Rachel Maddow put MSNBC on blast on Monday for firing host Joy Reid, saying the decision was “very, very, very hard to take.”
It was announced on Sunday that Reid’s daily 7 p.m. show “The ReidOut” would end this month. Maddow announced that “The Rachel Maddow Show” would air only on Mondays after President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, but she went on to mention that some of her colleagues wouldn’t be on the air at all.
NO JOY: MSNBC's Rachel Maddow in the wake of Joy Reid's show being cancelled: "I think it is a bad mistake…"
She then accuses MSNBC bosses of being racist:
It’s "unnerving" to see the network's decision to cancel shows hosted by nonwhite anchors: "That feels indefensible." pic.twitter.com/qBXhsYwmkX
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) February 25, 2025
“I am 51 years old. 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.
“I love everything about her. I have learned so much from her,” she said. “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. It is not my call, and I understand that, but that’s what I think.”
Maddow said it was “unnerving” that MSNBC canceled primetime shows with “two non-white hosts.”
“And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them,” Maddow said. “That feels indefensible, and I do not defend it.”
The TV host failed to mention that “The ReidOut” time slot is being replaced by current weekend hosts Symone Sanders-Townsend, Michael Steele, and Alicia Menendez. Two of these hosts are black, and one is Latina.
Reid reacted to the news during a podcast interview on Sunday, saying she was “not sorry” for some of the more controversial statements she’s made on the show, including statements on Black Lives Matter, immigration, Gaza, and criticism about President Trump.
“And where I come down on that is, I’m not sorry. I am not sorry that I stood up for those things because those things are of God,” Reid said.
