On with Kara Swisher - Joy Reid on Dems, Gaza & Independent Media

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

Joy Reid was an early social media adopter — which didn’t always go over well with her former bosses at MSNBC. But after her primetime show, The ReidOut, was canceled as part of MSNBC’s shakeup, this past February, Reid quickly used social media platforms to successfully pivot to independent media.  Kara and Reid discuss the evolving landscape of cable news, how her Substack, "Joy's House", and her YouTube channel, "The Joy Reid Show”, allow her to cover topics like the war in Gaza and politics with more freedom, and her insights into the direction of the Democratic party. Plus: Reid’s thoughts on MSNBC’s new name/logo, MSNOW. Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm glad to help you in your journey towards media entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship. I know. Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is on with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. The media industry is in a state of flux, and personally, I think it's a good thing. I've been talking to a lot of media entrepreneurs recently. about how they've been changing things up, one Beehive and Substack and YouTube show at a time.

And that includes my guest today, Joy Reid. You might know Joy for MSNBC show The Readout. When the show debuted in 2020, Reed became the first black woman in the network's history to anchor a primetime show. During its nearly five-year run, Reed was known for interviews and biting commentary of news and politics, including against President Trump. Then this past February is part of a larger shake-up at the network. Reed was unceremoniously fired and the show was canceled. both she and her colleagues, including fellow anchor Rachel Maddow, or kind of dumbfounded.

I was too. I just didn't know why they picked her. I know they had troubles at this network. I know they have braiding's issues. But it seemed to me she was an unusual choice to make. I have a list I would have gone to first. But I was sort of surprised by it because she certainly had a following there in a way that sort of meets the moment of media. And Joy herself has turned lemons into lemonade and has launched her own media business in the aftermath. She's got a substack called Joy's House and a YouTube channel, the Joy Revenue. show where she interviews guests and talks politics in much the same way she was doing an MSNBC or MS now, as it's called, except with a little more, I guess, joy. I'm interested in hearing about how to the jump to independence is going for, getting

her take on the broader changes happening in the cable news business and how the Democratic Party could or should be shifting to. And speaking of turning lemons into lemonade, our expert question this week comes from another cable news host turned media entrepreneur Don Lemon. Stick around. This is a very fun interview. Let me just start by saying thank you for coming on on. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me. I'll also be coming on your show soon. Excited. And I want to hear about this. So let's talk about that. You've had a whole relaunch since you left MSNBC back in February. We're going to talk about that. But first, I have to ask, what are your thoughts on MSNBC's new name and logo after the spinoff

from NBC. MS Now. It stands for my source. Ms. Now. Yes, MS Now, my source, news opinion world. First of all, look, God bless them. I wish them all the best of luck. It looks like Ms. Now to me. I feel like the logo, the red, white, and blue is giving a little newsmax. It's a little America, you know. But I think everyone's going for that red, white and blue look, right? That's attractive. I feel like they're like, well, Trump like this. I feel like that's in the minds of all marketing people right now is, well, Trump be mad, you know, and I feel like, I don't know what they're trying to do. I think the idea was to cut the connection with NBC, right? Like they were willing to keep the Microsoft, but not the NBC, you know, which tells me they're still using Teams.

Yeah, Teams. Teams survives? Like, wait, like Teams gets to live? Like, what? Like, I'm upset about that more than anything. And you don't have to use it anymore. No. You have hope for the spinoff? I mean, I think it's an opportunity to be entrepreneurial. real. Rachel Maddo was very enthusiastic about it, which is the right attitude to have, I think. It is

and I mean, the thing about it is, you know, she is so much the brand. I guess I'm sad for it, the change as a lifer MSNBC fan. I was a person that had it on all day. Even before I was on there, I was watching. I watched Chris Matthews from, like, his first show. Like, I was

a super Chris Matthews fan. And I, you know, and absolutely love Rachel. Rachel is genius. Whatever Rachel is for is probably right. If she says it, it's probably true. And if she's down with it, if she likes it, I love it. But I just, I guess I'm sad

for the people who come up to me in the airports who are like, I love MSNBC fans. It is like the Muppet show to them. It's Sesame Street. It is such a brand that is meaningful to people. And so I think people who love it

are not going to love that it's not called MSNBC. And they associate it so much with Rachel, with, you know, with the great Lawrence O'Donnell, with, you know, Chris Hayes. It's all the gang. Is there a name you wouldn't have it?

SNL called you guys the Avengers for the ants, but what would you call it? What would be the name you'd pick? I wouldn't have changed the name, but I think if you change the name... They had to. Yeah, they had to also because, look, they're under a lot of pressure. I kind of feel for the new corporate suits that are running that place because they answer to a higher authority named Donald Trump, right? Donald Trump is a vengeful, vicious, vindictive man. And Brendan Carr, who wrote, you know, this part.

of the Handmaid's Tale files, Project 2025. He wrote that part of it, and it was very clear that vengeance against the media was part of it, right? So they had to make these changes in order to do what the new bosses want to do, which is mergers and acquisitions. They want to buy and sell and they want to do these media ventures, and they can't do them if Brendan Carr says no, right? Like, you know, the FCC doesn't control cable, you know, they only can do it to broadcast, but they can mess with their business in a very ugly way. So I I get that they had to change it. I guess if I had to pick something and I was sort of in the marketing brain of a corporate person,

I might have called it something like blue news, you know what I mean, or something that had the blue word in it because people who watch MSNBC are on the blue side of the red, blue divide. So it would sort of fit with blue sky. A blue word. Serrillion. Yeah. Surillian. The Surreleon Network.

