WATCH: Joy Reid Concludes Lackluster Career at MSNBC
Joy Reid wore an MSNBC-branded tracksuit Monday night while hosting the final episode of her show on the failing left-wing network. The defiant performance came after news leaked on Sunday that MSNBC was canceling The ReidOut and firing Reid due to her abysmally low ratings.
The show topic was the same as it was for every single one of Reid's shows when Trump has been in office: How to defend democracy and defeat white supremacy when "fascism isn't just coming it's already here." She discussed Trump's authoritarian assault on the Constitution with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a so-called fascism expert and history professor at New York University, as well as Ben Rhodes, the former Obama speechwriter who spearheaded the Iran nuclear agreement, attended the funeral of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and cried like a bitch when Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. They also discussed the importance of black women.
Reid was eventually joined by MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, and Lawrence O'Donnell, whom she described as her "comrades in arms in covering this insane moment we are in." Maddow, who earns an annual salary of $25 million, said she was "bereft" that Reid was leaving the network. Wallace praised Reid's "strength and fearlessness" and said losing Reid was "like losing a limb." O'Donnell ranted about the Civil Rights Movement and compared Trump to Hitler. "We out in these streets, in this world, and we are not going to stop," Reid said to close out her final show at MSNBC.
It was initially unclear if Reid would even show up to host another episode. Network employees were distraught after media outlets reported the news before MSNBC could notify Reid's staff. Rebecca Kutler, who took over as network president last month, called an emergency meeting filled with the "pointed questions" and "raw emotions" as employees vented their "frustration and disbelief," according to media reporter Oliver Darcy.
More: Joy Reid, a Rare Voice of Moderation on MSNBC, Gets the Axe
Kutler informed Reid's staff they would all be fired as well, but encouraged them to apply for new positions at the network. She insisted that the decision had nothing to do with Donald Trump and was made based on "data analysis and programming strategy" that she believed would "best position MSNBC for the year ahead." Reid's show was one of the lowest-rated programs on one of the lowest-rated news networks. Last Thursday's episode of The ReidOut drew just 59,000 viewers in the coveted 25-54 age demographic. She is believed to earn an annual salary in the range of $3 million.
Reid made her first public comments on Sunday during a Zoom call with the podcast "Win With Black Women." The host sobbed sloppy tears while she defiantly defended her show from critics, insisting she was "not sorry" that she "went hard on so many issues." Among other things, she refused to apologize for attacking Israel and "defending books that people find inconvenient, you know that Nikole Hannah-Jones put into our spirit that we need to understand 1619 as the real founding of this country," referring to the controversial and historically inaccurate 1619 Project.
"I'm not sorry that I stood up for those things, because those things are of God, and you know I'm a church girl," Reid said. "I'm not sorry, I'm just proud of my show." It had "value," she alleged.
Reid will be replaced during the 7 p.m. hour by a trio of MSNBC weekend hosts—former Kamala Harris adviser Symone Sanders, anti-Trump "Republican" Michael Steele, and Alicia Menendez, the daughter of former Democratic senator and convicted felon Bob Menendez. Additionally, MSNBC announced that network personalities Alex Wagner, Jonathan Capehart, Ayman Moyheldin, and Katie Phang would no longer serve as hosts going forward. Al Sharpton, the notorious anti-Semite under fire for accepting a $500,000 donation from the Harris campaign before interviewing the candidate in October 2024, appears to have survived the sweeping overhaul—for now.
MSNBC faces an uncertain future in the coming year. The left-wing network is in the process of being spun off by parent company Comcast due to financial concerns. It remains to be seen whether Kutler has what it takes to get MSNBC's exorbitant payroll costs under control. Prior to joining the network last month, Kutler worked at CNN, where she spearheaded the disastrous launch of CNN+, the $300 million streaming service that was shut down after less than a month. Left-wing scolds have reacted furiously to Kutler's recent actions, accusing MSNBC of deliberately targeting minority hosts while promoting boring white women such as Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary under Joe Biden.
"Everytime MSNBC has a 'shakeup' the Black woman solo led show is ALWAYS the first to go," wrote Ambassador Digital Magazine editor Musa Jackson. "Tamron Hall, Tiffany Cross, Zerlina Maxwell and now Joy Reid. Boycott MSNBC." Network contributor Elie Mystal argued Reid was fired for being black and for being nice to other black people. He accused MSNBC of treating "black folks as interchangeable."
Before Reid's firing was announced, Variety reported (somewhat bafflingly) that the coming shakeup at MSNBC would reflect the network's eagerness to "maintain its progressive stance, rather than trying to tack towards middle ground." That's interesting, given that Reid was widely regarded among normal Americans as one of the most consistently unhinged purveyors of racially charged invective to be allowed on television. Among the many benefits of Reid's show being canceled is that she'll now be able to devote even more time to tracking down the alleged "hackers" she accused of having "accessed and manipulated" her blog to post hateful content—targeting gays, Jews, and Muslims—that was "fabricated."
Donald Trump reacted to the news of Reid's departure in characteristically epic fashion, describing the MSNBC host as a "mentally obnoxious racist" and "one of the least talented people in television." Trump wondered why a "LOW IQ Con Man" such as Al Sharpton still had a job at the network, which he denounced as a "corrupt operation" and "illegal arm of the Democratic Party" that should be "forced to pay vast sums of money for the damage they've done to our Country."
The Joy is dead. Long live the joy.
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