New MSNBC Head Holds Hasty Meeting With Joy Reid Staffers After Show’s Cancellation Leaks — Insists Trump Wasn’t a Factor

Screenshot via MSNBC.

Rebecca Kutler, the MSNBC president who just took the wheel earlier this month, called a hasty virtual meeting with staffers on Joy Reid’s show, The ReidOut, after news of the program’s cancellation leaked to the media — and an audio recording of that meeting was then leaked.

Oliver Darcy published a report on Kutler’s “tense and emotional” digital confab with angered ReidOut staffers in his Status newsletter, describing how Kutler had “abruptly summoned” the staffers on Sunday morning shortly after the news leaked — first reported by Variety and The New York Times — that the 7 pm ET weeknight show would be airing its final episode sometime this week.

According to Darcy, the meeting lasted almost 30 minutes. “Staffers expressed frustration and disbelief, outraged that they had learned of their show’s fate from reports in the press rather than leadership,” he wrote, and challenged network leadership to explain why the show was cancelled and what that meant for their jobs.

The bad news came swiftly, with Kutler confirming that “the entire staff had been laid off,” wrote Darcy, adding that the staffers were told they would receive severance through April and were encouraged to apply to other positions within MSNBC, but this did little to soothe their nerves:

Despite MSNBC’s assurances that new roles will be available, staffers exited the meeting shaken. The shock of learning about their show’s fate, married with uncertainty about what comes next, spurred significant frustration with MSNBC brass—which came through during the Sunday meeting.

While Kutler pointed to the more than 100 new jobs being posted this week as a sign of hope for the staffers, for those who have worked on “The ReidOut,” the meeting drove home a difficult reality: Their show is over, and their future at the progressive network is not certain.

Regarding the leaked news, Kutler said she was “incredibly disappointed that this happened in this way,” but staffers were still outraged, with one person telling the network president that it was a “terrible, terrible way to learn about our fate.”

Kutler “insisted” that “Donald Trump was not a factor,” Darcy reported — an idea that had sparked much speculation considering Reid’s acerbic critiques of the president and the chatter around Jim Acosta’s departure from CNN last month. One staffer asked Kutler point blank if Trump had influenced the decision to cancel The ReidOut, and Kutler replied, “No, it did not.”

Read Darcy’s report at Status.