Rachel Maddow Announces Return of Full-Time Show to Cover Trump’s First 100 Days
MSNBC will bring its star host Rachel Maddow back five nights a week to cover the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term, the network announced on Monday. Maddow has long been the biggest ratings draw in cable news outside of Fox News and is certain to boost the network’s line-up, which has struggled since Trump’s election.
Since 2022, Maddow hosts her eponymous show only on Monday nights but has maintained her large audience. In 2024, Maddow raked in 2.5 million average viewers, which quadrupled her CNN competition at 9 p.m. as Kaitlain Collins brought in an average of 600,000 viewers, while Fox’s Sean Hannity led the time slot with 2.8 million average viewers.
MSNBC and CNN are looking to grow their audiences following a post-election dip as viewers tuned out following Trump’s win and alternative media continues to eat into cable news’s grip on the news media landscape.
Alex Wagner, who hosts Maddow’s hour the other four nights a week, will be hitting the road for the network while Maddow takes the helm starting Jan. 20, the network said. Wagner’s on-the-ground reporting from across the country will be featured in a series, Trumpland: The First 100 Days, and will also be aired during other MSNBC prime time shows, across digital platforms, and during live events, according to a network statement.
“This is a consequential next chapter in American politics. The moment we’re in requires us to cover the early days of the new administration from all over the country – from the nation’s capital, where policy is being implemented, to talking to those in key communities and constituencies impacted by those policies. No one is better equipped to bring those stories from the field to MSNBC viewers than our intrepid Alex Wagner,” said MSNBC President Rashida Jones in the network’s statement.
Maddow reportedly signed a whopping $30 million a year contract to stay at the network in 2022 and scale her show down to one night a week, allowing her to focus on other projects – like podcasts. She recently took a $5 million a year pay cut and renewed that contract for another five years, according to several reports.
MSNBC also announced that host Jen Psaki is also launching a new podcast, The Blueprint with Jen Psaki, which will focus on “what lies ahead for the future of the Democratic Party after their brutal election season in 2024.”
