MSNBC fired Joy Reid and she still hasn't learned a thing.
Now she's running an internet show – and targeting black Republicans with language that would end any conservative's career overnight.
This time, Byron Donalds hit back and the response was nothing she expected.
The Woman Who Called Clarence Thomas "Uncle Clarence"
Joy Reid called Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas "Uncle Clarence" on election night in 2020.
She called Tim Scott a "diversity prop" in 2021 after his response to Biden's address to Congress.
She called Byron Donalds a "troll" move by Republicans in 2023 – then said the GOP's attitude was "any black guy will do."
https://twitter.com/WesternLensman/status/2051639901771165802?s=20
Now, on her internet show with a fraction of her old MSNBC audience, she's back at it.
"He has decided to make himself the house pet of the Republican Party," Reid said of Donalds this week.
Then she went further.
"He lets white men pat him on the head in the United States House of Representatives," she said.
Read that again.
A black woman, on camera, told a sitting U.S. Senator that he doesn't think for himself – that he just stands there and lets white people touch him.
That is her statement. Word for word. No context fixes it.
What MSNBC Thought of Joy Reid's Judgment
MSNBC canceled The ReidOut in February 2025.
The network that gave her a primetime slot for years decided it had seen enough.
Her show averaged 973,000 viewers in her final months, down from 1.4 million before the 2024 election.
Laura Ingraham was pulling 3.4 million viewers in the same time slot.
MSNBC replaced Reid with a panel show and moved on.
And yet here she is – demoted to the internet, shrunk audience, zero institutional backing – still describing black Republicans in terms that belong in a different century.
The word "house pet" is not political commentary.
https://twitter.com/ByronDonalds/status/2051786471409917955?s=20
It is dehumanization. It is the language of someone who believes black Americans who reject the Democrat Party deserve to be described like animals.
If a white Republican host used that phrase about a black Democrat, every network in America would be running wall-to-wall coverage demanding resignations.
Instead, Reid's comment barely registered outside conservative media.
That tells you exactly how the left applies its own rules.
Byron Donalds Is the Reason This Strategy Is Dying
Here's what Reid cannot process about Byron Donalds.
He went on her show in January 2023 – live, on MSNBC – and when he raised the Social Security insolvency timeline, she interrupted him shouting "that's not true" eleven times in a row while he calmly laid out the facts.
He didn't break. He didn't perform outrage for the cameras. He kept talking.
"Joy, I'm a finance professional," Donalds told her. "I do more than just Congress."
X users watched the clip of Reid's "house pet" comment this week and the response was immediate.
"They are so disgustingly racist," one user wrote.
"You know you're worthless when even MSNBC doesn't want you on the air," another added.
"This is the kind of invective a black person receives from a former mainstream cable host for the crime of not being a Democrat."
The Left Has One Move Left
Reid's attack is not random.
https://twitter.com/TonySeruga/status/2051653787463618998?s=20
It is the left's last available weapon against black conservatives who keep winning.
Donalds was elected to the U.S. Senate. He was a vice presidential finalist.
He has built one of the most visible conservative profiles in the country – and he did it without asking Joy Reid's permission.
That is what she cannot forgive.
The Democrat Party has held black American voters at roughly 85–90 percent loyalty for fifty years by convincing them that leaving the party is an act of racial betrayal.
Byron Donalds is living proof that argument doesn't hold anymore.
And every time Reid or someone like her reaches for this particular weapon, another black voter sees exactly what the Democrat Party thinks of black Americans who step out of line.
Sources:
- Sierra Marlee, "Joy Reid calls Byron Donalds a 'house pet' of the Republican party," BizPac Review, May 6, 2026.
- Brian Flood, "MSNBC's Joy Reid rants against Byron Donalds as prop for GOP: 'Any Black guy will do'," Fox News, January 13, 2023.
- Brian Flood, "Rep. Byron Donalds spars with MSNBC's Joy Reid over voting record, racial comments," Fox News, January 11, 2023.
- "Joy Reid Loses Trump Battle as President's Biggest TV Critics Melt Away," Newsweek, February 24, 2025.
- Joseph Wulfsohn, "MSNBC's Joy Reid blasted for referring to Justice Thomas as 'Uncle Clarence'," Fox News, November 5, 2020.
