Rachel Maddow Faces Backlash for Commentary on Joy Reid’s Firing

Rachel Maddow recently criticized her MSNBC superiors for firing non-white hosts like Joy Reid, but the move has backfired. Instead of garnering support, fellow liberals are now urging Maddow to step down in solidarity.

During a live broadcast, the host, who earns $25 million annually, denounced the trend of non-white hosts being removed from primetime slots as ‘disturbing.’

However, users on Bluesky, a social media platform, swiftly called out Maddow for being hypocritical. They demanded that she resign if she truly stands by her statements, as failing to do so would make her seem insincere and merely full of empty rhetoric.

‘Rachel Maddow will have to resign from MSMBC (and leave $ on the table),’ one user wrote this week, months after Maddow secured her five-year re-up.

‘She won’t be able to maintain credibility on that platform,’ the liberal onlooker went on. 

‘I hope she creates a true progressive network. America needs new media channels and she is the star.’ 

‘So, resign if you’re so outraged,’ another more impatient user remarked, paving the way for an even more full-throated request from another angered progressive.

‘The only appropriate response to this development from WHITE LIBERAL/LEFTISTS who CLAIM to oppose the Re-Segregation of the Country is to PROVE IT by abandoning ALL the mainstream media networks,’ they wrote.

‘[N]ot to keep watching them for your beloved white faves. 

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Rachel Maddow is being asked to resign in solidarity with a freshly fired Joy Reid – after the latter lost her place in MSNBC’s lineup as part of a sprawling station overhaul this week.

The response, seen on social media platforms such as Bluesky, comes days after it was announced in a memo to staff the ratings-challenged ReidOut was being cancelled, with no other arrangements for its host

Maddow erupted at MSNBC’s new boss Rebecca Kutler on-air after Reid was axed from the network. 

Katie Phang, who is Asian American and Jonathan Capehart, who is black, lost their primetime shows too. 

Both will remain at the network, but in less high-profile roles. 

Maddow also said it was a ‘bad mistake’ to let Reid walk out the door, claiming the firing or demotion of her hosts would hurt the network.  

Influential media newsletter Puck highlighted how Maddow’s own enormous salary could help expand MSNBC’s ranks considerably.

The network is laying off 125 producers-  many of whom work on Maddow’s show – but will rehire 110 of them.  

Maddow is undoubtedly the network’s star and has relished biting the hand that feeds her.

Her program, The Rachel Maddow Show, reaches around 2.1 million viewers a night. 

Maddow struck a $25 million a year deal which only saw her required to host one show a week, on Monday night.

She agreed to cover the first 100 days of the Trump presidency after he won his second term in office and will return to her one shift a week role in April. 

And while her ratings are good, media insiders have suggested Maddow may be starting to try her bosses’ patience. 

Puck highlighted how Reid’s replacement will be a trio made up of Symone Sanders, who is black and Alicia Menendez, who is Hispanic. 

Maddow made no mention of this ethnic diversity while implying her bosses are racist.  

The newsletter added that Maddow’s viewers, most of whom are elderly, either had no idea what she was talking about or found it boring if they did. 

Pictured, the pronounced response to Maddow’s reaction to Reid’s firing on Monday night

Following Reid’s firing, the network axed three more of its stars’ shows – those belonging to Katie Phang, Jonathan Capehart and Ayman Mohyeldin, all of whom are not white

Bosses at MSNBC are said to have found Reid’s brand of progressivism – which often focused on race – too divisive and controversial.

CEO Rebecca Kutler reportedly wants to keep the network’s left-wing bona fides but with hosts who are less likely to alienate viewers.  

An unrepentant Reid mentioned race during an emotional response to her firing just before Maddow’s on a 10-minute Zoom call with the podcast ‘Win With Black Women’, where she insisted she was ‘not sorry’ she ‘went hard on so many issues’.

‘I’m not sorry. I am not sorry that I stood up for those things because those things are of God,’ Reid said as she rattled off a list of divisive topics regularly focused on during her now abandoned broadcasts.

‘Whether it’s talking about any of these issues and, yes, whether it’s talking about Gaza and the fact that we as the American people have a right to object, to have a right to object to little babies being bombed,’ Reid said.

‘But in the end, where I really land … is just gratitude. Just pure gratitude and gratitude. Not just because people would take the time to get on a call like this or to take care of me. But also that my show had value.’

The ReidOut – which premiered on MSNBC on July 20, 2020 – raked in nearly 3 million viewers during its first year, but by the 2024 election, it was down to about 1.1–1.4 million, after years of anti-Trump rhetoric.

An unrepentant Reid also mentioned race during an emotional response to her firing just before Maddow’s on a 10-minute Zoom call with the podcast ‘Win With Black Women’, where she insisted she was ‘not sorry’ she ‘went hard on so many issues’ 

The following month, after what many MSNBC talents would fraise as a surprise win from the Republican, it was bringing in around 759,000 viewers a day – a 47 percent dip from that time last year.

By February 20, the number of total viewers was up slightly to 778,000, still well below the number execs had been looking for following a pronounced post-election slump.   

The damage, meanwhile, was even worse during the day, when MSNBC secured an average of just 638,000 sets of eyes.

The number was down 25 percent from last year, putting a cap on a series of double-digit declines that Steve Krakauer – a media maven who has worked for CNN, Fox News, and NBC – framed as ‘not surprising’, given the show’s content.

He told DailyMail.com in an interview: ‘When you get to the first month of [the] Trump [administration], the drops – that’s a five alarm fire.

‘The fact that there is a new station basically being resistance TV to the administration, it should be driving viewers are away,’ continued Krakauer, whom today is an executive producer on The Megyn Kelly Show.

‘People have many more choices they have had four, eight, 10 years ago. Consumption habits are changing and they have options.’

‘People felt lied to in 2024 with the big bait and switch with Biden for Harris.

As for The ReidOut, its undoing was confirmed by MSNBC’s new president Rebecca Kutler Sunday – weeks after the boss of the media firm that now oversees MSNBC, Spinco, reportedly expressed a need for more Republican voices on the network 

‘MSNBC talked up Harris nonstop,’ Krakauer continued.

‘She then went on to lose significantly in every single category. You’re seeing the reaction here.’

He also conceded that while he believes the numbers can also be tied to the shifting nature of the industry, the ReidOut host ‘was someone who has been a point of contention to her higher ups,’ he said.

‘People bigger than MSNBC presidents – Comcast level executives,’ Krakauer explained.

‘They have wanted to saw off the Joy Reid problem for years now. Her ratings were fine, but she was a headache.

‘She would say things that give them negative coverage – on TikTok, social media, etc.

‘This was an opportunity with anew president to show her the door and get a new start.’

Sure enough, insiders who spoke to publications like the New York Times, Status, and Variety said Kutler was the one behind the sprawling lineup changes.