Joy Reid has revealed that the only heads up she got that she was being fired from MSNBC was a news article published days before she was axed.
Reid revealed surprising information during a Tuesday appearance on The Breakfast Club radio show, where she also expressed her growing disenchantment with the Democratic party.
Reid suggested that her unexpected termination wasn’t related to ratings and theorized that her candid opinions on Donald Trump and the situation in Gaza might have influenced the decision.
She explained that executives reassured her two weeks before her firing that her numbers were acceptable.
‘They told us, “You guys didn’t lose as much as your competitors, and you’re actually doing well,”‘ Reid stated. ‘So ratings were good. We were doing well. And you know, the ratings haven’t improved since I left.’
Instead, Reid speculated that a February 22 story in Puck News was what sealed the fate of The Reid Out, the show she had been hosting since July 2020.
‘We had seen that there was this Puck story that Friday,’ she said. ‘My executive producer called me and said, “Look, all of our producers are freaking out over this Puck story, so you should see it.”‘
The story, written by Dylan Byers, claimed that Reid’s show was, ‘vulnerable in light of recent ratings struggles’.
Joy Reid said Tuesday that her firing from MSNBC came out of nowhere. The only warning she had was a Puck News article two days earlier that claimed her show was ‘vulnerable in light of recent ratings struggles’
Reid first addressed what happened a day after her firing on February 24 with a tearful appearance on the Win With Black Women podcast
‘Then I get a text message early the next morning [on Saturday] saying, “Can you talk at noon?” And I was fired immediately. There was no warning. So, I asked, “Well, what’s the issue?”‘ Reid said.
She added that she was told management wanted to, ‘make some changes’, claiming that was all the specificity she was given at the time.
A representative for Puck declined to comment on the outlet’s reporting on Reid’s firing.
Reid went on to say that ‘two topics’ she frequently talked about on her show made MSNBC higher-ups uncomfortable.
One of them was President Donald Trump, she said, largely because he has sued multiple media outlets for negative coverage of him.
‘He’s literally threatening people to the point where ‘60 Minutes’ is shook, where ABC News is shook. He’s verbally threatened Comcast by name, named [Comcast CEO] Brian Roberts by name, and all of these are businesses that if want to do business they need the FCC’s approval,’ Reid said.
MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler has previously said that Reid’s coverage of Trump was not a factor in her being fired.
The other topic she thought made her toxic to management was her discussing Gaza, a small strip of land that Israel has been bombing since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
Reid, who hosted the Reid Out from July 2020 to February 2025, also said the way she talked about President Donald Trump and Gaza were reasons why she was cut
‘You just can’t get away from the fact that talking about Gaza in a way that humanizes Palestinians is not the usual way that cable news operates, or that any news in this country operates for whatever reason, that topic makes people uncomfortable,’ Reid said.
Reid first addressed what happened a day after her firing on February 24, with a tearful appearance on the Win With Black Women podcast.
‘I’ve been through every emotion… anger, rage, disappointment, hurt… guilt. You know, [ a feeling] that I let my team lose their jobs,’ she said at the time.
‘But in the end, where I really land… is just gratitude. Just pure gratitude and gratitude. 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.’
Reid broke down as she explained that she’s not sorry for having gone, ‘hard on so many’ progressive issues like Black Lives Matter or immigrant rights on her primetime slot.
‘Whether it’s talking about any of these issues and, yes, whether it’s talking about Gaza and the fact that we as the American people have a right to object, to have a right to object to little babies being bombed,’ Reid went on.
MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler has previously said that Reid’s coverage of Trump was not a factor in her being fired
‘And and where I come down on that is I’m not sorry. I am not sorry that I stood up for those those things because those things are of God.’
Reid was fired in a brutal round of cuts at the network which also included anchors Jonathan Capehart, Katie Phang, and Ayman Mohyeldin.
She has since launched her own podcast, The Joy Reid Show which debuted on June 9 and places her in direct competition with her former employer.
Daily Mail approached MSNBC for comment.
