OAN Staff Blake Wolf
12:12 PM – Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Rachel Maddow took shots at the higher ups at her own network, MSNBC, following their recent decision to fire her colleague, Joy Reid, who previously hosted the MSNBC talk show “The ReidOut” — calling the decision “indefensible.”
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Maddow discussed the network’s major shakeup, which resulted after a decrease in viewership, arguing that it was wrong for MSNBC to cancel shows hosted by the “two non-White hosts,” while also laying off dozens of behind-the-scenes network staffers.
“I will tell you, it is also unnerving to see that on a network where we’ve got two—count them, two—non-white hosts in prime time, both of our non-white 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 continued, praising Reid while disagreeing with the network’s decision to cancel “The ReidOut,” parting ways with Reid altogether.
“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 stated.
“I am 51 years old. I have been gainfully employed since I was 12. And 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 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 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,” she continued.
Maddow went on to slam the network’s process of firing stars, “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,” she stated.
“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, 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 and so we don’t generally do things that way,” Maddow continued. “Maybe all of our folks, including most of the people who are getting this very show on the air right now, maybe they will all get new jobs here, and I hope they do, but in the meantime, being put in this kind of limbo, the anxiety and the discombobulation is off the charts at a time when this job already is extra stressful and difficult.”
Maddow added that the freedom of the press is “under attack in a way that is really – it’s a big deal for our country.”
“I know that the business of the press is not an easy thing, and I know that no job is forever, but I think I’m safe in saying for all of us anchors who you know through the TV, please know that what pains us the most is not what happens to us. It is what happens to our coworkers on whom we depend, and who you don’t necessarily know, but we respect and love them, and depend on them, and did I mention we respect them?”
The left-wing network introducing major changes follows after it saw a 53% decrease in primetime viewership following the November 5th election, according to Nielsen Media Research.
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