That sounds like a drug company. I know. And also, plus they have all those ads on. So they could also solve your rash problem. problem. Catherers. News and your rash and catheter problems. That's what news is. I mean, look, it's the oldies that watch the cable. So they need a catheter and they do have a rash. Let's just talk briefly about your departure. I know you've talked about it a lot from MSNBC, but we have to cover it. You said your firing came out of the blue and you weren't told why you were let go. MSNBC had said there had been a ratings dropped across the board after the 2024 elections and they were making changes. The decision also came just a month after Rashida Jones stepped down as president of MSNBC. And again, there are questions of whether this is a protective move, and President Trump was happy to see you go, even post about on true social, which he does for everybody. It looks like these days. But a lot of anchors in MSC have been critical of Trump, like you. They also were very supportive of you. Some speculated that your position on the Warren Gaza might have played a role in the firing. Explain why you think that, if you do. I do. The reason I say it was unexpected is I literally had just gotten re-signed. It's not that I didn't realize that management and I had very huge differences of opinion. I'd been, you know, hauled into enough, you know, HR meetings that were almost always about Gaza, about, you know, something I'd posted about Gaza or said about Gaza, you know, on my social media, or about white Christian nationalism where people were. upset, someone internally was angry, but it was much, much more Gaza. And it was very clear that,

you know, my coverage and position on it was not beloved, you know, inside the network. And it was not sort of normal inside the network. I think Chris Hayes was the only other person that kind of held a similar view to me. So I wasn't surprised and that they hated my social media. This goes all the way back to even my buddy, Phil. I love Bill Griffin. But, you know, he was just like, get off Twitter. You know, it was this. Phil Griffin used to run, run the network. Yeah. But go ahead. A great boss. He and I did not agree on social media, but a great guy otherwise. But when Rashida Jones took over, you know, they weren't, they didn't love the social media thing, but it does help you. It helps grow your audience. And I know there are multiple audiences, as you know, Kara. There's an audience that really just gets their news from social media and there's an audience that gets their news from cable. And I always felt that as a journalist, I was missing something if I wasn't in both those places. That's why I was so social media and still am. But we got through all of that. And my agent and I were like, you know what, we may or may not get re-signed. We weren't sure we were going to get re-signed in the fall. But then we got re-signed. And I'm like, oh, okay, we're good.

And then at the end of January, we won the, you know, end of ACP Image Award, two of them for the show. And the last communications I was having with the network were congratulations on winning the award and what should we do on the PR. And, you know, they had been very helpful in, you know, doing my book tour. I mean, you know, really, I mean, you know, Rebecca Cutler really organized the, the fabulous event that Rachel and I did. So I thought we were good. Like I was in the congratulations, you're the new president mode when, you know, in the two weeks later, it was like, you're out of here. So I guess I was shocked, but not surprised, I guess, if you could explain it. Yeah. You weren't the only one who lost the show. MSNBC also canceled the Katie Fang show and Jose Diaz-Belard reports. Jose is on NBC now. He went over to the other, you have to make a choice, I guess. Katie also launched her. own YouTube show. I'm assuming staying on was not an option for you or was it. It was not made an option, no. And that was the other thing that was sort of, there were a couple

of things that were unusual. One is, you know, I've had three shows at this network, right? My first show was canceled in 2015. And normally what happens is they just lop off the host and all the team stays, you know? So the first thing that was unusual was that everybody got

laid off. And I think that was the other thing that Rachel's really true, righteous indignation was about was all our teams got affected. You know, people were getting told they had to reapply for their jobs like Survivor. And that was not the way things normally went. And that was, to me, the most upsetting thing. I had, you know, 15 staffers who were suddenly scrambling for jobs. And that just felt really unfair. But that said, you move right away to an area. I think you're probably better. It's better for someone like you. You have an entrepreneurial spirit in a lot of ways. You reinvigorated.

Your substack is Joy's House. Back in February, and you launched the Joy Reid Show. on YouTube in June. You're not a stranger to digital media. You were a digital editor, an early adopter of Twitter. As you said, your postings and strong following on social media often put you in the crosshairs of management. I feel your pain. I ignore them completely like you do.

And now I just do whatever I damn well, because I own everything. I'm just curious, why you didn't do it earlier? I get a lot of calls from TV people, and some of whom I say, stay where you are, because I don't think they're entrepreneurial enough. I was not surprised how quickly, and we'll talk about what's happening with your shows in a second, but why didn't you do it earlier? Did you just like having the cable show that probably had a smaller audience than you have right now? You know what? I think I think I was loyal to the audience and the brand. I mean, I really honestly, when I say this, you know,

I'm not the median age of a cable news viewer, but I really loved MSNBC. I'll be honest with you. I mean, I did come in in the Phil Griffin sort of golden age of MSNBC, and I actually just loved it. I loved my show. I absolutely love, still love and talk to you all the time. My executive producer, Tina Urbanski, was just so brilliant. And we had this little family, you know. My AM Joy family was obviously a great little family too. My Reed Report family. These become your family. And I had no intention of not being with them. So I didn't do it earlier because I just love these people so much. My coworkers, my fellow anchors, the little specials we would do. I thought it was fun. And when I'm having having fun, I don't try to go. I just try to keep having fun. You know, I stay where you are. Yeah. You haven't been having the itch to do that. So what's been the biggest challenge for you and the biggest challenge going out on your own? Different people have different experiences. Different people thrive and others don't. It's, you know what? The biggest challenge for me is doing everything, right, with a much smaller team. Yeah. Staff zero. It is really a lot.

And you're insane. I know. Because it's a lot. No, I mean, it's a lot. And so I'm an old producer. You know, I used to actually be a booking producer. I've been a producer, producer. So I've done all these jobs, just not all at the same time and being talent as well.

And so doing all the things. And my husband and I, it's our company. And, you know, taking on all of the responsibility of all of it, of writing, of producing, of, you know, and we got excellent bookers. Thank God. it's a lot. And so I think my time management skills are not great because I have serious ADHD. So trying to manage that and managing the substack, it's a lot. I just think this is the volume of work and the not sleeping and the working 20 hours a day. Yeah, I say that to a lot of people. You don't understand. It's a very different vibe. But TV is like a real country club in comparison. It's a country club. You literally have 15 people. And it's like, here are my thoughts. Make it into time. television. Is that what you're saying for each show? Well, I mean, the thing is, I think COVID

taught us a lot of lessons. It taught us a lot of lessons about our collective mental health being very poor, our trust in government being very poor. But I think in the TV world, it taught us that we could do TV without a studio at all. You know, I launched the readout from home, and we did it from my basement in this house for a year and a half. I never, met some of my producers for a year and a half. They were a tiny teams person to me for a year and a half. But we still put on a show. We still interviewed Joe Biden. You know, we could do that from home. And so I think that the economies of scale problem, I think became apparent to all of these networks during COVID because they realized they could lay off. You know, I used to have a like

dozen people on the crew of my dayside show. Like a dozen. If I wanted to move a cup, two people ran out and pulled the cup out of the way, right? All those people got laid off during COVID, and they didn't bring them back, most of them. But now, the Joy Read Show, often, the current one feels similar to the readout. You have a set that looks like a TV studio. It looks good.

