Latest news with #Maddow
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
MSNBC's revamped lineup flounders, Jen Psaki sheds 47% of predecessors' viewership
MSNBC's revamped lineup has been a misfire through one month, with Jen Psaki shedding half the audience her predecessors averaged in the same timeslot and other new programming struggling to attract viewers. Psaki, a former Biden White House press secretary who has insisted she never saw signs the former president had declined while she worked for him, saw an increased role as part of MSNBC's overhaul when programming changes were announced earlier this year. Psaki took over MSNBC's coveted 9 p.m. ET timeslot on Tuesday through Fridays last month as "The Rachel Maddow Show" returned to only airing on Mondays, after Maddow temporarily returned to airing five nights a week during President Donald Trump's first 100 days in office. "The Briefing with Jen Psaki" averaged 971,000 total viewers from its May 6 debut through May 28, shedding a staggering 47% of the audience that Maddow and Alex Wagner pulled in at 9 p.m. ET throughout 2025. Jen Psaki, The Ex-biden Flack Who Defended His Mental Fitness, Launches Expanded Role At Msnbc Psaki has also hemorrhaged viewers from the advertiser-coveted demographic of adults aged 25-54, averaging 78,000 for a 52% drop compared to the 161,000 demo viewers that Maddow and Wagner averaged on Tuesday through Fridays at 9 p.m. ET before the former Biden spokesperson took over. Wagner hosted Tuesdays through Fridays in Maddow's usual spot before Trump's inauguration. Read On The Fox News App The network also canceled Joy Reid's program "The ReidOut" and replaced it with "The Weeknight," an ensemble program featuring former Vice President Kamala Harris spokesperson Symone Sanders-Townsend, Alicia Menendez, the daughter of disgraced former Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Michael Steele, the former Republican National Committee chair who now staunchly opposes the GOP. "The Weeknight" debuted on May 5 and averaged 776,000 total viewers through May 28 for a 12% drop compared to the 886,000 total viewers that "The ReidOut" and other temporary programs managed throughout 2025 in the 7 p.m. ET timeslot before changes went into effect. Credibility Crisis: Press Dismissed Hur Report On Biden's Memory Issues Long Before Concerns Became Undeniable "The Weeknight" shed even more viewers from the key demo, as the new MSNBC show averaged 72,000 for a 20% decrease, compared to the 90,000 demo viewers who tuned into the 7 p.m. ET timeslot before the ensemble program kicked off. Another new show, "The Weekend: Primetime," with Antonia Hylton, Catherine Rampell, Elise Jordan and Ayman Mohyeldin, is down 11% among total viewers and 6% in the demo compared to MSNBC programming that used to occupy its timeslot. Despite the programming overhaul, MSNBC had its second-worst May in history among both total day and primetime in the demo. For the month, MSNBC settled for a dismal average of 49,000 viewers among the critical demo to lose to CNN, which averaged 59,000. During primetime, CNN averaged 76,000 demo viewers and MSNBC finished with an average of only 73,000. Americans Continue To Choose Fox News Channel As Network Dominates May, Tops Abc During Weekday Primetime Only one of MSNBC's new shows is outdrawing its timeslot predecessor, as "The Weekend" with Jonathan Capehart, Eugene Daniels, and Jackie Alemany is up 24% in total viewers and 29% among the demo since launching on May 3. An MSNBC insider pushed back on the notion the network was struggling, pointing to the historic news cycle that occurred during Trump's first 100 days in office that helped attract viewers before the new programs launched. The insider also noted that Psaki has built on the audience of her lead-in while competing in the NBA and NHL playoffs. MSNBC's viewership issues come as Comcast gears up to spin off NBCUniversal cable assets, including MSNBC, into a separate company called Versant that will not be tied to NBC News. MSNBC didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Ratings data courtesy of Nielsen Media article source: MSNBC's revamped lineup flounders, Jen Psaki sheds 47% of predecessors' viewership
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Rachel Maddow Nails Brutal Metaphor For Elon Musk's Impact On Government
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Monday dismissed Elon Musk's black eye ― visible last week during his final day as a special government employee ― as the defining metaphor of the chaos he's left behind in Washington. Instead, Maddow suggested the world's richest person's time running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), aimed at slashing public spending, could be better summed up by the destruction its employees wreaked at the independent, non-profit U.S. Institute of Peace. DOGE members allegedly fired staff, wiped IT systems and canceled contracts after taking the organization's building by force, said Maddow. After a federal judge ruled DOGE's actions as illegal, she said, staff returned to reportedly find water damage, evidence of rats and even marijuana allegedly left behind. 'It's just pure pointlessness and waste,' said Maddow. 'Yes, the black eye was cute, but may I suggest that this is perhaps more on the nose as the legacy of what the Trump administration has done through Trump's top campaign donor, Elon Musk, as Elon Musk leaves Washington.' 