MS NOW

History

1996–2007

MSNBC was established in 1996 via a joint venture between NBC and Microsoft organized by Tom Rogers. James Kinsella, a Microsoft executive, served as president of the online component, MSNBC.com. Microsoft invested $221 million for a 50% share of the cable channel. The network launched on July 15, 1996. The first show was anchored by Jodi Applegate and included news, interviews, and opinion pieces. The first three news stories MSNBC covered were Boris Yeltsin meeting then-vice president Al Gore despite concerns over Yeltsin's health, an update on the Bob Dole 1996 presidential campaign, and updated information about the Khobar Towers bombing.

During the day, news coverage continued with The Contributors, a show that featured Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham, as well as interactive programming coordinated by Applegate, John Gibson, and John Seigenthaler Jr. Stories were generally longer and more detailed than those of CNN. It also aired stories and breaking news coverage directly from NBC's network affiliates. Its flagship prime time newscast was The News, hosted by Brian Williams. and The Site, a show about the Internet and computers co-hosted by Soledad O'Brien and a "live" computer-generated character called Dev Null played by Leo Laporte.

At launch, the network positioned itself as being integrated with the Internet, with the slogan "It's Time to Get Connected", anchors' email addresses and phone numbers being promoted regularly on-air, and shows such as Internight—a primetime talk show featuring viewer questions submitted via phone and email, and The Site—a technology news program co-anchored by Soledad O'Brien and Leo Laporte (the latter as a computer-animated character known as "Dev Null"). Beginning in September 1996, MSNBC began to air a simulcast of the New York-based radio show Imus in the Morning with Don Imus.

MSNBC was originally headquartered from studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey. In November 1996, MSNBC moved to new studios in Secaucus, New Jersey.

SportsCenter host Keith Olbermann left ESPN in an acrimonious split to join MSNBC in June 1997; with Internight replaced by a new 8 p.m. show known as The Big Show with Keith Olbermann. When the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke in 1998, The Big Show morphed into White House in Crisis. Olbermann became frustrated as his show was consumed by the Lewinsky story. He left MSNBC and joined FSN. Olbermann was then replaced by Dateline NBC host John Hockenberry, whose show Edgewise became popular.

2008–2015

From mid-2007 to mid-2008, MSNBC enjoyed a large increase in its Nielsen ratings. Primetime viewings increased by 61%.

Tucker Carlson's program was canceled in March 2008 and replaced at the 6PM slot with Race for the White House, hosted by David Gregory. The show was renamed 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in November, after the election. When Gregory became the permanent host for Meet the Press, he stepped down as host of his MSNBC show, and David Shuster became the permanent host for the show.

The death of Tim Russert in June 2008 led to a period of transition as NBC contemplated how he could be replaced.

In July 2008, former CNN producer Phil Griffin was announced as President of MSNBC, replacing Dan Abrams. He worked with NBC for over 25 years, including working for MSNBC since its launch.

During the 2008 United States presidential election, MSNBC's coverage was anchored by Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and David Gregory. During the first three months of the presidential campaign, MSNBC's ratings grew by 158%. Olbermann and Matthews, however, were criticized for expressing left-leaning opinions on the channel. Both were later removed from anchor positions. Audience viewership ahead of the 2008 elections more than doubled from the 2004 United States presidential election, and the channel topped CNN in ratings for the first time during the last three months of the campaign in the key 25–54 age demographic.

In September 2008, the channel hired Rachel Maddow to host The Rachel Maddow Show in the 9PM slot, replacing Verdict with Dan Abrams. Reviews for the show were mostly positive. The move to create a new program for the network was widely seen as a smart ratings move, where beforehand, the network lagged behind in coveted primetime ratings. The show began to regularly outperform CNN's Larry King Live, and made the network competitive in the program's time slot for the first time in over a decade.

In March 2009, MSNBC finished in second place in primetime, ahead of CNN for the first time. Phil Griffin attributed this to the network's decision to go liberal with Olbermann and Maddow along with problems at CNN.

2015–2021

Andrew Lack became the chairman of NBC News and MSNBC in 2015. He imposed a mandate on the network to reduce its emphasis on opinion programming, and place a larger focus on creating closer ties between it and NBC News.

