MSNBC Stars Bid Joy Reid Adieu on Her Last Show at the Network: ‘Like Losing a Limb’
MSNBC stars Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, and Lawrence O’Donnell bid Joy Reid adieu Monday night during the last-ever broadcast of The ReidOut.
The network announced the show’s sudden cancelation on Sunday. The host used her final hour in MSNBC primetime to call for the network to continue advocating for progressivism and against “fascism” during the emotionally charged show.
With about 20 minutes remaining on her final broadcast Monday, Reid welcomed her primetime colleagues, each of who paid her tribute. Maddow said:
Well, first I want to say that I love you, Joy, and that I am bereft that The ReidOut is ending. I really I just can’t even I sort of can’t get beyond that. So I want to say that. But that is also part of what I think I have to say to the country about this moment, which is find people who you respect and trust and love and make common cause with them and help, you know, help yourself by learning from them and help them by standing up for them. And I think we have tried to do that.
And I think that in important ways we have failed. But I think it’s still the right thing to try to do. And so whether that means, you know, joining something locally or whether that means making some sort of more unofficial common cause with the people in your life where you respect them, who you think are people you can depend on. Like I feel about you, you got to join forces with we can none of this. None of us can do this alone.
Reid replied by referring to Maddow as MSNBC’s unofficial “fearless leader.”
Wallace then offered Reid an emotional farewell by saying she felt “despair.”
“It’s like losing a limb, the thought of doing those nights without you,” Wallace said. She continued:
And I think that my reaction to the end of The ReidOut and your departure is despair. And the only thing that chips away at that for me, is that despair is the autocrat’s tool. It’s their most effective weapon. It costs nothing. It’s easy to deploy, it’s contagious. And then it puts in motion all the actions they want. Hopelessness. Isolation. Exasperation. Giving up. And so the only reason I will not wallow in what I feel about you leaving is, is because I think that’s what they want.
O’Donnell said appearing alongside Reid, Maddow, and Wallace was “an honor.”
He read from a passage of one of Reid’s books and celebrated her for championing civil rights and democracy.
Reid’s 7 p.m. time slot will soon be filled by a panel show co-hosted by Symone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, and Alicia Menendez – the team currently helming The Weekend.
In the interim, the hour will feature a series of rotating hosts.
Reid joined MSNBC as a host in 2014 and debuted The ReidOut in 2020.
Watch above via MSNBC.