MSNBC host Jen Psaki is expanding her presence at the network, taking the timeslot previously occupied by former host Alex Wagner.
The network’s shake-up follows other recent changes to its evening news lineup, which saw Wagner’s show, Alex Wagner Tonight, axed from the network’s evening shows. Psaki’s previous show, Inside with Jen Psaki, which aired on Sundays and Monday evenings, is being replaced with her new show, The Briefing with Jen Psaki. It will air at 9 p.m. Tuesday through Friday beginning May 6.
The new show from former President Joe Biden’s first White House press secretary is coming as MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow returns to her one-night-a-week schedule. Maddow’s show was expanded earlier this year to five nights a week to cover President Donald Trump’s first 100 days.
Maddow’s and Psaki’s shows will be competing with Fox News’s Hannity and CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins for cable television viewers.
Beyond getting rid of Wagner’s show, MSNBC fired anchor Joy Reid and canceled her show, The ReidOut, in late February. Trump celebrated the end of her show, deeming her a “mentally obnoxious racist” who should have had her show cut “long ago.”
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In The ReidOut’s place, MSNBC is airing The Weeknight, which is co-hosted by The Weekend anchors Symone Sanders-Townsend, Michael Steele, and Alicia Menendez. The Weeknight will air at 7 p.m. for two hours on Monday, and for one hour the remaining weeknights.
The various shake-ups at MSNBC come after the network’s parent company, Comcast, announced last year that it would spin off MSNBC and other NBCUniversal cable channels to other ownership.