One-time MSNBC primetime host Keith Olbermann said that his former network’s reported firing of Joy Reid and cancelation of Alex Wagner’s nightly show was “racist,” noting that only four women of color have solo-hosted programs for the liberal cable news network – and all of them have been kicked to the curb.
Over the weekend, it was reported that Reid – who has been with MSNBC for over a decade – was not only losing her weeknight broadcast amid a programming shakeup but that she was also out at the network. The abrupt cancellation of Reid’s show has left staffers “shaken” and frustrated, especially as the program’s production staff is also being terminated, though they are encouraged to apply for new jobs at the network.
The Reidout will air its final episode this week. It will subsequently be replaced by a panel show hosted by former Kamala Harris spokesperson Symone Sanders Townsend, former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele and anchor Alicia Menendez. The trio currently helms The Weekend, which airs on Saturday and Sunday mornings and has increased the network’s weekend AM viewership since debuting in early 2024.
In addition to the network dropping Reid, new MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler is also expected to remove Wagner from the primetime lineup. Wagner was pulled from her Tuesday-Friday 9 p.m. slot after the inauguration when MSNBC convinced its top star Rachel Maddow to host five nights a week during President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, a move which has helped the channel reverse its post-election ratings slump.
While Reid is reported to be leaving the network after her show wraps up this week, Wagner will stay with MSNBC as a correspondent. With Maddow moving back to just Monday nights in April, Kulter is looking to expand Jen Psaki’s role with the network. The former White House press secretary currently hosts on Sunday afternoons and Monday evenings but is now likely to replace Wagner in the coveted 9 p.m. slot.
Olbermann, once MSNBC’s biggest star before his acrimonious departure in 2011, laid into his former employers for booting Reid and Wagner during an early Monday morning podcast, claiming the left-leaning channel was sidelining women of color for “salespeople” who will do as they’re told.
“MSNBC fired Joy Reid, and yes it is racist and maybe worse. Yes, it is designed to keep out people who might think differently,” Olbermann declared. “And it is designed to reward professional political salespeople like ex-party chairmen and former press secretaries who will do what they are told by their bosses.”
He added: “But most of all, since they also fired Alex Wagner as they fired Joy Reid, at least The New York Times says this, it means that four women of color have solo hosted prominent shows on MSNBC, and all four of them have now been fired.”
Besides Wagner and Reid, who coincidentally also had weekday programs canceled by the network in 2015, MSNBC has also axed weekend programs hosted by progressive Black female hosts Melissa Harris-Perry and Tiffany Cross. According to Olbermann, this is no coincidence.
Accusing the triumvirate of hosts replacing Reid of engaging in “salesmanship as opposed to commentary or insight,” he also said the same of Psaki. “And if anybody on television – besides her counterparts who are all on Fox – if anybody is a salesperson as opposed to an analyst or a commentator, it’s Jen Psaki,” the outspoken ex-MSNBC anchor stated.
“These people are salespersons,” he added. “Salespersons doctrinaire, and often it’s doctrinaire bullshit. If you have been a salesperson, a press secretary for a politician these days, you have – I’m sorry – lied.”
Saying he’s had “lots of problems” with Wagner over the years, claiming she was “not interested in doing the harder parts of the job” of hosting, Olbermann still came to her defense regarding her credibility as a serious political analyst and commentator. “But Alex Wagner was not a salesperson for some politician or political point of view,” he noted.
Olbermann then pointed out that Reid – along with Harris-Perry and Cross – repeatedly stoked controversy and enraged the conservative media machine, adding that MSNBC bowed to the outrage from the right over their commentary rather than stick by the hosts.
“Hmm, Melissa Harris, Perry, Tiffany Cross, Joy Reid, Alex Wagner. Four women – what did they have in common?” Olbermann rhetorically asked. “Well, let’s see, they all had their own shows – solo hosts on MSNBC, and they were all women of color, and they’ve all been fired.”
While acknowledging that the hosts replacing Reid are also people of color and that Kutler is apparently looking to bring on other Black hosts, Olbermann suggested that those picks are all “safe” and won’t rock the boat.
“Don’t we want this? Won’t this make it easier to sell this company when we want to?” Olbermann snarked. “Won’t it make it easier the next time Trump threatens NBC and MSNBC for us to say, but we fired Joy Reid.”
Shortly after it was reported that Reid had been axed, Trump took to Truth Social to revel in her termination while also threatening the network’s parent company Comcast, calling its chairman Brian Roberts a lowlife while demanding the business pay “vast swaths of money for the damage they’ve done to” the United States.
“We need a strong, vibrant, loud, fearless MSNBC and not The View – forgive me – at seven clock every night. We need people like Joy Reid,” Olbermann concluded. “Even if you sit there and go, I’m not watching that, it’s important that she’s there for the people who want to identify with somebody who looks like Joy Reid and say that woman is out here trying to argue my point. And is talking to me, and is bringing people who look like me and look like her onto television for the first time, and some of them are going to become superstars.”
