In a media gathering that occurred toward the end of February, former Fox News Channel personality and current podcast host Megyn Kelly obliterated Rachel Maddow, saying that Maddow exemplifies everything that is totally wrong with the flailing, struggling leftist cable news network.
Particularly, Kelly, who worked for both FNC and NBC News before striking out on her own with “The Megyn Kelly Show” radio show and podcast, argued that the obscene salary Maddow receives from MSNBC shows just what is wrong about traditional cable news media, such as soon to be sold MSNBC.
Calling out Maddow, who had spent days attacking MSNBC for firing Joy Reid, Kelly noted that Maddow makes an obscene salary and so is ridiculous when she pretends to be one of the decidedly non-wealthy MSNBC staffers. She said, “That would be a bridge too far… but Rachel Maddow got out there and tried to act like, ‘Oh, I’m a woman of the working class. I’m here to represent the poor staffers who could lose their jobs now as a result of Joy Reid biting it.’”
She then noted, getting to her point about Maddow’s salary, “Meanwhile she’s collecting $25 million a year, she’s got multiple homes worth millions.” Kelly asked, questioning why, if she is so worried about those staffers, Maddow doesn’t take a small percentage pay cut so that a number of staffers could have high-paying jobs. She asked, “You know what? Why don’t you take a $2 million pay cut and save 10 of those jobs?”
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What Kelly appeared to be referring to was an incident in which Maddow, decrying MSNBC’s decision to fire Joy Reid, also noted that staffers were being let go by the network. She said, “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.”
Continuing on that point, she said, “They’re 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’s not the right way to treat people. And it’s inefficient and it’s unnecessary, and it kind of drops the bottom out of whether or not people feel like this is a good place to work.”
At another point in that rant, Maddow said, “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. And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them. That feels indefensible. And I do not defend it.”
And, at still another point, she said, “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.” Maddow then said, “I love everything about her. I have learned so much from her. 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.”
Watch her here: