Joy Reid got into it with Piers Morgan after being asked about her firing from MSNBC and why she has repeatedly played ‘the race card.’
Morgan, on his YouTube show Thursday, had asked whether she really believed race played a part.
‘Now Joy. Look, let’s be honest. I don’t think you were fired after all those years because of your skin color. Or because you’re a black woman,’ the British journalist told his guest.
‘I think you were fired because your show got increasingly unpopular – it happens all the time in TV. That’s why you got let go. Why play the race card?’
Reid – who had just sat through a series of clips showing her on CUNY professor Mark Lamont Hill‘s podcast last week where she said ‘white fragility shaped [MSNBC execs’] decisions’ – responded by accusing Morgan of playing the race card.
A back-and-forth ensued, after which Reid took to her own YouTube to warn about the then yet-to-be released interview’s contents, framing it as a ‘race-baiting ambush’.
In one the clips played, Reid had insisted that her ratings started to slump after she said on-air that Americans were more moved by the plight of Ukrainians than that of the Palestinians because they ‘were white.’
‘Also, I’m a black woman so I’m sure that makes [Donald Trump] angrier when I say things,’ Reid said elsewhere. She also said the black perspective on current events is not generally ‘received very well in the news business.’
Joy Reid got into it with Piers Morgan after being asked about her firing from MSNBC in a highly combative interview Thursday
Reid – after sitting through a sequence of clips that showed her blaming her firing on her racially charged rants during a podcast appearance with CUNY professor Mark Lamont Hill last week – responded by accusing Morgan of ‘playing the race card’
After being confronted with the clips and Morgan’s question, Reid appeared to deflect.
‘First of all, I love the fact that your “play the race card” is your version of the race card. You literally are so fixated on trying to racialize conversations with me, Piers,’ she said
‘You play the race card!’ Morgan yelled in more response, seemingly in disbelief. ‘In more conversations in your ten years at MSNBC – come on!’
Both began to shout over each other as they tried to get their points across.
‘All right. The bottom line is you take an entire conversation that I had with Mark Lamont Hill and picked the bits you can racialize,’ Reid maintained.
‘This is your shtick. And I get that this is your shtick.’
‘Oh you racialize everything, Joy!’ a now smiling Morgan shot back.
‘I get it. I understand this is your shtick, Piers, and listen – game recognizes game,’ said Reid.
‘I get it. I understand this is your shtick, Piers, and listen – game recognizes game,’ said Reid at a point during the sitdown, which was filmed Tuesday night and aired Thursday
Morgan, laughing at this point, hurled the same accusation back.
Reid then brought race into the equation again, describing how she found ‘it interesting to me that [Morgan], as a white European,’ believed that ‘people of color talk[ing] about race’ constituted ‘racializing conversations.’
‘But when people like you fixate on, “well, Barack Obama was a black president – why don’t you object to that?”
‘That is racializing a conversation about the former president of the United States,’ she said.
Morgan, again, laughed in response, in what amounted to a noticeably tense interview that persisted for the prescheduled 45 minutes.
‘I’m sure you find that charming and funny,’ Reid said as Morgan laughed.
‘I find it hilarious! Because you’re the one who said Donald Trump… is a “white Facist”‘, he replied, as Reid repeatedly interrupted.
‘You and your friend Donald Trump,’ she said, before attempting to explain away the assertion.
‘Watch the full interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored on YouTube’.