'A building seized pointlessly. Shut down pointlessly. Left to be infested by vermin. All so its rightful owners can eventually come back and have to put it all back together again. For no reason at all. I think that's a better metaphor,' she added. Maddow elsewhere on her show slammed the 'performatively cruel' crackdown on undocumented immigrants that's being ordered by President Donald Trump's administration. She pointed out multiple recent examples of egregious behavior, including the 'bananas' moment that Homeland Security Investigations agents last week raided an Italian restaurant in San Diego while dressed as if 'they were going to be invading Fallujah' in Iraq. The sweep on the Buona Forchetta eatery involved 'multiple clown cars of Trump's HSI agents in full battle rattle with helmets and long guns and flak jackets and goggles and masks,' noted Maddow. They looked like 'they were going to rappel out of helicopters into the Tora Bora cave complex to fight Al Qaeda,' she continued. Busboys and waiters were detained in the raid. When 'the whole neighborhood' came out to protest, Maddow said 'Trump's immigration agents had no idea what to do' and set off 'what appeared to be these flashbang smoke grenades' in response. 'Seriously. This is not a sign of strength, this is not a show of force,' she said. 'This is a show of weakness and cluelessness.' 'These guys talked themselves into the idea that the country would be so excited to see them be really performatively cruel to immigrants, right? They thought this would be a great political advantage for them,' she added. 'Turns out, everywhere they try it. Everyone in America hates it. Everyone hates what they're doing.' 'Sesame Street' Pride Post Triggers Conservatives Into Meltdown Mode RFK Jr.'s Gotcha Moment On CNN Goes Viral Again Amid 'MAHA' Report Controversy Lindsey Graham's 'Deranged' Post About Greta Thunberg Is Condemned Online
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Here's How Week 1 of The Briefing with Jen Psaki Performed for MSNBC
Jen Psaki is a familiar face on MSNBC having been with the network since May 2022 as the host of Inside with Jen Psaki. But thanks to a recent programming revamp overseen by new MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler, Psaki is now anchoring The Briefing with Jen Psaki. The Tuesday-Friday newscast that takes over the 9 p.m. ET time slot previously occupied by Alex Wagner Tonight. (Wagner remains with MSNBC as a senior political analyst.) The Briefing made its debut on May 6 following Rachel Maddow's return to her Monday-only schedule. The Rachel Maddow Show had been airing Monday thru Friday during the first 100 days of President Donald Trump's second term. Maddow's last full week saw her averaging 2.066 million total viewers and 173,000 viewers in the advertiser-coveted Adults 25-54 demo. Her newscast was the seventh most-watched cable news show in total viewers and landed in 14th place in the demo during the week of April 21. Additionally, Maddow's Monday-only show during the week of May 5 averaged 1.722 million total viewers and 155,000 demo viewers. That episode finished as the 13th most-watched cable news show in total viewers and 15th place in the demo. With a week's worth of ratings under her belt, Psaki averaged 1.096 million total viewers and 92,000 demo viewers during her inaugural week as host of The Briefing. Compared to Maddow's final week, The Briefing was down by -47% in both total viewers and the demo. Relative to Maddow's Monday-only appearance, Psaki was down -36% in total viewers and -41% in the demo. On average, The Briefing was MSNBC's third-most watched show in total viewers behind Deadline: White House with Nicole Wallace and The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell. It was the network's fourth most-watched program in the demo. Last week also saw the quiet debuts of The Weekend and The Weeknight on MSNBC. The network noted that a competitive sports playoff cycle has been luring viewers away from cable news in recent weeks. Additionally, the passing of Pope Francis led to a rise in ratings during the week of April 21. MSNBC knew Psaki would have large shoes to fill by taking over from Maddow four nights a week. The network is likely to be patient with The Briefing as it positions its host as a visible and prominent figure in their primetime lineup.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Rachel Maddow Explains How Trump Is ‘Personally Benefiting' From Fed Medical Funding While ‘Destroying It for Everyone Else'
Rachel Maddow said she's glad President Trump got a good bill of health on his most recent medical check-up — she just wishes that he wasn't also trying to cut healthcare for 'tens of millions' of Americans. On Tuesday, she had Dr. David Kessler, former FDA commissioner, on her MSNBC show to analyze the president's health report, which included news that two cholesterol-lowering drugs that Trump is taking have been 'dramatically' effective. 'The point of this is not necessarily the president's personal health. The point here is that the president of the United States appears to be improving his own health through access to great medical care and great medical science. That's what he gets,' said Maddow. She continued, 'Simultaneously, his administration is doing so much to hurt regular Americans' opportunity to achieve those same good health outcomes the same way.' Maddow mentioned that Trump has slashed more than $2 billion in research grants to the National Institutes of Health, the government research agency that forms the basis for many of these cutting-edge drugs, as well laying off more than 10,000 employees at the Food and Drug Administration, which makes sure that products are safe for consumption. 'President Trump is personally benefiting in his own health from the scientific and medical infrastructure the U.S. government has built up over decades. He is simultaneously in the process of destroying that infrastructure for everyone else,' she said. Maddow added, 'Trump and his allies in Congress are currently debating how many hundreds of billions of dollars they're going to cut from Medicaid, which provides health insurance to tens of millions of Americans.' Kessler explained that Trump's health has improved since his first term, when a scan showed signs of a plaque build-up in his coronary arteries, which put him at risk of a heart attack. 