Joy Reid and Piers Morgan have launched preemptive strikes ahead of the release of a seemingly combative interview set to air on YouTube.
The former ReidOut star took to her YouTube show first to express regret and frustration, in an apparent attempt to get ahead of what has been labelled ‘disastrous’.
She prefaced how the sit-down was her public relations team’s idea, before sharing screengrabs from Morgan’s own PR people indicating the interview was set to touch on topics such as Donald Trump, deportations, and her firing from MSNBC.
‘Now, why did I go along with such an idea?’ Reid, 56, asked during the late night live stream.
‘Well, sometimes you do want to actually talk to people on the right, and see if they’ve got anything interesting to say.’
Conceding conservatives like Tucker Carlson have been ‘making a weird amount of sense’ lately, Reid claimed she was ‘ambushed’ with an interview about race.
Within hours, Morgan, 60, was offering his own insight on the yet-to-be-seen back-and-forth, cryptically telling onlookers on X, ‘It did not go well… for Joy Reid.’
Referencing how Reid had ‘already gone public about how terrible it was and [he] was, Morgan said: ‘Drops later on @PiersUncensored.’
Joy Reid – who lost her MSNBC show and job in February – took to her YouTube show late Wednesday night to express regret and frustration over agreeing to an interview with Piers Morgan that she called an ‘ambush’
Reid and Morgan both appeared to engage in damage control ahead of the release of the interview, which Morgan said went ‘badly’ for Reid and will likely air Thursday
‘Apparently, I’m obsessed with race & identity politics,’ he added.
Reid, meanwhile, devoted several minutes of her newly launched Joy Reid Show to the sit-down, which will air at 3pm ET Thursday on Piers Morgan Uncensored.
‘Let me actually start just by reminding myself just how thirsty Piers Morgan is,’ she said to start the stream. ‘And you’ll be forgiven for not knowing who Piers Morgan is.’
Offering a quick backstory on the British journalist that billed him as unimpressive and ‘a rather thirsty little troll,’ Reid claimed Morgan was’ desperate it seems for attention.’
‘I figured, okay, wouldn’t be my first choice, but why not?’ she said separately.
‘And here on the screen, I want to put up the email that Piers’ team sent to my PR agency to get me to come on the show.’
A subsequent screenshot showed Morgan’s team telling Reid’s representation about the conversation that had then yet to occur, on Tuesday at 10:19am.
A rep wrote how Reid should expect ‘a free flowing conversation covering several topics in [her] wheelhouse, including the Trump administration, Elon Musk establishing a new political party, ICE raids, and news of the day.’
Morgan, 60, offered his own insight on the yet-to-be-seen interview Thursday morning, cryptically telling those on X, ‘It did not go well… for Joy Reid’
The representative also asked to discuss Reid ‘leaving MSNBC’ and ‘her new online venture.’
‘Okay, sounds compelling. But it turns out that is not what the interview was about,’ Reid raged.
‘Instead, Piers used a 45-minute interview to ambush me mainly about his favorite subject, race – specifically why black people like me talk so much about race, especially when it comes to Donald Trump.’
She revealed: ‘Specifically, Piers demanded to know why I don’t call the black president a fascist for deporting more brown people than Trump has.’
Reid added how Morgan also quizzed her about a recent interview appearance where she discussed ‘being black at MSNBC’ with CUNY professor Mark Lamont Hill.
Reid, during that sit-down, claimed ‘white fragility shaped newsroom decisions’ and that she received backlash from bosses for simply liking posts about Palestinian children.
She also claimed MSNBC staff herself were ‘blindsided’ by February’s firings from then-new boss Rebecca Kutler, even though a high-level MSNBC source told Daily Mail in March that Reid was likely well aware she was on the chopping block due to backlash over her Palestine comments and a paltry one-year contract extension.
Reid also claimed ‘black and brown journalists’ at the network were ‘purged.’
As of writing, the Morgan interview has yet to air. Its contents – aside from Reid’s retelling – remain largely unknown.