Rachel Maddow defended recently fired MSNBC colleague Joy Reid Monday night and told her audience, “I think it is a bad mistake to let her walk out the door.” The decision by the network to cancel “The ReidOut” also “feels indefensible,” she added.

She was also unhappy with MSNBC’s decision to make staff on the show reapply for their positions. “It’s not the right way to treat people and its inefficient and it’s unnecessary and it kind of drops the bottom out of whether people think this is a good place to work,” Maddow said.

Maddow began her show by announcing that Reid officially left the network today, something that is “very, very, very hard to take.”

“I am 51 years old. I have been gainfully employed since I was 12. And I have had so many different kinds of jobs — you wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she continued. “But in all of the jobs I have had, in all of the years I have been alive, there is no colleague for whom I have had more affection and more respect than Joy Reid.”

“I love everything about her. I have learned so much from her,” Maddow continued. “I have so much more to learn from her. I do not want to lose her as a colleague here at MSNBC. And, personally, I think it is a bad mistake to let her walk out the door. It is not my call, and I understand that. But that’s what I think.”

She added that it is “unnerving” that “on a network where we have got two non-white hosts in prime time, both of our non-white hosts in prime time are losing their shows, as is Katie Phang on the weekend. And that feels worse than that, no matter who replaces them. That feels indefensible, and I do not defend it.”

Maddow then drew attention to other MSNBC employees who are affected by the cancellation of Reid and Phang’s shows: the people who work behind the scenes to get the shows on the air.

“Dozens of producers and staffers, including some who are among the most experienced and most talented and most specialist producers in the building are facing being laid off,” she said.

“They are being invited to reapply for new jobs. That has never happened at this scale in this way before when it comes to programming changes, presumably because it is not the right way to treat people and it is inefficient and it is unnecessary, and it kind of drops the bottom out of whether or not people feel like this is a good place to work, and we don’t generally do things that way.”

Anxiety for impacted employees is “off the charts,” she said. “At a time when this job already is extra stressful and difficult, it is not news for me to tell you that the press and freedom of the press are under attack in a way that is really… It’s a big deal for our country. It’s very visceral for us here.”

“This is a difficult time in the news business, but it does not need to be this difficult,” Maddow added. “We welcome new voices to this place and some familiar voices to new hours. It’s going to be great, honestly, and we want to grow and succeed and reach more people than ever and to be resilient and stay here forever. I also believe, and I bet you believe, that the way to get there is by treating people well.”

But “finding good people, good colleagues, doing good work with them, and then having their back,” she said, “that we could do a lot better on. A lot better.”

Phang will remain at MSNBC as a legal correspondent, and her show’s cancellation is the result of a decision to no longer broadcast from Miami, the network has said. Additionally, “The Weekend” hosts Symone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, and Alicia Menendez have all been promoted to prime time.

Reid reacted with tears and “anger, rage, disappointment, and hurt” to news that her show was canceled, she said in a video shared on X Monday.

“I’ve been through every emotion, from anger, rage, disappointment, hurt … feeling guilt that I let my team lose their jobs,” she said during a video call with Win for Black Women.

“I try not to cry,” Reid also said. “I try not to cry on TV, and I think [this Zoom call] is kind of like me on TV, so I apologize.”

The cancellation is part of Rebecca Kutler’s vision for the network moving forward. Anchor Alex Wagner will also be replaced during the 9 p.m. spot Tuesday-Friday, but will remain with the network as a correspondent.

Kutler replaced Rashida Jones as the network’s chief last month. She joined the network in 2022 after being hand-selected by Jones and was part of the team that oversaw the development of “Inside with Jen Psaki” and “The Weekend” — the latter of which has seen an ratings increase of 35% since it launched in January 2024.

Kutler is also on a hiring spree and is looking for a head of talent, head of newsgathering, a Washington bureau chief, and a head of content strategy. Her plans include establishing a MSNBC Washington Bureau and installing a cohort of domestic and international correspondents.

The network head has her eye on reporters from the Washington Post and Politico, as well as print outlets and other networks. This includes Politico’s Eugene Daniels and NYU law professor Melissa Murray.