You go on live for an hour, three nights a week. You've continued to cover Gaza heavily. You cover current politics like the Texas redistricting mess. Has the going independent change the nature of your show, the topics you cover, the way you cover them, the guests you have on, how much time you're spending, preparing? How is, as you're saying, it's exhausting, and it's 24-7, it's constantly.

But how has it changed for you being independent besides being exhausted? I definitely feel like I can cover the things I want to cover without worrying about getting the text for management. I could never cover Gaza the way we do on the Joy Reade Show at the network. I just don't think I could. I think it would not be welcomed. Or I would do it and then I would have to hear about it

and I would have to have an argument about it. So it's so liberating that I can just cover the things I want to cover and I don't have to deal with that. I can, you know, post what I want to post. We also can go long, you know, without that seven minute, 12 minute limitation. We can talk to somebody for a good amount of time and really give them the time to talk. We had Robert Greenwald on the last show and he's somebody I've admired for so long. And I actually got to sit and talked to him for 20 minutes as opposed to seven, you know. And I think that's really important. You know, I give, and I'm not necessarily a fan, but Tucker Carlson's, like, hour and a half interview with Ted Cruz was excellent. Like, it was good because they could actually have the conversation. Correct. And, you know, and I, you know, and that's the thing I do love about independent media. And people do stick around for it. If it's good. If it's good, they will. Absolutely. We talk to Amber Ruffin for an hour. I'd see a show I have with cable. Like, you want me to tell you three minutes? I can't. I think it's reductive and gives you this cartoonish aspect to it on

independent media, people are very much. Some of them go on too much, certainly. But most of the time, they don't actually. You know, I find it much more. And I agree with you on that Tucker. I was so instructive, and it wouldn't have worked at a shorter pace or edited in a lot of ways. Correct. That's right. But now you went from 9,000 subscribers on Substag at the beginning of the year to 168,000 earlier this month. That's a big audience. You're a Substag bestseller, whatever that means. Your YouTube already had 250,000 subscribers in just a few months. You have close to 800,000 followers on TikTok. Talk about how these social numbers translate into money and how does it compare to what you were earning at MSMBC. You recently said that, and you know

this, you were making 10% of what other anchors at MSNBC were making. Was that hyperbole or not? It was hyperbole. Yeah, it was hyperbo. Yeah. Everyone's paid differently. You know, everyone has their own contracts and they do their own negotiations. I think definitely I was one of the lower paid. Look, this isn't me saying, you know, Stephanie Rule and I got thrown under the bus by someone, you know, who threw our salaries out there. So everyone can just, you know, can see that. There are men who've done my job who make a lot more money doing the exact same job as me. That is just a fact. And I think every woman in media knows that that's a fact, right? There are very few women who make what the men who do their same jobs make. That's just a fact. And it's not a diss to anyone. It's just the truth, right? And look, I made more money than my mom ever made as a college professor, you know what I mean? So I'm not crying over my salary at all. It was actually a wonderful salary, gave me, you know, a home and a wonderful life and helped me to put my kids through college without debt, you know. So I'm very thankful for everything that I had. But it's just, you know, the disparity between men and women, you know, the disparities are just real. They just are. But what about the numbers you're getting? How do you look at? How do you look? at this new business of yours that you created with your husband, this media company. Because

you have a more dedicated audience, that's for sure, because these are people who are interested in you. That's right. And the difference is, and look, and because I'm an old radio girl, you know, I was there in the days when Nielsen, you know, was the radio metric. And it was never really honest because Nielsen was giving you an estimate that people wrote in their diary. What I love about this new media is the numbers are the numbers. You know exactly what they are. a diary. It's this many people actually streamed your show. And we stream the Joy Reid show both to Substack and to YouTube. And sometimes more people are watching it on Substack than on YouTube, the same channel at the same time, the same product at the same time. But we can actually quantify

those down to the person. We can see who's watching, when they're watching. And then people who are going back and watching it. And what will often happen is you'll have a certain number during the live stream. And then it just grows over the course of time. You can see what content is more popular, what people care about more, you know, which audience is like which thing. I love, as a data girl, as a data nerd, I love being able to know exactly who's watching when, why, and what, right? And so as far as that translating into money, as, as you know, the YouTube kind of system is that they kind of insert ads into your stuff and then you get a check for that. And a lot of, you know, young people are making a whole living doing this, right? You can also do that

on TikTok, if you monetize your TikTok, you just get money for how many people watch your stuff, which is like a direct way of doing something. It's fair. It's not ratings. It's this many people watched it and this many. And you're getting paid that. And substack is similar in that substack is just how many people subscribed, paid subscribers, and they just cut you a check for that. Now, that is a positive incentive to serve your audience. There's a negative incentive too, I think, for if you're a bad actor, right? The negative incentive would just be to do outrageous crazy shit, you know, to try to go your audience. Or stuff that, you know, I'm seeing a lot of people suddenly are pro-Gaza. And sometimes I wonder if some of that is what they're doing, that they're

seeing that the money is now to be made. And I've had this opinion about, you know, Gaza and the Palestinian since I was in seventh grade. So I'm not doing this for clicks. Like I actually am just passionate about the issue because I'm passionate about issues around apartheid. My father lived in South Africa most of his life, even though he was from the Congo. And so we've just experienced the world through the sort of point of view of the global South. That's just where I kind of come from in my thought process. So I'm not doing it for clicks, but I think in some ways, I wonder sometimes if some people kind of are. But I mean, if they get to the right position, I'm happy that they're there, you know? How are you feeling about the business itself? You just got paid a

salary before. Yeah. And I used to tell a lot of media people, I said, you're just an overpaid employee is all I can tell. Like, you know. You are an employee. I mean, you literally have people who can tell you take that off your social media. Take that down. And it's kind of wild because it's like you really, and this is your personal social media. They can say you have to take that down. So now no one can tell you to do that. But to your point, you are now responsible for everything you do, everything. You are your own legal and standards department. You need to hire the editors who edit what you're saying you need to hire the you know the person who's editing the person who's shooting it's all you so it's a lot more responsibility um it's a sobering responsibility to me because i also have a

brand that was built in traditional media and i have audiences that are very loyal who expect facts information and truth so i have to kind of stick to the brand stick to the thing and do it right but i don't have the sort of safety of having a big company and a big bunch of resources how do you Look at your business, growing, profitable, unprofitable? It's growing fast. Like, the Substack business took off first and funded the launch of the YouTube business. That's how well we were doing on Substack. I mean, just the percentage of people who are paid subscribers is enough for us to have to launch the YouTube business and pay our little team, which is just eight people.

