"That Feels Indefensible": MSNBC's New Direction Leads Rachel Maddow to Speak Out

As Joy Reid and Alex Wagner lose their shows, Rachel Maddow uses her platform to challenge management's decisions.

MSNBC's major programming overhaul has sparked a rare public rebuke from the network's biggest star, with Rachel Maddow using her Monday evening broadcast to directly call out what seems like a purge of non-white hosts from the lineup. This isn't just another media reshuffling, but an example of how corporate decisions can undermine diversity while executives hide behind neutral-sounding business-speak.

The network announced a series of significant programming changes this week, most notably the cancellation of Joy Reid's 7 p.m. show The ReidOut, with Reid departing the network entirely. The New York Times reported this was part of "a far-reaching programming overhaul orchestrated by Rebecca Kutler, the network's new president."

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From a purely corporate perspective, there's undoubtedly a business calculus behind these changes that makes sense on some executive's spreadsheet. MSNBC's audience is aging (with a median viewer age of 70, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal that was highlighted in The Daily Beast’s reporting), and as Comcast prepares to spin off its cable assets, they're clearly making moves they believe will protect their bottom line. Maybe executives truly believe that presenting a more palatable version of progressivism will help court advertisers nervous about the Trump administration's hostility toward critical media. But even if the financial logic holds, the optics of systematically removing non-white hosts from prominent positions and forcing staff to essentially reapply for their own jobs reveals a troubling set of priorities at precisely the moment when principled media voices are most needed.

Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images

In a moment of genuine candor that cut through the usual corporate nonsense, Maddow expressed her dismay at Reid's departure. "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. 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."

Then Maddow got to the heart of the issue, pointing out what management surely hoped viewers wouldn't notice: "on a network where we have got two, count them, two nonwhite hosts in primetime, both of our nonwhite hosts in primetime are losing their shows, as is Katie Phang on the weekend." She didn't mince words about how she viewed these decisions: "That feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them. That feels indefensible, and I do not defend it."

The changes represent a significant shift for MSNBC's talent lineup. Alex Wagner will lose her 9 p.m. Tuesday-Friday slot in April, transitioning to a role as senior political analyst (a classic demotion dressed up as a promotion), while Jen Psaki will take over those hours. Meanwhile, The Weekend hosts Symone Sanders-Townsend, Michael Steele, and Alicia Menendez will take over Reid's former 7 p.m. hour.

The changes extend beyond primetime, with weekend hosts Jonathan Capehart, Katie Phang, and Ayman Mohyeldin losing their eponymous shows. José Díaz-Balart is also losing his weekday morning show while remaining as host of NBC's weekend Nightly News.

Perhaps most tellingly, Maddow focused significant attention on the behind-the-scenes impact of these changes — the kind of focus on workers that executives rarely want to highlight. "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," she said. "Dozens of producers and staffers, 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."

This isn't how you treat dedicated employees. This isn't how you build a healthy workplace.

The programming overhaul comes as MSNBC prepares to be separated from NBCUniversal News Group as part of Comcast's corporate spinoff. Oliver Darcy at Status reported that Mark Lazarus, who will oversee the new company that includes MSNBC, "has been clear in private conversations about his desire to refine MSNBC's public perception" and believes "there is a view among some that Republicans cannot get a fair shake from the network."

Translation: Let's make sure Republicans don't feel too uncomfortable with our coverage as Trump begins his second term. Heaven forbid we be too critical of an administration explicitly promising "retribution."

For Reid's part, her final show featured appearances from Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, and Lawrence O'Donnell celebrating her tenure. She thanked her audience and encouraged them to follow her on social media and Substack, with the Times’ Ben Mullin reporting she is "in talks to launch a new venture on Substack."

These changes unfold as MSNBC navigates the early months of Trump's second term, a period when progressive media voices will face both increased scrutiny and likely heightened demand from their audiences. The question isn't whether MSNBC can "balance" its progressive identity with management's apparent desire for broader appeal, but whether the network will have the courage to stand up for its values when they matter most.

Watch Rachel Maddow’s on-air takedown of MSNBC:

RACHEL MADDOW, HOST: I'm going to take a little point of personal privilege here just for a moment, if it is okay with you. You may have already heard about changes that have been announced at MSNBC over the last couple of days. The new president of our network made it official today. Some of our shows are moving to different time slots or expanding or going away altogether.

In prime time, just so you know, I am here five days a week for the first hundred days of Trump's presidency, as planned. And as planned, I will go back to just Mondays after that. That is not changing. What is changing is that the show, Alex Wagner Tonight, is not coming back at 9 after the first hundred days. Instead, Alex will be a senior political analyst for MSNBC, and Jen Psaki will start hosting the 9 p.m. hour all the other nights except for Mondays. So that's a big change.

An even bigger programming change is at 7 p.m., 7 p.m. Eastern, where 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.

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. 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.

I will tell you, it is also unnerving to see that on a network where we have got two, count them, two nonwhite hosts in primetime, both of our nonwhite hosts in primetime 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.

But there is just one other piece of it that you should know. From your side of the TV screen, you will mostly see changes in terms of who is in the anchor chair. And actually, everybody who is going to be in anchor chairs from here on out are great colleagues and great at what they do, and you are not going to be disappointed in who is on our air and what you are going to be seeing.

But one thing you cannot necessarily see is that the people who get our shows on the air, they are really being put through the wringer. Dozens of producers and staffers, 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. 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.

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.

It is not news for me to tell you that the press and freedom of the press are under attack in a way that is really—it's a big deal for our country. It's very visceral for us here. 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?

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, that the way to get there is by treating people well, finding good people, good colleagues, doing good work with them, and then having their back. That we could do a lot better on, a lot better.