Staff cuts and firings at ‘liberal’ MSNBC are shocking
Rachel Maddow defended Joy Reid as well as dozens of MSNBC staffers whose lives were upended. The empty suits of Capitol Hill and cable TV were never going to save us.
It seems the rapid unraveling of the dream of a more diverse and inclusive America — rebranded by the Trump regime and his MAGA movement as the more sinister-sounding “DEI” — has ramifications beyond just the purges taking place in the federal government and on college campuses.
How else to explain the surprising bloodbath at MSNBC, the cable TV news network with a supposedly liberal bent, in which the new, Philly native boss either fired or downgraded five on-air presenters, all of them Black, brown, or Asian Americans? The grim racial optics of this move never would have happened in the 180-degrees-different climate of 2020 and the George Floyd protest marches.
After one month on the job, new MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler abruptly pulled the plug on Joy Reid — arguably the most leftward politically of the network’s prime-time hosts, especially in her willingness to criticize Israel’s attacks on Gaza — and her 7 p.m. show, The ReidOut. The Asian American host Alex Wagner won’t be returning at 9 p.m. when the popular Rachel Maddow ends her 100-day Trump coverage marathon, to be replaced by former Joe Biden press secretary Jen Psaki. Also out are weekend hosts Ayman Mohyeldin, Jonathan Capehart, and Katie Phang.
To be sure, Kutler was under pressure from higher-ups at MSNBC’s current owner, Comcast, back in her native Philadelphia to address a predictable plunge in ratings (already somewhat rebounded) as liberal viewers demoralized by Donald Trump’s November victory turned off their TV sets. And to be fair, this isn’t the Pentagon: Some of the replacements — including current weekend hosts Michael Steele, Symone Sanders-Townsend, and Alicia Menendez filling Reid’s 7 p.m. slot — are also not white. Still, one wonders why there was never any talk of replacing the married Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, whose ratings have taken the steepest plunge after their bended-knee pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago. MSNBC’s loyal yet often disrespected liberal audience hasn’t forgotten the 2003 firing of host Phil Donahue, whose criticism of the Iraq War drumbeat didn’t fit that era’s conservative zeitgeist.
The harsh moves were too much for Maddow, whose ratings power when she decides to show up at 9 p.m. makes her untouchable from sanctions by her MSNBC bosses. On Monday night, she surprised viewers by lashing out at the purge. “I will tell you, it is also unnerving to see that on a network where we’ve got two — count them, two — nonwhite hosts in prime time, both of our nonwhite 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,” she said on live air. “That feels indefensible. And I do not defend it.” She also gave a passionate defense of Reid as well as dozens of MSNBC staffers whose lives have been upended.
For better or worse, MSNBC is often associated with today’s Democratic Party, especially with its revolving door for ex-Biden aides like Psaki and Sanders-Townsend and a reluctance to give airtime to leftist critics of the party. It should be revealing to everyday viewers that the elites who run America’s supposedly liberal political party and its supposedly liberal TV network seem equally clueless about how to best respond to Trump’s return.
The empty suits of Capitol Hill and cable TV were never going to save us. Only the grassroots can keep the republic.