They're part-time, but, you know, they're dedicated. And we see ourselves growing to the point where we are presuming that, you know, we're trying to get to a million subscribers. by the end of the year, because that's where you're going to really start to make the right money on YouTube. And we're now reading ads. And sponsors. And that's the key. And so what I learned from my buddy Don Lemon, who's been doing this a while, he's been added a year, when you really start to make money is when you're actually getting sponsors. Right. It's like the old time radio and TV, right? Yeah. And so now that I'm getting sponsors, I'm like, ooh, we're really, we're growing. Yeah. And actually, they can be a lot better than, say, a catheter. But I'll take a catheter.

When I started, I got a lot of mattress ads. I'm like, oh, it's master ads. I'm like, hey, the check cash is. I don't know what to tell you. And I've done it mattress. I don't know what to do. Freakin mattress. We'll be back in a minute.

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See the roses only in theaters Friday. Get tickets now. Like you said, you're not the only former broadcast anchor who's gone independent. Katie Couric, early, early. Don Lemon, many as son, Jim Acosta, to name a few. There are academic writers, the Robert Wright's and Paul Krug. and Heather Cox Richardson's of the world. Do you think that newsletters and YouTube shows

are going to be like newspaper and cable subscriptions? People have their favorites and dip in and out or like streaming services, viewers would test them and then call. It's a great group of people, actually. But are you worried about competing for the same subscribers? I think it's very all-a-cart. I think what's great about media now is you don't have to just sit in front of a network

and just take what they're giving you, right? You really can choose your own adventure. And people are doing that anyway, by the way. A lot of people only watched the readout in clips. They were watching the clips on YouTube. And by the way, you know, when I was a digital editor at the griot.com, when I first came back into NBC, they would not allow us to post on YouTube. We had to post to their own internal, like, streaming channel, which didn't get anything.

YouTube is the biggest driver of views. This is where I now get a lot of my news. I can still watch the clips of what I want to watch, even from cable news, but I'm watching it on YouTube. I'm watching the clips. And we've had YouTube TV for years. Like we haven't had a cable subscription for a really long time. YouTube is TV.

I keep telling everyone. YouTube is TV, right? So I think the business is going to fracture because everything has fractured. People don't trust anything. They don't trust any institutions. And so I think we kind of have an advantage out here in the independent side because all we need is for people to trust us. If I trust Kara, I'm going to find her on YouTube. I'm going to find you on TikTok, Instagram, wherever you are.

And my audience is fragmented that way. There are some people who only get my content on Instagram. It's where they want to be. There's no moving them from there. There are 1.2 million of them, so I'm like, God bless them. If people really want my TikTok content, that's where they're going to get it. They are not going to be moved to somewhere else because I'm trying to force them to. So I try to serve all of those audiences simultaneously because I think people should get their info where they want it.

Where they want it. You know, many years ago, a Disney executive who was actually smart for one second, This was many years ago when they were resisting everything, said the audience has taken control and they're not going to give it back. That's right. Ever. And they shouldn't. Why should they? Yeah, because they're doing it.

And then when people, to me, when people pay for something, whether it's a sponsor or an audience person, that says everything. Like you made something that people want. All right. So every episode, we get a question from an outside expert. Yours is from your buddy, Don Lemon. Hey. Let's listen. Joy, your comments about Elvis and Trump building power on the backs of black,

culture sparked some real outrage. But let's be honest, when a black journalist says that, it's called race baiting. When our friends like Jennifer Welch or Scott Galloway or even a Kara Swisher says it, the reaction is often different. It's softer, almost intellectual. Do you think that you could have said that on MSNBC or would you have had to water it down to keep your seat? And here is the blunt question. If you were white, do you think you'd still be there? And does that mean that independent platforms are now the only place to tell the truth without standing down the edges for corporate comfort? Well, Don decided to go hard with the question. I know. Of course, you know, he was sick all weekend. I was like, where's your fucking question,

Don? He's like, I've been sick. I don't look good. I'm like, listen, you vain person. Get it out there. Don's referring to something you said in a recent interview on Waja Lee's show, The Left Hook. Explain what happened there and talk about the blowback and then answer. You see. said you wanted to troll MAGA and you did. So, um, so, uh, they're easily, they're easily sparked. They're like, first of all, these are the fuck your feelings, people. Yeah. Their feelings are so gentle and soft. You can't, they just, oh my God, it's taking off the black man on the next. Why is it next to the barrel? Put the black man by the barrel or I can't eat it. I can't eat because, you know, it's like, what is wrong with these

people? They are the most snowflakey people ever. They are. Their feelings are so easily hurt. I'm like, y'all talk about us. You guys. You guys. can't take. You guys are ridiculous. Ridiculous. So Wajahat had this premise for our interview on his show, The Left Hook, which was so much fun. I love Wage. That was mediocre white men are driving the magatrain. And they're destroying society because their mediocrity, they can't handle it. And so I'm going with this premise. And I said, look, I think the ultimate example of that is Donald Trump. I mean, Donald Trump, if you just look at the fact of his life, he failed at business. He went $900 million in the hole after inheriting some odd million dollars. That is by any

