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Rachel Maddow, other MSNBC hosts blast own network, call Joy Reid's ouster ‘bad mistake’
Joy Reid invited her fellow MSNBC hosts to her canceled show in the closing moments of Monday night's final broadcast.
Joy Reid invited her fellow MSNBC hosts to her canceled show in the closing moments of Monday night's final broadcast in a bid to say goodbye and remember the time they spent together.
MSNBC abruptly canceled “The ReidOut” on Sunday night after airing it for four and a half years.
The show's cancellation coincided with network reorganisation after Rebecca Kutler succeeded former MSNBC President Rashida Jones. Reid's show was very contentious due to her frequent denigration of white people and her concentration on divisive topics including immigration, Israel-Palestine, Black Lives Matter, and others.
As Reid welcomed MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, and Lawrence O'Donnell to the show, the 51-year-old commentator explained to the viewers the value of being watchful and speaking out against “fascism.”
Rachel Maddow expresses her love for Joy Reid
Sharing her thoughts on Reid's firing, Maddow stated, “First of all, I want to say I love you, Joy, and I am bereft that The ReidOut is ending.”
She mentioned that she learned a lot from Reid and she does not want to lose her as a colleague. “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.”
Reid reciprocated the compliment while wearing a purple jacket bearing the MSNBC and The ReidOut logos. Maddow is “our fearless leader” and “no one in this company fights for us harder,” she remarked.
Wallace says Reid's firing ‘was like losing a limb’
As the program continued, Wallace told Reid that she would “break the rules” like Rachel.
“The happiest times I’ve had, not just at MSNBC, but ever being on television, have been sitting next to the two of you—no offense, Lawerence. We love having you there, too,” she said.
Wallace further said that she felt “despair” over the cancellation of the ReidOut, saying it was “like losing a limb.”
In his opening statement, O'Donnell skipped “the love stuff—we did that on Saturday.” He then spoke about Reid's 2024 biography of civil rights pioneer Medgar Evers and his wife.
According to O'Donnell, civil rights activist Michael Schwerner, who was assassinated by Ku Klux Klan members in the South in 1964, said, “This is the decisive battleground for America.”
He recalled that Schwerner refrained from participating in any political campaign and he didn't require direction from a leader. “He just did it. He just got on that bus and he went to Mississippi and he just did it,” O'Donnell remarked.