In 2015, Griffin announced he was transitioning MSNBC from left-leaning, opinionated programming to hard news programming. Nearly all daytime opinionated news programs were replaced with more generic news programs. Ronan Farrow, Joy Reid, Krystal Ball, Touré, Abby Huntsman, Alex Wagner, and Ed Schultz lost their shows. Al Sharpton's PoliticsNation was relegated to the weekend. News programs presented by established NBC News personalities such as Telemundo anchor Jose Diaz-Balart, Meet the Press anchor Chuck Todd, NBC Nightly News Sunday anchor Kate Snow, Thomas Roberts, and former NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams replaced the opinion shows. In February 2015, to focus on breaking news after significant rating declines, "MSNBC Live With Thomas Roberts" replaced “Ronan Farrow Daily” and "The Reid Report" between 1PM and 3PM. Daytime news coverage was led primarily by Brian Williams, Stephanie Ruhle, Jose Diaz-Balart, Andrea Mitchell, Craig Melvin, Thomas Roberts, and Kate Snow, in addition to "beat leaders" stationed throughout the newsroom. These included chief legal correspondent Ari Melber, primary political reporter Steve Kornacki, business and finance correspondent Olivia Sterns, and senior editor Cal Perry. The revamped on-air presentation debuted in late summer 2015 and included a new logo, news ticker, and graphics package.

In July 2016, MSNBC launched Dateline Extra, which was an abridged version of Dateline NBC and another step towards aligning MSNBC and NBC News. The new program was hosted by MSNBC Live anchor Tamron Hall.

In September 2016, MSNBC launched The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, a new 11 p.m. program that initially served as a daily recap of headlines relating to the 2016 presidential election.

as a nightly summary of the day's news and a preview of the following day's headlines. This was MSNBC's first new primetime program in nearly four years.

In January 2017, MSNBC debuted For the Record with Greta at 6PM hosted by former Fox News Channel anchor Greta Van Susteren. The program aired for six months before being cancelled in late June 2017 due to a ratings flop. The network's chief legal correspondent, Ari Melber was given a show, The Beat with Ari Melber, at 6PM.

2021–2024

In March 2021, MSNBC introduced a refreshed logo and on-air imaging, including a rebranding of its MSNBC Live rolling news block as MSNBC Reports (with each block carrying the anchor's name, patterned after the existing daytime show Andrea Mitchell Reports). Under Jones, MSNBC began to scale back its integrations with NBC News, with some personalities and reporters leaving the network, or prioritizing contributions to NBC News' streaming channel NBC News Now instead.

MSNBC gained a presence on NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming service by co-branding its streaming hub "The Choice" as "The Choice by MSNBC" in July 2021; it included original news and opinion programs with personalities such as Mehdi Hasan, Zerlina Maxwell, and Sam Seder. In March 2022, it was replaced by an MSNBC hub, which included next-day, on-demand streaming of selected MSNBC programs, as well as specials and documentaries.

In November 2021, Brian Williams announced his departure from NBC News and MSNBC after 28 years, with his final edition of The 11th Hour scheduled for December 9; after a transitional period covered by guest hosts, Stephanie Ruhle became the new host of The 11th Hour beginning March 2, with her existing hour of MSNBC Reports replaced by a new fourth hour of Morning Joe in April 2022.

As part of her new contract with NBCUniversal, Rachel Maddow took an extended hiatus from her program to focus on other film and podcast projects; she was replaced with rotating guest hosts. When she returned, beginning in May 2022, she only hosted the show on Monday nights and featured guest hosts throughout the rest of the week. The guest hosts appeared under the MSNBC Prime banner until August 2022, when Alex Wagner became the permanent host in the timeslot with Alex Wagner Tonight.

In October 2022, ahead of the 2022 United States elections, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell was temporarily replaced on Friday evenings by The Kornacki Countdown, a weekly series hosted by MSNBC political analyst Steve Kornacki.

In November 2022, MSNBC parted ways with Tiffany Cross; her show The Cross Connection, was temporarily replaced by guest hosts under the MSNBC Reports banner.

2024–present

On November 20, 2024, NBCUniversal announced its intent to spin off most of its cable networks, including MSNBC, as a new publicly traded company controlled by Comcast shareholders, and later officially named Versant. Following the announcement, reports emerged of multiple unsolicited offers to buy MSNBC; CNN media analyst Brian Stelter believed it was unlikely MSNBC would be sold, as NBCUniversal never declared any intent to divest properties when announcing the spin-off (with future CEO Mark Lazarus contrarily suggesting that the spin-off planned to target further investments and acquisitions), a sale would incur taxes (the spin-off was structured to be tax-free), and that divesting the channel might not be seen as being in the best interest of shareholders.

