Former MSNBC host Joy Reid said during an interview on Thursday that she wouldn’t vote for a Democrat going forward that did not pledge to end the US relationship with Israel.
“The Democratic Party is as married to this Israel over everything. Israel, no matter what, Israel, no matter what they do, no matter how many people they kill, the Democrats were as married to that as the Republicans. And so it would take a really strong Democrat. It would take a Mamdani-style event to get a Democrat to say that they weren’t getting down with that,” she began during an interview on her podcast with author Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Coates and Reid discussed former Vice President Kamala Harris’ candidacy, as Coates said a lot of Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans voted for President Donald Trump in anger against the Biden-Harris administration in 2024.
“But to me, I, going forward, cannot vote for a Democrat who does not pledge to end this relationship. This relationship needs to end. This is a nuclear armed expansionist power. They don’t need our money, and they definitely won’t get my vote,” she added in the clip flagged by Mediaite.
Reid recently raged at the president at a “Rise Up, Sing Out: A Concert for the First Amendment” event, where she delivered a speech condemning “orange a–hole” Trump’s impact on the media landscape, warning, “The threat is not coming, friends – it is here.”
“Don Lemon arrested, Georgia Fort arrested, Terry Moran fired from ABC, Scott Pelley fired from CBS by the clack [sic] of far-right ideologues who bought it and handed it over to a zealot named Bari Weiss who may soon — she earned those boos — she may soon also control CNN,” Reid warned in her speech, as the crowd jeered the mention of Weiss.
After listing numerous other incidents involving high-profile media figures and networks, she declared, “This is corporate media on its knees. A handful of billionaires consolidating local stations, newspapers, national networks, turning American journalism into what they hope will become a US version of North Korea.”
Reid’s MSNBC show was canceled as part of a programming shake-up at the network in February 2025, prior to the network’s separation from NBC in November of last year.
MSNBC became MS NOW after Comcast announced it would spin off its cable networks into its own company called Versant, separating the liberal network from its sister broadcast network NBC, which will remain under the NBCUniversal umbrella.
Reid said in an interview earlier this month that she could no longer root for the New York Giants after quarterback Jaxson Dart introduced President Donald Trump on stage.
“I was, you know, really kind of repulsed as a Giants fan — former now — because the reality is Donald Trump is not a normal president,” Reid told podcast host Jack Cocchiarella. “Donald Trump is not an American president. Donald Trump is a wannabe king. And we’re in the 250th anniversary of our divorce from the king of England. And Donald Trump is trying to be a king.”
