“Based on her ratings, which were virtually non-existent, she should have been ‘canned’ long ago, along with everyone else who works there,” said the 78-year-old president.
President Donald Trump celebrated the recent cancellation of Joy Reid’s MSNBC show “The ReidOut” late Sunday on Truth Social and railed against the liberal cable TV 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,” wrote Trump, using disparaging nicknames to describe both parent company, Comcast, and its network, MSNBC. The president has long considered the news channel a political adversary and regularly insults its anchors and commentators.
Referencing Reid directly, Trump called the 56-year-old journalist and longtime anchor a “mentally obnoxious racist.”
“Based on her ratings, which were virtually non-existent, she should have been ‘canned’ long ago, along with everyone else who works there,” added the 78-year-old president.
Viewers and colleagues were shocked to learn that “The ReidOut” was axed from MSNBC’s programming after nearly five years on-air on weekdays at 7 p.m. The show reportedly suffered from decreased viewership and is the first major shakeup from the network’s new president, Rebecca Kutler. The time slot will be replaced with a panel show hosted by “The Weekend” co-stars Symone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, and Alicia Menendez.
The cancellation of “The ReidOut” comes amid a political climate in which President Trump has used executive force to pressure private companies to follow the federal government’s rollback of DEI and gender policies. As his conservative grip on Washington (and the country more broadly) continues to tighten, conservative network Fox News continues to outperform MSNBC and CNN.
On Saturday, while delivering a more than one-hour speech at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Trump called MSNBC a “threat to democracy.” In his Truth Social post about Joy Reid, Trump also took aim at other anchors like Alex Wagner, who was also removed from the primetime lineup. Trump called Wagner “the sub on the seriously failing Rachel Maddow show.”
Trump continued his attacks on Rachel Maddow, who he said “rarely shows up because she knows there’s nobody watching, and she also knows that she’s got less television persona than virtually anyone on television except, perhaps, Joy Reid.”
The president also insulted the Rev. Al Sharpton, who hosts “PoliticsNation” on Saturdays and Sundays.
“Then there’s, of course, the LOW IQ Con Man, Al Sharpton, who has, perhaps, the lowest TV ratings in the history of television,” wrote Trump. “What is he doing to Brian Roberts to stay on the air? This whole corrupt operation is nothing more than an illegal arm of the Democrat Party. They should be forced to pay vast sums of money for the damage they’ve done to our Country. Fake News is an UNPARDONABLE SIN!”
Political commentator Reecie Colbert slammed President Trump’s personal attacks on Reid and others, calling him “a vile, disgusting pig.” She told theGrio that Trump was elected back to office “precisely because people wanted a mouthpiece of cruelty and racism and sexism.”
She continued, “Anytime he calls somebody mentally deficient, or he calls them racist, he’s actually talking about himself … it’s completely on brand, and it’s exactly what I would expect from Trump.”
As for MSNBC pulling the plug on Reid’s show, Colbert said she believes networks are making concessions to Trump. She believes Reid was an obvious “target.” She explained, “Not just because of her brilliance but also, to be frank, because she was unapologetically Black and she’s a woman, so that’s a double whammy.”
However, Colbert said that what’s getting lost in the public outcry over Reid’s being sidelined is the fact that Symone Sanders Townsend and Michael Steele’s addition to the time slot suggests there will still be Black voices willing to be critical of Trump and his administration.
“They’re no sycophants for Trump,” she told theGrio. “They are two strong voices that will, I think, forcefully and effectively push back on what Trump is doing.”
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