From January through April 2025, The Rachel Maddow Show returned to a weeknight schedule to cover the first hundred days of the second presidency of Donald Trump. During this time, Alex Wagner Tonight was placed on hiatus, and Wagner was placed on special assignment duty.

In January 2025, Rashida Jones resigned as head of MSNBC. After acting as interim president, Rebecca Kutler was appointed president of MSNBC in February 2025. In preparation for the NBCU spin-off, Kutler began moving to expand the network's in-house newsgathering resources so that it could operate independently from NBC News. On February 24, 2025, Kutler announced a revamp to MSNBC's primetime schedule, including the cancellation of its primetiime shows The ReidOut and Alex Wagner Tonight (with Joy Reid leaving the network effective immediately, and Wagner retained as a senior political correspondent), and a new show hosted by the panel of The Weekend. Due to the planned closure of its studios in Miami, MSNBC also cancelled José Díaz-Balart and Katie Phang's programs, with Díaz-Balart focusing on his roles at NBC News and Noticias Telemundo, and Phang later moving to the progressive podcast network MeidasTouch.

Most of the staff that worked The Rachel Maddow Show and Alex Wagner Tonight were laid off and invited to reapply internally for new positions or receive severance packages. On that night's episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, Maddow criticized the changes and treatment of employees on-air, commenting that the release of Reid was "a bad mistake", and that the concurrent cancellations of multiple shows hosted by people of color (including Reid, Wagner, and Phang) was "unnerving".

Demographics

A study by Pew Research Center in 2014 found that MSNBC's audience was more moderate than that of BuzzFeed, Politico, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, but slightly more liberal than CNN's audience.

A survey by Pew Research Center in 2019 showed that among Americans who named MSNBC as their main source for political news, 74% are ages 50 or older, with 44% ages 65 or older. 95% of those who named MSNBC as their main political news source identify as Democrats; among the eight most commonly named main sources for political and election news by US adults, MSNBC and Fox News have the most partisan audiences.

Carriage

Before 2010, MSNBC was not available to Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse television subscribers in the portions of New York, northern New Jersey, and Connecticut that overlapped Cablevision's service area. One of several reasons for this was an exclusive carriage agreement between MSNBC and Cablevision that prohibited competing wired providers from carrying MSNBC. In 2009, Verizon filed a formal "program-access complaint" with the Federal Communications Commission and petitioned for termination of the deal. In support of Verizon, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal argued that the arrangement could be illegal. After entering into a new contract, FiOS added MSNBC in New York City and New Jersey in February 2010.

International availability

MSNBC Canada, a joint venture between Rogers Communications, Shaw Communications, and MSNBC (each holding a 33.33% interest), was in operation from September 2001 to 2004. The channel faced logistics difficulty due to requirements by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that channels carry a certain percentage of Canadian content. As a result, it was replaced with a direct feed from MSNBC.

In Australia, MSNBC launched November 2019 on the Fetch TV online PayTV network, on channel 171. As in Canada, this is a direct US feed of MS NOW, without any delay. Although Fetch TV has no MS NOW catch-up channel/service, it also offers MS NOW programs on a reverse EPG which allows any shows from the previous 24 hours to be selected and watched. The channel was added to subscription-television outlet Foxtel and its streaming service Flash in April 2023, as part of a negotiated programming agreement between the Foxtel Group and NBCUniversal. It was also added to Binge, another of Foxtel's streaming services, in October 2023.

In Asia and Europe, MS NOW is not shown on a dedicated channel.

In Turkey, NTV-MSNBC was a joint venture with NTV Turkey; it shut down in December 2014.

In 2007, MSNBC expanded to South Africa, reaching a deal to become the "exclusive news provider" to Southern Africa’s Free2View TV satellite service.

Political stance

Allegations of liberal bias

As of 2024, MSNBC's evening programming features progressive hosts. In November 2007, a New York Times article stated that MSNBC's primetime lineup was tilting more to the left. Since then, some commentators have argued that MSNBC has a bias towards liberal politics and the Democratic Party. Washington Post media analyst Howard Kurtz said in 2008 that the channel's evening lineup "has clearly gravitated to the left in recent years and often seems to regard itself as the antithesis of Fox News." In 2011, Politico referred to MSNBC as "left-leaning", and Steve Kornacki of Salon.com stated that, "MSNBC's prime-time lineup is now awash in progressive politics." Regarding changes in the channel's evening programming, senior vice president of NBC News Phil Griffin said that "it happened naturally. There isn't a dogma we're putting through. There is a 'Go for it.'"

