Joy Reid speaks in New Orleans in 2024.
Arturo Holmes/Getty Images for ESSENCE
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Arturo Holmes/Getty Images for ESSENCE
Political commentator and television host Joy Reid has been fired from her position at MSNBC, where she anchors her show The ReidOut. The move comes as the network is restructuring its programming.
“Joy Reid is leaving the network and we thank her for her countless contributions over the years,” MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler said in a memo to staff.
“Her work has been recognized with several esteemed honors, including most recently, the 2025 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding News Series. In the coming weeks, rotating anchors will host the hour.”
In a statement on Bluesky, Reid thanked her supporters and announced a final show airing on Tuesday night.
“I just want to say thank you to everyone who has reached out with kindness and encouragement, both personally and in these social media streets,” she wrote. “So very proud of The Reidout @joy.msnbc.com team, who are truly family, and all of our supporters & friends.”
Reid, who is Black, has been an outspoken voice in progressive politics and a sharp critic of President Trump.
In a recorded Zoom interview with the organization Win With Black Women on Monday, Reid broke down in tears, describing the anger and disappointment she felt at losing her job.
“But in the end, where I really land, and where I’ve landed on today is just gratitude,” Reid said, wiping away tears. “Not just because people would take the time to get on a call like this or to take care of me. But also that my show had value.”
She added that she was “not sorry” for being outspoken on issues including the Black Lives Matter movement and objecting to the war in Gaza.
“I am not sorry I stood up for those things, because those things are of God,” she said.
Reid’s firing takes one of the most high-profile Black women off the network at a time when the Trump administration has made attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
Longtime network host Rachel Maddow said on her show Monday that Reid’s layoff “feels indefensible.”
“I think it is a bad mistake to let her walk out the door,” she said. “It is also unnerving to see that on a network where we’ve got two nonwhite hosts in primetime, both of our nonwhite hosts in primetime are losing their shows, as is Katie Phang on the weekend.”
MSNBC canceled The Katie Phang Show as part of its shakeup, along with José Díaz-Balart Reports. Both Phang, who is Asian, and José Díaz-Balart, who is Latino, will remain with the network, according to Kutle’s memo.
In a Sunday evening tirade on Truth Social, Trump celebrated Reid’s firing while broadly criticizing the network.
“Lowlife Chairman of ‘Concast,’ Brian Roberts, the owner of Ratings Challenged NBC and MSDNC, has finally gotten the nerve up to fire one of the least talented people in television, the mentally obnoxious racist, Joy Reid,” Trump wrote.
“Based on her ratings, which were virtually non-existent, she should have been ‘canned’ long ago, along with everyone else who works there.”
Among other changes at the network, Symone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, and Alicia Menendez, who currently co-host The Weekend, will move to a new weekday program. And Jen Psaki, a former White House press secretary under the Biden administration, was moved to a primetime weekday slot.
