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Rachel Maddow is opening up about stepping away from MSNBC and handing her prime time slot to Jen Psaki.
Maddow previously announced she would return to hosting The Rachel Maddow Show for five nights a week for Donald Trump’s first 100 days back in office. As of Monday night (May 5), she is back to hosting Mondays only, as former Joe Biden spokesperson Psaki took over the 9 pm ET slot starting last night (May 6).
Speaking to People following the end of her 100-day stint, Maddow admitted she never envisioned returning to nightly shows, which she scaled back in 2022 as she focused on other projects.
“I had definitely stepped back and considered that to be permanent,” she told the outlet, admitting her return to five nights a week was “not on my bingo card in terms of things that I was considering.”
However, after MSNBC called her and asked if she’d come back full-time for the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency, Maddow said, “I felt like it was a really good faith, big-hearted ask, like, ‘This would be good for our audience, this would be good for the network. I know it’s a big ask. Would you consider it?’ I was just sort of moved by feeling needed a little bit in that way.”
Now that Trump’s first 100 days have passed, Maddow is ready to hand control over to The Briefing with Jen Psaki, which will air Tuesdays to Fridays at 9 pm ET. Maddow said she is “so happy for the MSNBC audience” to see more variety on screen.
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“The thing [Psaki] has which I do not have, which is going to make 9 o’clock better with Jen Psaki than it is with Rachel Maddow, is that she both knows people and knows how to talk to people,” Maddow explained.
She added, “I really am a weird little hermit who works great with my staff, but I don’t know anybody in Washington. I don’t know anybody in the news, and it’s on purpose — I am not great at interacting with people. I’m not a great interviewer and I’m not great at cultivating sources. It’s not my thing. I’m a reader, not a talker.”
Maddow is sure Psaki will be able to secure the top interviews given her impressive list of contacts, noting, “I don’t know anybody else who really can do that the way that she does.”
She also said Psaki isn’t at risk of letting the bright lights of television turn her into a “monster,” saying, “She’s not been susceptible to that wizardry. She’s a good person.”
As for what’s next for Maddow, she said she’d like to enjoy her free time but knows she will likely just end up working more.
“When I made the transition the last time, I had this big list of all this stuff I want to do, and it was finally clean the basement and learn how to detail [my wife] Susan’s car… finally learn to double haul, which is a hard way of fish-casting that I can’t do,” she shared. “I didn’t do any of that.”
“All I did was make podcasts and write books and make documentaries and set up this new company, Surprise Inside, through which I’m doing books and movies and TV shows and podcasts,” she continued. “I didn’t get any time off at all. I instead just started working on a different schedule that didn’t need me to produce a TV show every day.”
And even though she’s stepping back to one night a week, Maddow said she has no plans to leave MSNBC any time soon.
“I’ll be there every Monday night on MSNBC and whenever the bat phone rings, whenever they need me to come in and do special coverage, I’ll do it,” she stated. “I’m not going anywhere. They’re going to have to drag me out of here. You’re going to see the fingernail lines down the floorboards.”
