MSNBC to roll out big guns during first days of Trump admin

Rachel Maddow will return to anchoring five nights a week for MSNBC during the first days of the incoming Trump administration, Variety reported Monday.

Maddow, a staunch Trump critic for the left-leaning network, had been hosting her show just one day a week — on Mondays — since spring of 2022.

Variety reported that upping Maddow's new, albeit temporary, schedule was "part of a broader move by MSNBC to draw viewership to its coverage of the first 100 days of the Trump administration."

The entertainment publication also reported that Alex Wagner, "who anchors 9 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, will take on a special assignment: traveling the U.S. and overseas in a bid to talk to both newsmakers tied to and people affected by Trump polices during his critical first weeks in office." MSNBC plans to call these forays, travels through "Trumpland."

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"A cable-news outlet’s primetime schedule has in past years largely remained inviolate, except when anchors and networks part ways," Variety reported. "Under Rashida Jones, MSNBC’s president, the network has experimented with new concepts...Some of those new ideas have made Maddow a more frequent primetime presence than many had previously envisioned.

"She also leads a schedule-busting concept known internally as “The Avengers” that MSNBC uses on nights of exceptional news. Maddow sits for multiple hours at a dais with a shifting lineup of MSNBC personalities that range from Joy Reid and Nicolle Wallace to Ari Melber and Stephanie Ruhle."

Maddow told Variety last year, “I made a promise that when you need me, I’ll be there."

Both Maddow and Wagner were expected to return to their regular slots after April 30.

Read the Variety article here.