Ex-MSNBC host Joy Reid speculated Tuesday that her coverage of President Donald Trump and the ongoing war in Gaza were unstated factors that led to her sudden ouster from the liberal network.
During her appearance on “The Breakfast Club,” Reid was asked what was behind her firing from MSNBC in February, insisting it wasn’t a ratings issue despite the fact that the network’s viewership took a huge dive after the 2024 election.
“And we had actually just had a ratings meeting, like, two weeks before I was fired, where they were like, ‘You guys are actually losing – you guys lost less than, you know, your competitors, and you’re actually doing fine,'” Reid said.
“So ratings were fine. We were doing fine. And you know, the ratings have not gotten better since I left.”
Reid then pointed to a report about her being on the chopping block that surfaced the Friday before she was fired, which she at first thought was just a “rumor,” but her producers began “freaking out” over what was alleged.
“We hadn’t heard anything,” Reid said.
“Nobody had called me. Nobody had said, ‘You did something wrong, you’re in trouble, you’re on probation.’ I had gotten nothing. Then I get a text message early the next morning saying, ‘Can you talk at noon?’ And I was fired immediately. There was no warning. And I asked, ‘Well, what, you know, what’s the [issue]?’ Nothing. They were just like, ‘Oh, we just want to make some changes.’ They never said why. So I’ve had to live in the rumor mill with everybody else.”
The former “ReidOut” host went on to claim there were “two topics” that had made MSNBC management “uncomfortable.”
“One of them is Trump, because Trump is suing everybody,” Reid said.
“I mean, he’s literally threatening people to the point where ‘60 Minutes’ is shook, where ABC News is shook. You know, he’s verbally threatened Comcast by name, named [Comcast CEO] Brian Roberts by name, and all of these are businesses that want to do business that need the FCC approval. They actually have to have the federal government’s approval to do mergers, acquisitions… He can pull your license… so it’s like everybody is trying to navigate this really deranged man. So I think they’re activating out of a sense of ‘we don’t want to poke the bear too much.'”