A former MSNBC host who was ousted for repeatedly spouting anti-conservative rhetoric has called on black Americans to boycott the network for firing Joy Reid.
Tiffany Cross, who hosted The Cross Connection on the liberal network from 2020 to 2022, spoke out in support of Reid after MSNBC executives canceled The Reid Out as part of its efforts to restructure its programming.
She thanked the 56-year-old Reid for paving the way for black talent, before she instructed others to turn off the channel.
‘Don’t watch where you’re not welcome,’ Cross said in a Zoom call for the Win With Black Women podcast on Monday. ‘Don’t shop where they won’t hire you. Don’t even hate watch!’
Cross then went on to claim that the network will ‘start making up stuff’ to attack Reid in order to justify her ouster.
‘So brace yourself because y’all are going to hear the things and they don’t try to say some things because when movement happens, they don’t know how black women move.
‘And because they don’t know that, they move like colonizers and then they try to put an attack.’
She also denied that Reid’s firing was related to the network’s dismal ratings.
Former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross has called on black Americans to boycott the network for firing Joy Reid
She thanked the 56-year-old news host (pictured) for paving the way for black talent, before she instructed others to turn off the channel
‘Don’t believe the hype about the ratings,’ Cross urged.
‘Her show was doing very well. You know whose ratings aren’t doing well? Who ain’t never got fired? Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough – They went to kiss the ring and they are still being elevated.’
She instead chalked Reid’s ouster to a difference in opinions between Reid and the network executives.
‘There are people in positions of power who do not like her opinions and truth-telling courage,’ Cross claimed, like ‘when she spoke about what was happening in Gaza, among a lot of other things.’
‘I am proud to call you my sister,’ she told Reid, who defended her on-air when Cross Connection was canceled in 2022.
Opening up about the experience on her Native Land podcast last year, Cross said her firing was ‘very abrupt and it was very intentional to my audience, to my viewers, that you are not the type of viewers that the company cares about,’ according to the Daily Beast.
She now says black Americans ‘have the power’ to show MSNBC executives ‘what they’re losing’ as she urged them to ‘Turn the TV Off’ following Reid’s final program in a post on Instagram.
‘Let’s hit 15 million viewers and send a message: Black voices matter.’
Cross opened up about her own experience being fired on her Native Land Podcast last year, claiming the network did not care about her viewers
She now says black Americans ‘have the power’ to show MSNBC executives ‘what they’re losing’ as she urged them to ‘Turn the TV Off’ following Reid’s final program in a post on Instagram
Cross’ comments came as Reid broke her silence about being fired, expressing ‘anger and rage.’
‘I’ve been through every emotion… anger, rage, disappointment, hurt… guilt. You know, [ a feeling] that I let my team lose their jobs,’ she said on the same podcast Monday.
‘But in the end, where I really land… is just gratitude. Just pure gratitude and gratitude. Not just because people would take the time to get on a call like this or to take care of me. But also that my show had value.’
She then broke down in tears as she explained that she’s not sorry for having gone ‘hard on so many’ progressive issues like Black Lives Matter or immigrant rights on her primetime slot.
‘Whether it’s talking about any of these issues and, yes, whether it’s talking about Gaza and the fact that we as the American people have a right to object, to have a right to object to little babies being bombed,’ Reid went on.
‘And and where I come down on that is I’m not sorry. I am not sorry that I stood up for those those things because those things are of God.’
Cross’s comments came as Joy Reid broke her silence about being fired, expressing ‘anger and rage’
But her constant progressive, anti-Trump rants unsettled MSNBC bosses who are seeking to foster a less biased-sounding liberal news network during the second Trump administration, according to the Status newsletter.
Reid’s commitment to promoting ultra progressive causes ‘offered an easy target to attack MSNBC’s editorial stances’ as the network tries to overhaul its programming and recover from bad ratings, the outlet reported.
Comcast executive Mark Lazarus is said to want to change the perception that ‘Republicans cannot get a fair shake from the network’ by moving to a more ‘palatable progressivism.’
MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler, however, insisted to staffers on the show that Donald Trump was not a factor in the decision to end the show.
She instead claimed the network’s changes were made based on ‘data analysis and programming strategy’ that she believes will ‘best position MNSBC for the year ahead.’
MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler had insisted that Reid’s ouster had nothing to do with President Donald Trump
Rachel Maddow torched her bosses Monday after canceling Joy Reid’s low-rated talk show
Liberal icon Rachel Maddow did not seem to accept that though – railing against Kutler and other network executives for firing Reid and a slew of other ‘non-white’ anchors.
‘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,’ Maddow said.
She added: ‘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.’
Reid’s 7pm EST time slot will now be replaced by a panel show co-hosted by Symone Sanders Townsend, Alicia Menendez and Michael Steele.
