Who is MSNBC host Joy Reid, who just called Florida ‘fascist’? She previously worked for Barack Obama’s campaign in the state, and has criticised Amber Rose for her support of Donald Trump at the RNC

Nov 7 , 2024

Joy Reid, host of MSNBC’s The ReidOut. Photo: @joyannreid/Instagram

The MSNBC host has previously come under fire for minimising the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and says it was Spike Lee who inspired her to switch her medicine degree for the media

Political commentator and MSNBC host Joy Reid has found herself at the centre of a scandal after making controversial on-screen comments during the network’s coverage of the US elections.

Residents of Florida took the polls to vote on Amendment 4, a legislation to protect abortion rights in the state. When the amendment failed to pass, Reid – who lives in Florida – vented her anger on air, saying “That kind of extremist right-wing, fascist-type government in Florida – does that make it a more attractive place? Or does it make it more like some of the other states that don’t get investment”?

Joy Reid on set. Photo: @thereidout/Instagram

Reid continued later in the broadcast, blaming white women for not voting for Harris after North Carolina was predicted to go to former president Donald Trump, who ran as the Republican candidate. “Black voters came through for Kamala Harris, white women voters did not,” she said, adding: “[Florida is] a state where women lost their reproductive rights, where there was a very heavy push to get women to focus on not … putting back into the White House the person who was responsible for taking those rights away. And restoring them. But that message obviously was not enough to get enough white women to vote for Vice-President Harris, a fellow woman.”

So, who exactly is Joy Reid, whose recent comments have been referred to as a “meltdown” by right-wing media?

She previously made critical remarks about Trump

Joy Reid on her MSNBC show The ReidOut. Photo: @thereidout/Instagram

Reid previously came under fire from the MAGA camp for taking multiple jabs at Donald Trump during MSNBC’s coverage of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in July.

During the broadcast, she said that Trump’s comeback after an assassination attempt earlier this year was the “exact same thing” as current president Joe Biden’s recovery from Covid-19 in terms of a show of strength given the fact that both were seen as “elderly”.

Reid also seemed to insinuate that Trump had brought the assassination attempt on himself, saying, “The idea of political violence that we’ve been nursing really … is so dangerous. So dangerous that you cannot avoid the consequences of it, even if you’re one of the people promoting it”. She later said on Threads that she had several questions about the shooting itself, questioning the medical veracity of the event.

As a result of her remarks, Reid faced calls for her show, The ReidOut, to be cancelled, per the Daily Mail.