metric of failure as a businessman. But he was saved because, you know, he's a white guy. So banks kept lending to him. Russia lent to him, you know, whatever Deutsche Bank kept lending to him. And he was also saved by the apprentice. You know, we had on, on my MSNBC show, on the readout, one of the people who was part of building the apprentice. And he said, look, we hired this man when he was dead broke. He was on his face. And we brought him back. And the world believed he was this successful billionaire because of the apprentice, not because of his own feats of, you know, of business acumen. So Donald Trump is the example of this person that failed up, right? And he failed up so hard that he's the president of the United States. And he has a cult. Like, that's a pretty big

failup. Well, I think you went to Elvis, the third real. And then I went to Elvis. And this is why I think it's legitimate. Elvis Presley was called the King of Rock and Roll by white people. Black people didn't do that because black people who had been doing rock and roll, Chuck Barry had been doing it, you know, all of these great artists were already doing rock and roll. But this white guy comes along and does his version of it, including his version of a song that was a hit that was a black woman had already made. He re-does it and suddenly he's the king of rock and roll. Little Richard would go on and on about this. If you got him in an interview, he would lose it about Elvis. Because the point that a lot of these black artists were making is that white artists were coming along, remaking. songs that black artists had already put out and that were already popular among the original rock and roll audience. Yeah, that's the argument about all this. And they just took it. It was an appropriation. They just were like, I'm going to take it. But because I'm a white guy, people are going to see me as the greatest rock and roll artist of all time. Not all white artists went along with that. The Beatles were very clear about giving credit to black artists for

their art. And it is the way America has always been. Yeah, I think it wasn't that controversial thing to say. It's kind of obvious. Although I will say, Whitney Houston did make a bigger hit out of, I will always love you, to Dolly Parton's. She switched it up on us. And we were like, hey, and you know, by the way, Luther Vandross made a career of doing that. Luther Vandross took, don't you remember you told me you love it, baby, and turned it into a whole soul hit, right? Yeah, and so you've got, right? Thank you. So we have it in reverse, too. It does happen. No, I'm teasing. It's much more so the other way. But, but I mean, the Reality is, it's like, I mean, literally, Beyonce is being told she's not a country artist

by people from New York when she's literally from Houston, Texas. Yes, yes, yes, this is not a conduit. But would you have had to, like, to Donne's question, would you have had to water that down if you were in MBC and do you think that race had anything to do with your firing or are independence, the only place for the truth? That's his question. I feel like if I had said that on MSNBC and I had, let's say, said it without a script, right? If I had unscripted, just said the same thing. I definitely feel I would have gotten pushback from management. I would have been told I needed to apologize.

To Elvis fans at the very least. To Elvis fans and say, oh, no, don't worry. Elvis fans, I think Elvis is great. Like, I definitely think I would have gotten in trouble. Yeah, I think I would have gotten in trouble. I think that's very clear. There's things you just can't get away with saying on cable TV. You just can't.

So I think that's true. I think as far as, what was the second part of his question? Race had to do anything to your fire. So, yeah. What I will say is I do not think, and Pierre Pius Morgan tried to say that I claimed I was fired because I was black, which I've never said, which is ridiculous. And I never said that. But what I said is, and that angered Pius and the other right wingers, is that when I say something about Elvis or I say something about Trump, it hits different to MAGA. Because coming from me, it's the same way that Dish James prosecuting Trump and all these black women. judges and Fannie Willis. Lisa Cook. Lisa Cook.

It hits different. Donald Trump hates the Fed, but the one he's choosing to fire and accused of being a criminal is Lisa Cook. And this country was built on a very determined, intentional racism. And the denial of that and pretending that isn't true, I think is insane. This is a country built as a slave empire. And so the detritus from that still exists. And it exists in ongoing racism and racial differences.

And so do I think I was fired because I was black? No. But was I the easiest person to get rid of and make Trump happy? Yeah. You know, you can't, you know, was I the easiest person that would, that Trump would feel the best about firing? Yeah. Absolutely. He seems to have an issue with black women, except for me. Except for Gloria Gaynor, I guess. I don't know what's happening there. So you weren't the only who been under fire from the right. Stephen Colbert, speaking of a very white person, was also, man, was unservice. and honestly fired, his show canceled. There's been a social media rumor going around that you, Stephen Colbert, and Rachel Maddor are joining forces to create an independent news room. I assuming that's fake news. It is fake news. I know that. I would love it, though. It would be fun.

Could you imagine doing something like that? And you think it says about the current media landscape that progresses are getting excited about the three of you? When I tell you, my sister sent me that, like it got to and my family, believe, you know, it's like everyone was sending me. I have had so many media people and friends send me that. Yeah. So it is not true. I will say it right now, everyone. Rachel Maddo and Stephen Colbert and I are not starting a news network and is not happening. But I think the fact that people would love for that to happen, it does say something about the thirst on the left to have what the right has. You know, while we on the left were building our audiences at MSNBC and, you know, believing that everyone could clearly see that Donald Trump was insane, that they could clearly see that Russia was involved in our elections, that no one would ever. put back the guy who caused a million people to die from COVID, that, come on, we can all see this. We were in our own bubble. And I think that there is this desire now to scramble and create with the right behind the scenes while we were doing what we were doing, what they were building.

I think there is a desire to have it. And I think that you have to be willing to just lie in a way and be cruel in a way that the left isn't good at, to build that in the same way. Or you have to do it the way Joe Rogan did, which is you're not even political. You're just actually appealing to people who loved your comedy, and you're just making a bond with them. And then when you shift to politics, they go with you. Right. You know, and so I think that people think you can just on turnkey build what they have. You can't.

I mean, Rush Limbaugh spent, what, 20 to 25 years screaming into, you know, AM radio stations. And I do believe that cable is what talk radio morphed into, and that's now this. independent media is sort of still building off of what that was. And the left just is behind. And the Democratic Party is lost. They have no idea how to do this. There's some very strong ones, though. It's an interesting. There's more than there used to be, I would say that. Definitely. But they're not the ones who get the favor. You think about it. What committee chair is Jasmine Crockett getting none? Because she's not a ball playing doctrinaire neoliberal Democrat, right? And the sort of doctrinaire Democrats still control the party. And the outstanding Democrats, you know, the Al Greens, the cane shaker, I love him so much. Like, those guys get sort of shoved to the side because they're seen as too loud, too obnoxious. You know, they're not doing enough good job of McKinseying their way into the center, you know, this fictional center that doesn't exist. Although, look at Gavin Newsom suddenly being the tough, the crazy guy. But you know why?

