As MSNBC host Joy Ann Reid issued her final send-off on the ReidOut, her now former colleagues blasted the network for her “indefensible” firing.
Reid hosted the show for five years. Prior to that, Reid was a weekend host of AM Joy from 2016 to 2020. She was promoted to the 7 p.m. Eastern time slot in 2020. Hosts Ayman Mohyeldin, Katie Phang, Jonathan Capehart, Alex Wagner, and Jose Diaz-Balart were also ousted from their shows, drawing racial criticisms.
“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. 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,” anchor Rachel Maddow said on her show Monday.
“I will tell you that it is also unnerving to see that on a network where we’ve got two — count them two — nonwhite hosts in prime time, both of our nonwhite hosts in prime time are losing their shows, as is Katie Phang on the weekend. And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them, that feels indefensible. And I do not defend it,” Maddow went on.
“BREAKING: MSNBC racist purge escalates. Ayman Mohyeldin, Katie Phang and Jonathan Capehart ousted along with Joy Reid and Alex Wagner,” former MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann wrote on X.
Other hosts simply expressed their support for Reid.
“I know Joy just ended her show by thanking her team, which is the most authentically Joy thing to do, I can tell you. And they are also a very incredible team, but I want to start this show tonight by thanking her. I want to thank her because she’s done amazing work here,” anchor Jen Psaki said on Inside with Jen Psaki Monday. “She does tell stories no one tells. She does that fearlessly on her show, but also for the person that she is.”
Psaki is notably taking over Wagner’s 9 p.m. ET. The hosts of the network’s The Weekend, including Symone Sanders-Townsend, Michael Steele, and Alicia Menendez, will reportedly take over Reid’s prime-time spot after co-hosting their show that airs Saturday and Sunday mornings.
‘THE REIDOUT’ IS OUT: MSNBC CANCELS JOY REID’S SHOW IN NETWORK SHAKEUP
“Thank you, thank you, thank you for holding us down. Almost five years. We are a toddler and we out in these streets in this world and we are not going to stop,” Reid said during her final show on Monday.
In November, Comcast announced it would spin off several NBCUniversal cable channels, including MSNBC. Comcast is likely considering the spinoff due to the overall decline in cable subscriptions. A projected 70 million households will keep their cable by the end of this year, while in 2010, shortly before Comcast bought NBCUniversal and its networks, 105 million households had cable. Meanwhile, Fox News has about 75% of the cable news prime-time viewership.