MSNBC Cans Most of Maddow's Staff

MSNBC's decision to ax Joy Reid's show after five years in its lineup got some internal and public reaction on Monday night, with one of Reid's most famous colleagues now stepping up to praise her. "In all of the jobs I have had in all of the years I have been alive, there is no colleague for whom I have had more affection and more respect than Joy Reid," Rachel Maddow said on her own show's Monday broadcast, per USA Today. "I love everything about her." Maddow called Reid's removal "a bad mistake," noting, "I have so much more to learn from her."

Maddow went on to say she found it "unnerving" and "indefensible" that MSNBC had removed Reid, a Black anchor on the network, as well as canceled the primetime show helmed by Alex Wagner, a journalist of Asian descent, per USA Today and CNN. In terms of Reid's departure, Maddow said, "It is not my call and I understand that, but that's what I think." The Guardian notes that Maddow has her own problems to contend with at the network, despite being its highest-ranking anchor: Sources tell the outlet that MSNBC has also canned most of the staffers who work on her 9pm show.

Although Maddow will get to hold onto Cory Gnazzo, her executive producer, and a few other high-level producers, the rest of her staff will have to reapply for other roles with MSNBC or take a severance package. A rep for the network insists that the firings weren't part of any "widespread layoffs," but instead involved "the reallocation of producers to support new programs and priorities," as the Guardian puts it. Meanwhile, Reid appeared on her final The ReidOut on Monday night, imploring viewers to push back against fascism, per CNN. "You don't always win every battle, but the whole thing is about resisting," she said. (More Rachel Maddow stories.)