Longtime MSNBC host Rachel Maddow sounded off during a Monday night broadcast of “The Rachel Maddow Show” on the network’s major line-up changes, which saw the exit of anchor Joy Reid.
“Joy Reid’s show, ‘The ReidOut,’ ended tonight. And Joy is not taking a different job in the network. She is leaving the network altogether and that is very, very, very hard to take,” Maddow said. “I am 51 years old. I have been gainfully employed since I was 12. I have had so many different types of jobs you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But in all the jobs that I have had, in all of the years I have been alive, there is no colleague for whom I’ve had more affection and more respect than Joy Reid. I love everything about her. I’ve learned so much from her. I have so much more to learn from her. 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.”
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MSNBC has no comment at this time.
Along with Reid, the MSNBC shake-up saw anchor Alex Wagner, who hosts weeknights outside Maddow’s Monday night slot, demoted to contributor. The move came shortly after Rebecca Kutler, a former CNN senior executive, was named MSNBC’s new president.
Maddow called it “indefensible” that MSNBC’s “two non-white hosts in primetime are losing their shows.” She went on to note that anchor Katie Phang will also be losing her weekend time slot.
Maddow also emphatically attacked staffing changes happening behind the camera. According to Maddow, some of MSNBC’s “most experienced, most talented” producers are facing layoffs.
“They are being invited to reapply for new jobs,” Maddow said. “That 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. It is inefficient and it’s unnecessary and it drops the bottom out of whether or not people feel like this is a good place to work. So we don’t generally do things that way.”
Maddow’s comments come hours after President Trump took aim at Brian Roberts, the chairman-CEO of NBCUniversal’s parent company Comcast, calling him a “lowlife” and a “mentally obnoxious racist” who “should have been ‘canned’ long ago.”
“This whole corrupt operation [of MSNBC] is nothing more than an illegal arm of the Democrat Party,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Sunday night. “They should be forced to pay vast sums of money for the damage they’ve done to our Country. Fake News is an UNPARDONABLE SIN!”
Maddow closed her remarks with a tremble of emotion in her voice, saying, “This is a difficult time in the news business, but it does not need to be this difficult. We welcome new voices to this place and some familiar voices to new hours. It’s going to be great, honestly, and we want to grow, and succeed, and reach more people than ever, and be resilient and stay here forever. I also believe, and I bet you believe, the way to get there is by treating people well. Finding good people, good colleagues, doing good work with them and having their back. That we could do a lot better on. A lot better.”
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