President Donald Trump celebrated the firing of MSNBC host Joy Reid on Sunday, denouncing her and the network as “fake news” and asserting that they should be “forced to pay vast sums of money” for their factual reporting on him.
Reid, who has been with MSNBC since 2014 and has hosted a primetime program called “The ReidOut” for the past five years, was fired in a major shakeup of the network. Her final episode will air sometime later this week.
Her program will be replaced by a program co-hosted by multiple MSNBC personalities, including former Democratic Party strategist Symone Sanders Townsend, former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele and television journalist Alicia Menendez. The three currently co-host a show on Saturdays and Sundays called “The Weekend.”
MSNBC has also fired Ayman Mohyeldin, a veteran of the network who has been with the company for 14 years. Mohyeldin’s last episode will likely air in mid-April.
During a recorded meeting discussing Mohyeldin’s termination, MSNBC officials confirmed that they were moving the network toward “ensemble shows” like “The Weekend” on the basis that they had seen higher success rates. The move showcases a potential shift by the network toward more “centrist” or supposedly balanced programming.
Also affected by the network’s new dynamics is Alex Wagner, who hosted an MSNBC program during primetime hours up until Trump was elected. After the election, veteran host Rachel Maddow — who had switched to a once-per-week hosting format in 2022 — announced that she would return to hosting five days per week during the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency, replacing Wagner during that time. Wagner was slated to return to her hosting role after that 100-day period, but it has been reported that she will not be returning and will instead take on a contributor role later this year.
The meeting between MSNBC’s top brass and Reid’s team was reportedly “tense,” journalist Oliver Darcy reported, as the show’s staff had learned about the ending of “The Reid Out” on Sunday from news reports rather than from the network itself.
Trump celebrated the firings on his Truth Social account, specifically calling Reid a “mentally obnoxious racist” in a rant that provided zero evidence to back any of his claims.
Trump also complained about MSNBC’s reporting in general, describing the network as a “corrupt operation” that is “nothing more than an illegal arm of the Democrat [sic] Party.”
Trump then demanded that the company be “forced to pay vast sums of money for the damage they’ve done to our Country.” To whom they should pay was left unclear, but Trump has recently sued ABC News, CBS News and others for reporting during the 2024 election, so it’s likely that he meant the money should be paid to him.
“Fake News is an UNPARDONABLE SIN!” Trump added.
Trump’s attacks against MSNBC are a continuation of his long history of vilifying the free press. Trump has frequently insisted that journalists who publish factual reporting on his actions should be punished, often referring to them as the “enemy of the people” and calling for them to lose their “licenses” over coverage that is critical of him.
In January, Maya Schenwar, Truthout’s board president and editor at large; Negin Owliaei, Truthout’s editor in chief; and Ziggy West Jeffery, Truthout’s executive director, published a joint op-ed calling on media organizations, particularly independent media, to remain steadfast in the face of Trump’s threats against the press.
“Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void — we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate,” the trio wrote.
They added:
Journalism is just one tool in the anti-fascist toolbox. Those of us who create it must take seriously how our responsibilities intersect with and uplift the other tools that will, together, enable people to effectively organize against authoritarianism.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
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