Because Gavin Newsom is just being like, I'm just going to be an ass. If y'all are an ass, I'm an ass. How about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's switch gears and talk about politics. In a recent interview on the Breakfast Club, you said Democrats are almost too orderly for fascism. I know what you mean, but you explain that. Yeah, Democrats think that this is a political problem and that you can go in and you can stick to the rules, play by the rules, and somehow fascism will go away in the next midterm because we're just going to get this many seats.

And it's like, that's not the way fascism works. You're just assuming there's going to be a free and fair election. Donald Trump saw your will hit you in 2026 and said, I'm about to rig Texas. And then Gavin Newsom said, Yolo, you want to rig Texas? Let me rig California. And a lot of Democrats went,

oh, we don't like that. That's gerrymandering. It's like, but wait a minute. No, no, no, no. That's what you need to do. It's all out war. War is being made upon you. You need to make war back.

And Democrats always want to make friends, not war. And they want this orderly process that follows the rules and that never strays from the rule. Even Barack Obama, who was part of, he and Eric Holder created that anti-jerrymandering organization. And even he's like, nope, time to walk away from that.

We got a gerrymander back. It has got to be mutually assured destruction because the Republican Party has been captured by fascists. It has been captured completely by a cult. And if you're dealing with Jim Jones, the way you deal with Jim Jones is not to say maybe a different flavor of Kool-Aid. Like, no, you have to get those people out of there. They're all going to die. Okay. So it's right.

And so it's like this is, I mean, I don't understand. the sort of calm the Democrats, and they're thinking, we'll just talk about Epstein a lot more. Yeah, no, you need to do something dramatic to shake up this system and make people understand. Something like, I don't know, Zohan Mamdani is doing, where he's saying, your problem is costs, I'm going to zero in on it, I'm going to make stuff cheaper.

I don't care what I have to do. I'm going to go hard. I'm going to go radical. And then they go, we don't like Zoranamani. He doesn't have the right views on Israel. And you're like, well, but he's going to win. They're like, wait. I always say, you know, the big bug that young people don't vote, and then when they vote, they're like, we don't like your vote. We don't like how you voted. And I'm like, they voted what they wanted. And that should be the voice of the people, essentially, or whoever, the people who vote. So when you think about that, I've been asking people about prospective presidential candidates for 2028. I'm curious who you're looking at, and you're saying Dems need to match game with game to get people out front of getting attention, whatever their topic happens to be. It could be Epstein, like AOC, or like you mentioned, Jasmine Crock.

Talk a little bit about that. We've talked about Gavin Newsom Westmore. There's also Gretchen Whitmer. Josh Shapiro. There's lots. There's lots. There's Pritzker from Illinois. And there's people maybe we aren't thinking of. And obviously AOC is a very gifted politician and thinker. And think she might run for Senate. I suspect she might be gearing up to challenge Schumer. I can see her. I can see her upstate with those people. They would love her. And MAGA people like her. Can't you see? I can because you know what it is? And I think people also. She's a working class. Yeah, I think people think she's doing a thing that can be replicated. No, she's literally just authentic. She's just her authentic self. Jasmine is just her authentic self. Jasmine Crockett. Some of these people are just good. I just met a woman named Jolanda Jones, who's going to run for Congress, who's a state representative in Texas. Authentic. She's just herself. She was actually on Survivor. Weirdly enough. So she actually knows a little bit of performative TV stuff, too. You know. Even in Iowa, that woman who just won. Oh, my God. Yes. Just yourself. Same thing with Laura Kelly, who I think is a gifted politician. And I would also say Rosbaraka. Rosbaraka in New Jersey. That should have been the gubernatorial. I'm not sure Mikey Sherrill will pull it off. I don't know.

But she's a normal, normie politician Democrat. And is that going to get, like, young people, people of color out? I don't know. I don't know how she's going to do that. Whereas I think Ross Baraka would have, but people sat down in the primary. I think, number one, Democrats have lost, they've lost the plot on where. the power is. The power is in primaries. Maga and before them the Tea Party took over the Republican Party using primaries because by the general election, you just get the doctrinaire voters who vote their party, right? You've got to win the primary in order to win the whole thing. And Democrats have lost the art of making sure that they put the right person in that primary. So I think about the 28, first of all, I'm not sure we're going to have a presidential election. I'm being honest. I think Trump is going to try to stay in office. I think this deployment of troops all over the country, 1,700 troops fanning out to 21 states is a rehearsal. I wouldn't be shocked if he

tried the martial law gambit. He's desperate to stay in because, number one, he's grifting so much money. He's getting rich. He's finally a billionaire. He's never going to give that up. And I don't know that he's going to allow a presidential election or a fair and free presidential election in 2028. So it's hard for me to sit down. And what I used to do was game out, like who could be a 2028 contender. I think it could be somebody we don't even know who it is. But I think it has to be someone, and I won't name who I think it should be, but I'll say it needs to be somebody with Gavin Newsom's attitude. It has to be that energy. I want Gavin Newsom's energy. I want Pritzker's money because it's got to be somebody who's so rich or that has access to so much money that they can overcome Peter Thiel and Elon Musk and all these other right-wing zealot billionaires who are going to try to hold on because they're getting everything from Trump. contracts, billions, they're getting access to our data. They've got it all. They're not going to

give that up either. So we're fighting against the empire in 2028 if we have elections. This is our Star Wars moment. And I don't know who right now is the right person to be a candidate, but it's going to have to be someone, it's going to have to be Wakanda forever level, you know, to Chala. But interesting, you said Gavin Newsome Energy, but not Gavin Newsome. It could be him. I don't know. I mean, I have friends in California who are doubters, and I don't live in California, so I don't know. But I actually, you live in California? Do what do you think? Do you think his record is good to hold up? I've always like, here's my take on. I understand the problems with him. I get it. I get it. But who's the person? And this is just one single issue who stood up for gay marriage when it was difficult to do so. Gavin? Only person. Only one. Yes. It hurt him dramatically. He was set back by a decade. He was on the rise, like nobody's business.

