported, Joy Reid’s show, "The ReidOut," has been hemorrhaging viewers, averaging just 973,000 in February 2025 — a staggering 28% drop from the 1.3 million it drew in the same month last year. Is Maddow seriously suggesting that minority anchors should be exempt from the same ratings standards as everyone else? Does she not grasp that MSNBC is a business that depends on viewership? Apparently, of all the things she claims to have “learned” from Joy Reid, basic economics wasn’t one of them.
But then again, who at MSNBC knows basic economics anyway?
Maddow further detailed the internal problem, noting that “dozens of producers and staffers, including some who are among the most experienced and most talented and most specialist producers in the building, are facing being laid off. They’re being invited to reapply for new jobs.” Maddow argued that such a drastic shakeup “has never happened at this scale in this way before when it comes to programming changes, presumably because it’s not the right way to treat people and it’s inefficient and it’s unnecessary, and it kind of drops the bottom out of whether or not people feel like this is a good place to work.”
If accusations of racism weren’t enough, Maddow tied the network’s turmoil into an attack on the free press. She remarked, “…it is not news for me to tell you that the press and freedom of the press are under attack in a way that is really — it’s a big deal for our country. It’s very visceral for us here.”
Oooh, I can’t wait to see more drama unfold.