MSNBC’s $25 Million Star Returning To Weekly Show. Here’s A Look Back At Maddow’s Brief Stint Working Full Schedule

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow will return to a once-a-week schedule starting May 5, but before she does, here’s a look back at her brief return to working a nightly schedule.

In January, the left-leaning corporate network said Maddow would host her show five days a week for the first 100 days of Trump’s second term, two months after she signed a five-year deal with the network in November, receiving $25 million a year – a $5 million pay cut from her previous pact with MSNBC, according to the New York Post. During the 100 days that she worked five-days a week, she managed to provide MSNBC viewers with hours of left-wing commentary for which she is well known.

She took to the airwaves in February to claim a $400 million purchase of Tesla Cybertrucks from December 2024 was an example of corruption on the part of Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Rachel Maddow (Screenshot/MSNBC)

In February, MSNBC announced that shows hosted by Joy Reid and Wagner would end, with Reid being let go from the network and former White House press secretary Jen Psaki taking over the 9:00 p.m. slot on Tuesdays through Friday with a new show while Wagner returned to her role as a senior analyst. Psaki’s new show will start May 6 and be called “The Briefing,” according to The Associated Press.

The lineup shake-up came after the network’s parent company, Comcast, announced it would spin the left-leaning network off, along with several other networks including CNBC, USA, Oxygen and SyFy in November 2024.

“I will tell you. It is also unnerving to see that on a network where we’ve got two — count them — two nonwhite hosts in primetime, both of our nonwhite hosts in primetime are losing their shows, as is Katie Phang on the weekend,” Maddow said about the cancellation of the shows hosted by Reid and Wagner during her Feb. 24 show. “And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them. That feels indefensible and I do not defend it.”

Maddow also received criticism for calling the decision to present Devarjaye “D.J.” Daniel, who is battling brain cancer, with credentials to serve as an honorary Secret Service agent during Trump’s March 4 speech to Congress, “disgusting.”

“For the record – and this is disgusting – the president made a spectacle out of praising a young man who’s thus far survived pediatric cancer – as if the president had something to do with that,” Maddow said during a panel discussion about the speech.

Maddow allowed Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota to claim during her March 20 show that Trump’s decision to shut down the Department of Education would bring segregation back to schools. (RELATED: Rachel Maddow Couldn’t Wait For Trump To Be Declared Winner Before Already Invoking Russia)

“This is about the research you were talking about pedagogy, things that we learn, and then it’s about the civil rights department and the Department of Education that makes sure that we don’t have a situation where a Ruby Bridges is escorted to school with police,” Walz said. “And so we’re, we’re back in an era where we can segregate.”

Maddow announced she would shift to a weekly show that aired on Mondays at 9:00 p.m. Eastern in April 2022, with MSNBC naming then-senior political analyst Alex Wagner as the host of a new show on Tuesdays through Fridays at 9 p.m. in June 2022.

Maddow’s show pulled 1.918 million viewers on average during the first quarter of 2025, AdWeek reported, finishing 13th overall, behind 12 programs airing on Fox News, including mid-day shows like “The Faulkner Focus,” “Outnumbered,” “America’s Newsroom” and “America Reports.”

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