President Trump issued a brutal takedown of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, vowing that she would soon ‘be off the air’.
In a late-night post to his Truth Social account, the commander-in-chief said: ‘Wow! Rachel Maddow has horrible ratings. She’ll be off the air very soon.
‘MSNBC IS CLOSE TO DEATH. CNN HAS REACHED THE BOTTOM. This is a good thing. They are the Enemy of the people!’
Trump’s remarks came after Maddow compared him to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro on Wednesday.
The outspoken liberal was speaking about Trump’s recent January 6 pardons when she made the remark.
Maddow, MSNBC’S top dog in terms of ratings, kicked off a on air rant that started with complaints about Stewart Rhodes, freed founder of the far-right Oath Keepers.
Rhodes, like several others, was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his part in the insurrection.
The 2021 riot saw more than 100 cops injured, and Maddow – despite one being a supporter of ‘defunding the police’ – was unwilling to let that slide.
In a late-night post to his Truth Social account, the commander-in-chief said that Maddow would soon be off the air
Trump’s remarks came after Maddow, seen here, compared him to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro on Wednesday
After singling out Rhodes specifically, she told viewers: ‘There are rumors circulating that Trump had wanted to bring his felons – had wanted to bring these guys who violently attacked police and were convicted for it – all to the White House too.
‘That’s the sort of thing that probably sounded great at a Trump rally,’ she continued, seemingly ad-libbing at this point.
‘Probably sounded like it was something the people wanted, when you were stewing about stuff like this at a Trump rally.
‘At one of your Fidel Castro, Castro-esque, you know, three and a half hour long rambly speeches,’ she continued, quickly offering the juxtaposition.
She could not help but add: ‘Where most of the people left before you were halfway through it.’
Maddow had also taken issues with the attendance of tech billionaires at Trump’s inauguration earlier this week.
Figures including Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook had been invited to the ceremony.
Speaking on air, she had said: ‘How is this happening in America?’, while her co-host Chris Hayes likened him to a ‘cult leader’.
In a late night post, Trump said that MSNBC was ‘close to death’ and that ‘CNN had reached the bottom’
MSNBC host compares Donald Trump to Fidel Castro
The network has been struggling with viewership, with the former president of the company Rashida Jones resigning earlier this month.
Insiders told Variety that Jones decided to leave after ‘an intense cycle’, with Maddow set to return to a five-night hosting schedule after viewership saw them lose ground to rivals CNN and Fox News.
Maddow had previously reduced her hosting duties to one night per week, but resumed her five-night schedule for the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency in hopes of drawing in lost viewers.
Last month the new bosses of the media firm that oversees MSNBC started making it clear they want more Republican voices on the left-wing network.
It came weeks after the CEO is said to have slashed Rachel Maddow’s pay by some $5million, after she agreed to stay with the network for another five years.
She had reportedly been earning a $30million salary for her weekly show – the second highest paid anchor in television news after Sean Hannity at Fox News who pulls in $45million.
From the day after the 2024 election, MSNBC has averaged around 603,000 total viewers in primetime – compared to 3.2 million for Fox News.
According to Nielsen data, seen by Adweek, MSNBC’s primetime lineup averaged around 758,000 viewers for the week of January 13.
