In her return from a hiatus of almost two months, Rachel Maddow announced on Monday night that starting in May, she’ll begin hosting “The Rachel Maddow Show” on a weekly basis.
As she explained during her opening, aside from special events, breaking news and upcoming election coverage, in May she will be leading the show on Monday nights only. Ahead of that, Maddow will be hosting “The Rachel Maddow Show” Monday through Thursday every week for the rest of this month.
But, she told viewers, she doesn’t otherwise plan to take another long break. In essence, the announcement matches reports about her show’s future from last year — but now we have a timeline.
“I said when I left before that I may be eventually taking another hiatus this year, that things were fluid, we’d be taking it one step at a time,” Maddow said. “That’s all still true-ish. But, one of the things I realized while I was on hiatus working on these other projects the past few weeks, one of the things I realized, to my surprise, is that I actually don’t need another hiatus. This one was great but I think I only needed the one.”
“I do still have all these other irons in the fire, all these things I’m still working on, that I want to bring to fruition,” she continued. “None of them are fast, all of them take a long time. I’m still working on all of them, but I don’t think I need another big stretch of time off.”
“So here’s the plan. I’m back. I’m gonna be here all this month, Monday through Thursdays nights. Now, for big news events, for things like the lead up to the election, I’ll of course be here for more than that, but that is the general plan. I will [be here] this month, Monday through Thursday night. And then starting next month, starting in May, I’m going to be here weekly, I’m going to be here on Monday nights,” Maddow said.
“Again, to give myself just more time to work on some of this other stuff I’ve got cooking for MSNBC and NBC. So, Monday to Thursday nights this month; Starting next month, I will be here weekly,’ she added. “And again, this might change. We will see how things go. But that is the plan as of now. So, now you know. And we will never speak of it again.”
Maddow didn’t indicate who, if anyone, would be regularly filling in for her Tuesdays-Fridays, once she switches to her once a weekly schedule. But she kicked her show off with what felt like a lengthy endorsement for her colleague Ali Velshi, who filled in for Maddow during her hiatus while reporting from various locales in Eastern Europe on the war in Ukraine.
“I’m also grateful, almost beyond words, for Ali Velshi in particular, and for my other colleagues who filled in for me while I was away. If you can’t tell from the way that all the rest of us talk about him, you should know that Ali Velshi really is a prince among men, he has been in Ukraine and in bordering countries for five straight weeks, covering the war, hosting this show, hosting his own show, he’s been doing just incredible work literally around the clock,” Maddow said.
“All the while being a great and generous and upstanding person and a great co-worker to everyone he works with while he’s doing it. I’m telling you, you should be so lucky to ever have a co-worker as great as Ali Velshi. We are incredibly lucky to have him here at MSNBC and I’m really really grateful that he helmed things so ably while I was gone. I sort of feel like I have big shoes to fill coming back, given what a good job he’s been doing,” Maddow continued.