It is nothing new for former White House press secretaries to end up in the corporate media.
For many of them, it seems their time in the White House is merely a stepping stone to the big money on network and cable news channels.
And Joe Biden’s former mouthpiece is taking on a prominent role at this left-wing media outlet.
Former Joe Biden press secretary Jen Psaki is stepping up, but this time it’s not to the podium in the White House briefing room, but to MSNBC’s most coveted time slot.
Taking Rachel Maddow’s slot
Psaki began hosting her MSNBC Sunday show Inside in 2023 for the network.
She will now move regularly to prime-time starting on May 6.
The former Biden mouthpiece will take over Rachel Maddow’s 9 p.m. Eastern weekday hour Tuesday through Friday.
Maddow will be resuming her one-night-a-week schedule on Mondays.
Maddow had been hosting five nights a week for the beginning of the second Trump administration.
But Maddow repeatedly got herself into trouble and her ratings never returned to where they had once been.
Maddow was replaced by Alex Wagner, who has floundered.
Psaki will replace Wagner, who had tried to hold onto as many viewers of MSNBC’s most popular personality as she could.
MSNBC executives are hoping Psaki will be able to accomplish that and even expand viewership for the struggling network.
Psaki’s selection was one of the early moves for MSNBC’s new president Rebecca Kutler, who is also trying to navigate MSNBC’s corporate split from NBC News.
Kutler faces an uphill battle in trying to make MSNBC relevant again without the NBC corporate umbrella.
Trying to capitalize on Psaki’s White House stint
With the new schedule also comes a new name for Psaki’s program, which will be called The Briefing.
This obvious play on words is one way the network is hoping to capitalize on Psaki’s time in the Biden White House briefing room
Her Sunday show will be ending once she takes on the prime time weekday slot.
Psaki talked recently with The Associated Press about her new role, and about her past in the White House.
Her big move comes at an admittedly hard time for MSNBC’s predominantly leftist viewers.
“Part of my job,” she said, “is to tell stories of hope.”
That will be important not just for her viewers who are in despair over the continuing implosion of the Democrat Party, but for MSNBC itself.
The network has struggled as it tries to compete with Fox News.
Fox News remains the top dog among cable news networks and remains squarely in first place in the ratings by a large margin.
Fox finished March with 95 of the top 100 cable telecasts, even keeping up with the NCAA March Madness tournaments.
Meanwhile, MSNBC only saw viewership growth in primetime.
And the struggling network was down month-to-month in both the primetime and daytime ratings.
Bringing yet another left-wing mouthpiece like Jen Psaki onto the network in prime time is not likely to change those numbers any.
24/7 Politics will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