In the February 2008 issue of Men's Journal magazine, an MSNBC interviewee quoted a senior executive as saying that liberal commentator Keith Olbermann "runs MSNBC" and that "because of his success, he's in charge" of the channel. In 2007, The New York Times called Olbermann MSNBC's "most recognizable face". In September 2008, MSNBC stated that Olbermann and Chris Matthews would no longer anchor live political events, with David Gregory assuming that role. MSNBC cited the growing criticism that they were "too opinionated to be seen as neutral in the heat of the presidential campaign." Olbermann's show Countdown continued to run before and after the presidential and vice presidential debates, and both Matthews and Olbermann joined Gregory on the channel's election night coverage.

In November 2009, just before the release of Sarah Palin's book Going Rogue, MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan used photoshopped pictures of Palin on the channel's Morning Meeting program. Ratigan apologized a few days later.

In October 2010, MSNBC began using the tagline "Lean Forward". Some media outlets, including msnbc.com, claimed that the network was now embracing its politically progressive identity.

In January 2012, MSNBC used Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, and other network commentators during its coverage of the Iowa Republican caucuses. Nando Di Fino of the Mediaite website said MSNBC was "giving up on the straight news coverage, and instead [appearing] to be aiming to create some controversy."

Allegations of conservative bias

Others have argued that MSNBC has a bias against progressive politics. Phil Donahue's show was canceled in 2003 due to his opposition to the Iraq War, and Donahue later commented that the management of MSNBC required that "we have two conservative (guests) for every liberal. I was counted as two liberals."

Cenk Uygur, after his departure from MSNBC in 2011, said that MSNBC management had told him "people in Washington" were "concerned about [his] tone," and that he "didn't want to work in a place that didn't challenge power."

MSNBC anchors tend to be conservative or centrist and wealthy.

In 2000, host Joe Scarborough received a 95 rating from the American Conservative Union and supported anti-abortion policies when he was a U.S. representative, while host Stephanie Ruhle, a former hedge fund manager, declared, "I don't have any political ideals that I'm tied to." Former host Chris Matthews identifies as a "liberal" but voted for George W. Bush in 2000, while current host Nicolle Wallace, a registered Republican, worked for both Bush and Sarah Palin.

Lack of diversity of views

Maria Bustillos noted in 2019 that "MSNBC's bland, evenhanded respectability is buttressed with a careful performance of diversity both 'ideological' and demographic", and that "the network actively discourages consideration of its anchors' personal convictions" in favor of "interchangeable 'television personalities'" who are "compressed into the network's identity and subservient to it." It has been argued that MSNBC, like other cable networks, "is simply not incentivized to be informative", and instead turns its "viewers into partisan junkies who don't change the channel because they need a fix that tells them they're right about everything (and that the other side is wrong)." In 2014, Jason Linkins claimed that MSNBC prefers "the incessant production of insidery ideations" over "the service of the public trust in an honest and equitable way."

Melissa Harris-Perry's comments on Romney's black grandchild

Political commentator Melissa Harris-Perry and her guest panel, in a look back on the 2013 segment of her show, featured a picture of former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his extended family. Romney was holding on his knee his adopted grandchild, Kieran Romney, an African-American. Harris-Perry and her guests, including actress Pia Glenn and comedian Dean Obeidallah, joked about coming up with captions for the photo. Glenn sang out, "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just isn't the same." Obeidallah said, "It sums up the diversity of the Republican Party and the [Republican National Committee], where they have the whole convention and they find the one black person." Afterwards, Harris-Perry gave an on-air apology as well as apologized in a series of tweets.

Coverage of the 2020 Democratic primary

In February 2019, NBC ran a story about presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard claiming that her campaign was benefiting from Russian state media, stating that she had received twice as many mentions on RT, Sputnik News and Russia Insider compared to expected front-runners Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.

