Joy Reid is disappointed — disappointed MSNBC canceled her nightly program The ReidOut. Yet grateful she has the support of women around the country who plan to boycott the cable news network in solidarity with Reid.
Within hours of The New York Times breaking the news early Sunday morning that Reid would be exiting MSNBC, her supporters began to mobilize.
On Sunday night, Win With Black Women — a collective of Black women leaders in politics, tech, sports, music, entertainment, and media — held an emergency meeting to announce a hashtag #WeNeedJoy boycott of MSNBC.
Reid joined the Zoom call and said she was overwhelmed by the support.
“My heart is so full,” she said.
Related: Joy Reid Signs Off MSNBC With Message About ‘Resisting’ Trump
The author and TV host suggested she learned MSNBC planned to go in a different direction days before the story hit the press.
“I have been through every emotion over the past few days,” she said. “I’ve been through every emotion from anger, rage, disappointment, hurt, and feeling guilt that I let my team lose their jobs.”
As she fought back tears, Reid said the calls, emails and text messages she received were comforting.
“Where I’ve landed today is just gratitude, just pure 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 and that what I was doing had value,” she said.
Organizers noted that 10,000 women joined the Zoom meeting, immediately reaching the maximum number of participants the recording would accommodate. An overflow livestream was quickly set up on YouTube, allowing more participants to take part. As of Monday morning, the YouTube video had more than 50,000 views.
Reid admitted she didn’t shy away from hot button issues — such as race, injustice, and protecting the U.S. constitution — on her show, and for that she is not sorry.
“Whether it was the Black Lives Matter issues of a young baby or a mom or dad that was killed, or when we opened up people’s eyes to the fact that Asian Americans were being targeted… or went hard for immigrants, who’ve done nothing but come to this country like my parents did and try to make a life… or whether we’ve talked about what the president is doing that is subversive to the Constitution, that is injurious to our liberty… and yes, whether it’s talking about Gaza and the fact that we as the American people have a right to object to little babies being bombed and where I come down on that is, I’m not sorry,” Reid said. “I am not sorry that I stood up for those things, because those things are of God.”
At one point, organizers said several members of Congress were on the call, along with Civil Rights activists, key figures from the Democratic party, and sorority leaders.
Among the speakers were Win With Black Women founder Jotaka Eaddy; culture commentator and former CNN political analyst Angela Rye; former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross; and Khalil Thompson of Win With Black Men.
Attendees said they planned to watch the final broadcast of The ReidOut on Monday, Feb. 24. After that, they vowed to turn off MSNBC and spread the word on social media by using the hashtag #tvoff.
Reid joined the network in 2014 and began hosting The ReidOut in 2020.
Her show will be replaced by a new panel program featuring news anchor Alicia Menendez; Michael Steele, former head of the Republican National Committee; and Symone Sanders Townsend, a former Democratic strategist, as previously reported.
MSNBC is also dropping Alex Wagner, who hosts a weeknight program at 9 p.m.
The programming shakeup comes less than two weeks after Rebecca Kutler was officially named president of the network on Feb. 12.
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