'His BMI — his body mass index — was just over the threshold for obesity,' said Kessler, who noted that the latest physical showed that Trump has dropped 20 pounds since 2020. Trump has never publicly stated that he is on a GLP-1 drug like Ozempic or Wegovy and the White House refused comment on the subject. Trump, did, however, go on a public riff about the 'fat shot drug' that he said other people are using, including a 'businessman friend' who is 'highly neurotic' and 'seriously overweight.' The post Rachel Maddow Explains How Trump Is 'Personally Benefiting' From Fed Medical Funding While 'Destroying It for Everyone Else' | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Rachel Maddow Says ‘Hysterical Doomsdayers' Were Right About Trump 2nd Term: ‘They Are Consolidating Power'
Stephen Colbert kicked off Tuesday night's episode 'The Late Show' with his first guest, famed political correspondent Rachel Maddow, and asked one question that encapsulated Trump's second term: 'What the F–k?!' After he congratulated the 'Rachel Maddow Show' host on working every weeknight to cover the first 100 days of Trump's second term on MSNBC, Colbert then asked what the coverage has taught her about his second term and what the playbook for Trump's new administration is. 'So, the common wisdom when Trump was coming back for a second term was he would have worked out all the kinks in the first term, that maybe he had some really radical intentions for the country in the first term but he was not really good at doing anything and so we didn't have to deal with the worst of it,' Maddow explained. 'The common wisdom is he'll be better at it this time around. Not true! Turns out, there was no learning about how to do the stuff.' Colbert then pointed out that a big problem with authoritarianism is that it all falls to one person, referencing growing unease with the Trump administration's tendency to skirt long-established processes – like outright ignoring orders from the judicial branch. 'The personalization of government means you are depending on the personal competence of the guy in charge,' Maddow said in agreement, adding that it was a 'limiting factor in terms of what can happen in an authoritarian government.' The MSNBC host then went on to explain that the main difference she has noticed in terms of the public response this time around has been through protesting. Maddow pointed out that during his first term there was the Women's March in the days after he first got elected; this time, however, protesting has taken a more consistent form. 'There was not one huge protest. But in Trump's first 100 days this time, people protest in, I swear, like all 50 states every day – and it never stops,' Maddow said. 'I mean, every day I'm covering protests in Tuscaloosa and Boise and Lima, Ohio. I have to watch local news clips to figure out how to pronounce the name of the town where there is the demonstration.' Maddow also commented on how the nationwide pushback has started to largely affect Republican members of Congress, who are getting yelled at when they go out in their own congressional districts. She explained that this was not just happening with Democrats but in historically conservative areas where people have been surprised about cuts to government programs like Social Security and mass layoffs from government agencies at the hands of Elon Musk's DOGE. 'Even if you are in Republican plus 30 districts, where Democrats have not won an election in living memory, but still there's enough angry people, Democrats, Independents and Republicans in every congressional district in the country that Republicans now just are not showing their faces because they can't take it,' Maddow said. 'That's what happens when you cut Meals on Wheels, when you cut Head Start, you mess with Social Security. You do all this stuff, you are never going to survive politically.' Later in the interview, Colbert said that he was concerned that the amount of incompetence and disregard GOP Congress members seem to have for their constituencies – and that it seems like officials were not worried about answering to voters during midterms. There's been growing unease over President Trump refusal to deny the possibility of a third term and a recent 'Meet the Press' interview earlier this week where he said he didn't know if he had to uphold the Constitution. 'The people who warned us about how bad this was going to be. The people who were really hysterical, like the doomsayers, they were all right,' Maddow said. 'What we are experiencing is not just someone fighting against the democratic party, he's fighting against the democratic process. He doesn't think there should be elections and they are consolidating power.' She continued: 'They are disempowering Congress, ignoring Congress, defunding agencies or closing agencies, that's Congress' job, that's not the president's job. When they are defying court orders, that's them saying the courts don't have authority over the president. That's consolidating all the power with one man, that's authoritarianism, and that's what you do when you don't want to have an election because you want to stay in power for life.' Maddow did close out on a bit of a hopeful note, saying that although things are bad, the Trump administration's continued disregard for the rules have started to anger the public. 'There has never been in the history of this country an American president who had been this unpopular at 100 days in,' Maddow said. 'The American public understands. They are just saying 'No, No, No!'' You can watch 'The Late Show' clip in the video above. The post Rachel Maddow Says 'Hysterical Doomsdayers' Were Right About Trump 2nd Term: 'They Are Consolidating Power' | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