In March 2019, Yashar Ali, a contributor for HuffPost accused Dafna Linzer, a managing editor at MSNBC, of ceding editorial control to the Democratic National Committee. Ali, who planned to announce the locations of the DNC debates in advance of MSNBC, received a call attempting to dissuade him with the phrase "let them make a few phone calls," referring to party leaders.

Candidate Andrew Yang and his supporters have been critical of MSNBC's coverage of his campaign and the speaking time allocated to Yang at a November 2019 primary debate hosted by MSNBC.

In December 2019, In These Times analyzed coverage of the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primary by MSNBC between August and September 2019. They said that "MSNBC talked about Biden twice as often as Warren and three times as often as Sanders", and that Sanders was the candidate spoken of negatively the most frequently of the three."

Chris Matthews compared Sanders to George McGovern in terms of electability on February 3 and criticized Sanders for adopting the "democratic socialist" label on February 7. In reference to Sanders' praise of some aspects of Fidel Castro's Cuba, Matthews said on air during Hardball, "I believe if Castro and the Reds had won the Cold War there would have been executions in Central Park, and I might have been one of the ones executed". He then questioned what Sanders meant when he used the term 'socialism'. The following week, Chuck Todd criticized the rhetoric of Sanders supporters by quoting a conservative article which compared them to Nazi brown shirts. Commenting on the 2020 Nevada Democratic caucuses, Matthews invoked "the fall of France" to the Nazis in 1940 as a metaphor for Sanders' apparent victory in the state. These analogies were criticized by the Sanders campaign and other commentators, who noted that members of Sanders' family had been murdered in the Holocaust. Matthews later issued an on-air apology to Sanders and his supporters.

Coverage of Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Ayman Mohyeldin has been alleged to have an anti-Israel bias in his reporting. In 2015, Mohyeldin was reporting live from Gaza, where he claimed to have witnessed an unarmed Palestinian man being shot by Israeli police at the Damascus Gate; the man turned out to be wielding a large knife.

Following the outbreak of the Gaza war, it was reported by Semafor that a number of Muslim hosts (including Mehdi Hasan, Mohyeldin, and Ali Velshi) were sidelined from coverage.

Suspensions and dismissals of hosts

Michael Savage

Michael Savage briefly hosted a weekend talk show in 2003. That July, Savage responded to a prank caller on his show by calling him a "pig" and a "sodomite", and telling him he "should get AIDS and die." Savage's show was canceled and he was dismissed from MSNBC shortly thereafter.

Don Imus

Don Imus' radio show Imus in the Morning was simulcast on MSNBC for over ten years. In 2007, he described members of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights women's basketball team as "some nappy-headed hoes." The remark sparked outrage. The comments sparked outrage, as many considered them to be racist and sexist. After sponsors began to withdraw advertisements from the show, MSNBC canceled the simulcast. Both Imus and NBC News apologized to the Rutgers Basketball team for the remarks.

Brief suspension of Joe Scarborough due to political contributions

In November 2010, Joe Scarborough, host of Morning Joe, was briefly suspended after he donated $4,000 to Republican candidates in Florida.

Suspension and departure of Keith Olbermann

In November 2010, Keith Olbermann, the host of the highly rated news/opinion show Countdown with Keith Olbermann, was suspended without pay for having contributed $2,400 (the maximum personal donation limit) to each of three Democratic Party candidates ahead of the 2010 United States elections. NBC News policy prohibited contributions to political campaigns unless NBC News had given its prior permission. A few days later, he was reinstated.

In January 2011, Olbermann left MSNBC. Before reading a James Thurber short story called "The Scottie Who Knew Too Much", Olbermann thanked viewers, producers, and technical staff for his show's eight-year success. However, he did not thank or even mention Griffin or NBC News president Steve Capus. Olbermann did not disclose the reason for his departure, and a statement from MSNBC would only reveal that the two parties had ended the commentator's four-year contract. Many liberal bloggers and commentators blamed cable provider Comcast for Olbermann's sudden departure, accusing the company of silencing the host for political purposes just days after acquiring NBCUniversal on January 18. Statements from MSNBC and Comcast denied this allegation. Daily Beast media critic Howard Kurtz, former MSNBC anchor David Shuster, and an anonymous NBC executive said that Olbermann's past suspension and subsequent conflicts with network management was a more likely precipitating factor in Countdown's cancellation.

The following month, Olbermann relaunched his show on Current TV. He also started a blog called FOKNewsChannel.com, a commentary site parodying Fox News, which included written commentaries and articles based on former Countdown segments.