he did it. You know, and I had an argument that America's not ready for gay marriage. And I think I said it's called leadership. Yeah. So I've always, I've always appreciated that. You're right. At that time, it was portrayed in our cable news world as he's done, right, as he's finishing his career. And I actually am a huge Gavin fan. I'll be honest with you. I think one of the things I do like about him is the way he, he actually trolls Trump without speaking. He's good looking. Trump wishes he looked like Gavin Newsom, okay? His fans try to dress Trump up and make him look like Superman. Gavin Newsom actually does look like Superman although actually a friend of mine pointed out once that he also looks like Count Chocula and I can't get that out of my head because he actually kind of does like Count Chocula Yeah he does a little bit

And I'm obsessed with it now Like put a side by side We like Count Chocula We love Count Chocula It's good I love the cereal But he's like a really good looking Count Chocula right And I love the fact that he knows how to troll

Trump he's a natural troll He's someone who I think America would go for like a Kennedy-esque figure. You know, he's got a beautiful wife. Look, I'm ready to roll with Gavin tomorrow. If he wants to announce, I will join his campaign team, okay? I just need Trump to go away. More?

Or, you know, I don't really have alternatives. I just want them to have Gavin's energy. So if it's not Gavin, they need these infuse. And I love Wes Moore. Westmore is actually brilliant. Now, but I just interviewed him for the Joy Reid Show. And he was very definitive that he does not want to run for president. He wants to remain governor, which is the right answer.

you don't want someone too thirsty for it. But Wes Moore is like a genius level great. He's a great politician. He's really smart. And I think he also is absolutely somebody who should be thought about. Pritzker's rich, which is helpful. So, but the Democrats have been lamenting how they didn't reach low-pensity voters, low-income voters. People are struggling that didn't explain what the party could do for him as Mumdomey has done and why I think he's popular in New York right now. And the Dems are facing that crisis. How do you square the medium as a message is, we need a better message. At the Democratic National Committee meeting this week,

they were debating about U.S. Polities toward Israel. Progressives are calling for an arms embargo and a ceasefire in Gaza. What has to happen here, given the centrists still seem to hold control? The reality is the Democratic Party's position on Israel, Gaza, is morally indefensible. It just is. The reality that we actually have laws in this country that are supposed to prevent us from arming countries that are committing war crimes, The ICJ has definitively stated that BB Netanyahu and his government are committing war crimes. They just are.

And the idea that Democrats are still so beholden to this sort of 1990s version of foreign policy that Joe Biden was, who's otherwise a very good and compassionate man, but on Gaza, he seemed to just be just hard and cold. Like, I'd never understood it. He believed all the, you know, propaganda that came out of the Israeli government. He just kept sending bombs. I think his position sunk Kamala Harris, to be honest. I think that hurt her more than anything else, even though I think she would have been much, much better on this issue. And I think she has more compassion, more human compassion.

The Democrats, like, the fact that they are so, you know, APEC seems to have so much control over so many of their views and that they won't walk away from this war criminal any more than Trump will. They can't really ding Trump for being in bed with a war criminal because they are too. And so, and the young Democrats are the, you know, know, the squad that have been standing, you know, ten toes down that this is wrong, you know, that apartheid is wrong. They punish them. They sideline them. They let APEC come after them. They let them take out Cory Bush. No defense for Cory Bush. No defense for the brother in New York

that was running, you know, even though his district was probably redistricted out anyway, but still, no defense of him. They just are so scared to defend Mom Dani. It's interesting because it's not just the ASEs of the world. I've spent an hour with my son. He goes to the University of Michigan. And his topic was Israel. He's like, how can they, how can Democrats? Because I sent him a story when the number two Democrats said it was genocide and then she took it back. And I wrote him, I like, look, they're moving, like, because he had been very upset by the situation. Young people are very, like, of all kinds.

And I have, like, literally the tallest, whitest son you could ever have. And he, and this is a very illuminating and motivating topic for them because it's in front of their eyes kind of thing. On their screens? Yeah, they don't think they're being tricked. They don't think they're being, and they also don't like Hamas. Like, they don't. Like, and that's the thing, which is really, you know, they're smart enough to understand the complexity of the situation, which it is 100%.

They can have two ideas that October 7th is terrible and the Hamas is terrible, and this is also a genocide. Some of my folks that are in my world that are the most angry about this are Jewish, too. They're just like, they hate it being done in their name. We'll be back in a minute. It won't take long to tell you neutral's ingredients. Vodka, soda, natural flavors. So, what should we talk about? No.

were added? Neutral. Refreshingly simple. Before we go, I want to zoom out and talk about the broader media landscape. If you were running MSNBC right now, what would you, maybe that's... Ms. Now, you mean. You mean Ms. Now. Now, right?

Ms. Now. You're using teams. What would you do? What would you do? How do you look at... their prospects. One of the things we discovered when the consciousness decoupling happened is that all the reporters actually worked for NBC, but we were a partner so we could just use them, right? Now MSNBC has to, you know, I think they've hired Jacob Soberoff, which is a great hire. He's brilliant. And they've got to now hire a whole news team, right? They don't have bureaus, not like CNN where they've got bureaus all. They don't have that. So you're talking about having to scale up an entire news operation or buy one. My favorite rumor that was out there was that they would just buy CNN, which actually would make sense in a way, right? you get all the bureaus, right? So I don't really know how I would manage that. I think what you also have to manage is the fact that the audience at these traditional news outlets, and not just cable, but broadcast as well, is aging. And so you're serving an sort of aging audience while the new audience, the younger audience is really not coming to you. And they're not, there's nothing you can do to bring them back. And sorry, but making them more MAGA friendly is not going to bring the young people back. Young people, it's not that they're MAGA. They're just sick of everybody. The MAG of people like what they have.

They have Fox and they have Newsmax and they have OAN. And they have their independent, they don't need you, right? They have Charlie Kirk and all that and other stuff. So you can't bring those people over. And I think there has been this belief. I think Andy Lack really believed that you could just bring those people into MSNBC if you just hire Megan Kelly. And then they'll suddenly start watching MSNBC. That's not how that works at all or NBC or whatever.

