In a major media shakeup, MSNBC is overhauling its lineup and cancelling the shows of some of its most familiar faces.
The New York Times was the first to report over the weekend that the new president of the ratings challenged network was ending Joy Reid’s nightly program. By Monday afternoon, The New York Post had the scoop that Alex Wagner, Ayman Mohyeldin, Katie Phang, and Jonathan Capehart are also losing their shows.
On Monday’s show, Megyn was joined by Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Case for Trump, to discuss the how the poorly rated hosts lasted as long as they did and why the changes further signal the demise of corporate media.
Reid Out
The final episode of Reid’s show, The ReidOut, will air on Monday, ending the anchor’s controversial run as an MSNBC headliner. She joined the network in 2011 and began hosting a weekend talk show in 2016 before moving to weeknights at 7pm in 2020.
According to the Times, her time slot will be taken over by a new panel show featuring co-hosts Alicia Menendez, Michael Steele, and Symone Sanders Townsend. It remains to be seen what role Reid will have at MSNBC moving forward.
Megyn busted out her best “white woman tear” to mark the occasion and said she has mixed emotions about the news. “People say you shouldn’t celebrate when somebody loses their job. Well, I am celebrating. She deserves it. She never should have been on there to begin with. Her so-called talent is being a racist on TV,” she explained. “I am so torn… [though because she] deserved to be fired, but we won’t have her to kick around anymore and there is a little sadness in that.”
A rabid anti-Trumper, Hanson noted that Reid’s tenure was marred with controversy because of her race-baiting rhetoric but also because of behavior. In December 2017, internet sleuths resurfaced homophobic and conspiratorial posts from her personal blog in which she vehemently opposed gay marriage and gave credence to 9/11 conspiracy theories.
She initially claimed her blog had been hacked and said she would request an FBI investigation, but by June 2018 she was signing a different tune. Reid was forced to apologize, saying she was “a better person today than I was over a decade ago” and calling the writings “things I deeply regret and am embarrassed by.”
Other Changes
MSNBC is under new management after Rebecca Kutler replaced the outgoing president Rashida Jones in February, and Megyn said Kutler “finally came to grips with reality” as it relates to the network’s ratings woes.
To that point, Kutler is also ending shows hosted by left-wing anchors Mohyeldin, Phang, Capehart, and Wager. All will remain at MSNBC in smaller roles. Phang will reportedly be used as a legal correspondent, while Capehart and Mohyeldin will be part of new round table shows that air on weekends.
Wagner, who had been anchoring Rachel Maddow’s primetime show four days a week, will now be a correspondent for the network and her Tuesday through Friday hosting duties will be handed off to former White House Press Secretary Jen Pskai.
As Megyn noted, identity politics will undoubtedly come into play as the dust settles on the switch ups. The only two primetime anchors to emerge unscathed were Chris Hayes and Lawrence O’Donnell – two white men. Reid and Wager represented MSNBC’s first black female and Asian-American primetime hosts, respectively. While Reid is being replaced by a racially diverse trio in Menendez, Steele, and Townsend, Wager lost her slot to a white woman.
Even so, it looks like Kutler is prioritizing the bottom line. Other than Maddow pulling in what Megyn called a “respectable” 1.8 million viewers per night, everyone else in the lineup “is a joke” and that is why these changes were necessary. “They understand their business model requires an overhaul in order for them to remain on the air,” she concluded. “It is a bloodbath at MSNBC, and the reason is they went… not too far left, just too far loon… and these ratings… are horrid.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Hanson by tuning in to episode 1,012 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.