Martin Bashir

In November 2013, Martin Bashir criticized Sarah Palin for equating the federal debt to slavery, leading to his resignation. Bashir referred to the cruel and barbaric punishment of slaves as described by slave overseer Thomas Thistlewood, specifically a punishment called "Derby's dose", which forced slaves to defecate or urinate into the mouth of another slave. Bashir then said, "When Mrs. Palin invokes slavery, she doesn't just prove her rank ignorance. She confirms if anyone truly qualified for a dose of discipline from Thomas Thistlewood, she would be the outstanding candidate."

Alec Baldwin

Alec Baldwin's 2013 show Up Late with Alec Baldwin was suspended after five episodes because of a homophobic slur Baldwin made to a photographer in New York City.

Racism allegations

In May 2014, during the show "Way Too Early", a segment was done about the historical background of Cinco De Mayo and featured Louis Burgdorf dancing around the set in a sombrero, shaking maracas and drinking tequila, which host Thomas Roberts referred to as "go-go juice". The segment was criticized for its mocking of Mexican heritage and use of false stereotypes. MSNBC apologized the next day, saying there was no intention to be disrespectful and that while the props were planned, Roberts and Burgdorf acted the way they did on their own. The two hosts also apologized, although they partially deflected the blame back at their producers for allowing the segment.

In January 2020, as MSNBC reported on the death of Kobe Bryant, Alison Morris quickly called Bryant's former team, the Los Angeles Lakers, what sounded like "the Los Angeles Niggers", immediately self-correcting to "Los Angeles Lakers". Morris claimed to have verbally stumbled and said "Los Angeles Nakers", claiming she had stuttered, combining the words "Knicks" and "Lakers" into "Nakers", rather than the racial slur. Many people accused her of being racist, which Morris quickly denied. A petition to have Morris fired was signed by over 184,000 people.

Notable personnel

Anchors and hosts

Jacqueline Alemany – Co–host of The Weekend morning edition

Mika Brzezinski – Morning Joe co-host (2007–present)

Ana Cabrera – Ana Cabrera Reports anchor (2023–present)

Jonathan Capehart – Co–host of The Weekend morning edition

Eugene Daniels – Co–host of The Weekend morning edition

Willie Geist – Sunday Today anchor (2016–present) Morning Joe co-host (2007–present) and NBC News correspondent (2005–present)

Chris Hayes – Host of All in with Chris Hayes (2013–present) on MS NOW (2010–present)

Antonia Hylton – The Weekend: Primetime co–host (2025–present), correspondent (2020–present)

Chris Jansing – Anchor, Chris Jansing Reports (2022–present) and MS NOW senior national correspondent (1998–present)

Elise Jordan – The Weekend: Primetime co–host

Jonathan Lemire – Morning Joe co-host (2025–present) and political analyst (2017–present)

Rachel Maddow – The Rachel Maddow Show host (2008–present) and MS NOW senior political analyst (2005–present)

Ari Melber – Host of The Beat with Ari Melber (2017–present) and chief legal correspondent (2015–present)

Alicia Menendez – The Weeknight co-host (2019–present)

American-based correspondents and reporters

Ken Dilanian – Justice and Intelligence correspondent (2015–present)

Vaughn Hillyard – White House correspondent (2013–present)

Carol Leonnig – Senior investigative correspondent (2025–present)

David Rohde – Senior national security reporter (2023–present)

Jacob Soboroff – Senior national and political correspondent (2015–present)

Brandy Zadrozny – Senior enterprise reporter (2018–present)

Contributors and analysts

Peter Baker – political analyst

Mike Barnicle – Morning Joe contributor (2007–present)

Cornell Belcher – political analyst

John Heilemann – national affairs analyst

David Ignatius – Morning Joe analyst

Jason Johnson – political contributor

Molly Jong-Fast – political analyst

Neal Katyal – legal analyst

Katty Kay – Morning Joe contributor

Barry McCaffrey – military analyst

Mary B. McCord – legal and national security contributor

Barbara McQuade – legal analyst

Jon Meacham – presidential historian

Tim Miller – political analyst

Melissa Murray – legal analyst

Michele Norris – senior contributing editor and analyst

Ashley Parker – senior political analyst

Paola Ramos – contributor

Steven Rattner – Morning Joe economic analyst

Eugene Robinson – chief political analyst