Even the right wing likes what they like. They like what they like. And they have what they already have you. You don't need a copy when you have the original, right? You're not going to out-fox, Fox. And so what I say to these old media companies is I invite you to try this experiment, do this live experiment. See if you can sanitize everything. Take all the black people out of the shows. Get rid of all the black helm shows. Just make everything white bread, leave it to beaver. And see how much money you make. Because I look at data and the data says that my generation, Generation X, I think you and I are both Generation X. I'm not going to age you and make you Gen X. Maybe you're a millennial. Keep going. Keep going. But people under 15, the Gen Alpha, they're already majority not. white. That ship has sailed. You cannot deport enough and beat up enough and drag enough brown people

into gray vans with masked men to change that because they're already here born. Unless you're going to deport every person under 15, you can't change the demographic change. And I see what they're trying to do. I see what you're doing here, Maga. You think you can deport your way out of this 2045 shift in the white majority. So I think the media is chasing the past. And they've got to start figuring out how to chase the future. And I think. I think new media is chasing the future because we understand that it's trusted individual voices that people will follow and then you can proliferate access to yourself on all these media. That is the future. And so I feel badly for these. That's why I said I kind of feel for these folks that are trying to run these OG companies because I don't know how you scale yourself into finding new audiences because the old audiences are going to get old and they're going to pass away. But Versant is such a great name. Results may vary.

Percent. It sounds like a drug for, it sounds like a drug for like E.D. Ed. Versent. The little blue pill. This is what happens when non-TV people name TV things, right? TV people would have never named either of those things that. I don't know if it matters.

Everyone else is going to call it MSNBC. It doesn't really matter. Look, I still call it Twitter. Okay. And y'all... Yeah, me too. I was just wearing a Twitter. I don't care what you did to me.

I don't care what you say. I had two million followers and I got off. I did. And I walked away from two million followers. But you know what it is? I actually walked into Lawrence O'Donnell's office one day because I love Lawrence. He gives great advice. And I was like, Lawrence, I think I should get off Twitter. And he was like, okay. And I was like, because why should I give every time I would tweet something, as I used to call them, they would like make it their A block. Like they would go off on something I tweeted. I'm like, if they're going to go off on me, I need to make them play a clip from my show. And then they can go off on that. And so that's why I got off. I said, you know, I'm not going to give Elon free content. I despite. buys the band. I'm like, I'm going to give him free content that I don't even get paid for. And then I'm not going to give Fox and all the other haters free content that they can then churn out. If you're going to turn it out, I want you to play my TikTok video, play my Instagram video, play my Wajahat interview, and play my show. Play the Joy Reid show. And then you go off. Yeah, yeah. Megan Kelly does me that favor all the time. She's always mad at me. And then she puts all

my stuff up on them. I was like, are you upset? I'm like, no, thank you. Thank you very much. Last question. Speaking of building up MS now, all the hiring that's happening, they are hiring a lot of people. Do you think there's a door open for you to go back? Would you want to at this point? After this interview? Hell no. They're never going to let me back in. I actually don't think they would never hire me back. Your pictures at the door. It's like if somebody shoplifted it's like, don't let this person back in here. I promise you they would never hire me back. I don't know a lot, but I know they ain't proud of bring me back at all.

And also it's not called MSNBC anymore. Ms. Now ain't trying to play with me. Ms. Now don't like me. You know, we sealed this deal today. What is the goal? Because one of the things I've always advised people who are new media entrepreneurs is you can do too much.

Yes. You have to really figure out what you make that people really like and then build off of that. That's right. Yeah, you're right. And you're absolutely right. And I've already gone into the,

I'm spiraling because I'm doing too much, you know, meltdowns. And it's because just keeping up the substack, you know, I'm a writer. I love to write. But boy, that's a lot of work, you know, trying to write and research and make sure I have the links. And again, I'm doing it on my own. So it's a lot. And then the show is a lot. You know, thank God for Jason. He does all the tech. I don't have to deal with that. He does everything else. And you know, we're now looking at like higher producers and add more people. But what were, the other things that we're working on, because we're actually a documentary film company. And that's what that's what Image Lab was actually created to do. And so we are working on a documentary. So if anybody's out there and has lots of money and wants to give it to me, please. And it's actually built off of something people loved, which is the Megger and Merley book, which did really well. And so we're doing a documentary, which is about the mystery, which one wouldn't think is a mystery about Megger Ever's assassination. There was so much more to it that I couldn't get into the book because we were trying to focus on the love story. But we were digging, we were deep in the FBI files about this assassination. And there's so much more to the story, maybe other people involved. And it's like really fascinating.

And since I couldn't get it into the book, we decided we're going to make a documentary. That's a great idea. You know, Netflix loves a crime. And then the other thing we're working on is we've interviewed all these mayors, because, you know, mayors and governors have really become the front line in fighting Trump. They are. And we're now looking to sort of collect all of these mayoral interviews into a separate little documentary about just how mayors are fighting fascism. That's great. Those are great things. Anyway, you're doing great. I think this, you're made for this. You're on, I say, I was with someone the other day who was thinking about doing this. I'm like, I think you should stay where you are. It was my polite way of saying. No

You're like Simon Cowell Who was always my favorite person On that show Because everyone else was like Oh my God, you were great He was like, you're awful Go home And I'm like that's what they needed

In that moment Do not go home to MS now No Ms. Now No Ms. Now I think Ms. Now and Count Chocula That's what I've been left With this entire interview I really appreciate it

Joy or delight And I think one of the things it's great about doing your own independent. People can see not the cartoon version of Dory Reid, which gets depicted in right-wing media and stuff like that, but a very much more rounded thing. And that's what's really powerful to do. Yeah, indeed.

Although I am a cartoon. I've been told. That's true. That's true. This was so much fun. So much fun. Let's do it every week. It's therapy for me.

Okay. Thanks, Joy. Thank you. On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castro Bissell, Katera, Megan Bernie, Kaelin Lynch, and Michelle Eloy. The Shot Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Bradley Sylvester and Catherine Barner. Aaliyah Jackson engineered this episode, and our theme music is by trackademics.

If you're already following the show, you have Gavin Newsom's energy and J.B. Pritzker's money. If not, your count chocula. Go wherever you listen to a podcast, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit Follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.