''Alex Wagner Tonight'' is an American liberal news and opinion television program hosted by

Alex Wagner Alexandra Swe Wagner (born November 27, 1977) is an American journalist. She is the host of both '' Alex Wagner Tonight ''on MSNBC and Netflix's '' The Mole'' reboot, as well as the author of ''FutureFace: A Family Mystery, an Epic Quest, and the ...

. It premiered on MSNBC on August 16, 2022, and airs on Tuesdays through Fridays as a substitute for ''

The Rachel Maddow Show ''The Rachel Maddow Show'' (also abbreviated ''TRMS'') is an American liberal news and opinion television program that airs on MSNBC, running in the 9:00 pm ET timeslot Monday evenings. It is hosted by Rachel Maddow, who gained a public p ...

'' (which, since May 2022, has only aired on Monday nights). Guest hosts for the series include

Ali Velshi Ali Velshi (born October 29, 1968 or 1969) is a Canadian television journalist, a senior economic and business correspondent for NBC News since October 2016. He was also substitute anchor for '' Top Story with Tom Llamas'' on NBC News Now at w ...

Alicia Menendez Alicia Jacobsen Menendez ( ; born July 2, 1983)Ayman Mohyeldin Ayman ( ar, أيمن, also spelled as Aiman, Aimen, Aymen, or Eymen in the Latin alphabet) is an Arabic masculine given name. It is derived from the Arabic Semitic root () for ''right'', and literally means ''righteous'', ''he who is on the right' ...

History

From February to April 2022, as part of her new contract with

NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. NBCUniversal is primaril ...

Rachel Maddow Rachel Anne Maddow (, ; born April 1, 1973) is an American television news program host and liberal political commentator. Maddow hosts '' The Rachel Maddow Show'', a weekly television show on MSNBC, and serves as the cable network's special e ...

took an extended hiatus from her

MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and politic ...

program ''

'' in order to focus on other film and

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

projects, with rotating guest hosts filling in for her. Upon Maddow's return, she announced that she would only host the show on Monday nights beginning in May, and continue to feature guest hosts throughout the rest of the week. At this point, ''The Rachel Maddow Show'' was retitled ''MSNBC Prime'' on Tuesday through Friday nights, but retained the same staff and overall format. Average viewership of the hour as ''MSNBC Prime'' was lower than that of ''The Rachel Maddow Show'', but still ahead of timeslot competitor '' CNN Tonight'' (a replacement of '' Cuomo Prime Time'' with rotating hosts after

Chris Cuomo Christopher Cuomo ( ; born August 9, 1970) is a television journalist anchor at NewsNation, based in New York City. He has previously been the ABC News chief law and justice correspondent and the co-anchor for ABC's '' 20/20'', news anchor for ...

was fired from the network) and behind

Fox News Channel The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is ...

's ''

Hannity ''Hannity'' is an American conservative television political talk program on Fox News hosted by Sean Hannity. Episodes air live at 9:00 p.m. from Monday through Thursday, while episodes that air on Fridays are pre-recorded, with a repeat ...

''. In June 2022, MSNBC announced that ''MSNBC Prime'' would be replaced by a new show hosted by

beginning on August 16. On August 3, MSNBC announced that the program would be titled ''Alex Wagner Tonight''. Wagner stated that the show would aim to combine Maddow's "intellectual rigor and informative analysis" with aspects that are representative of her own personal experiences, including more segments in the field and segments on climate change, immigration, and race. The program retains some of Maddow's staff, including executive producer Cory Gnazzo. The series premiere of ''Alex Wagner Tonight''—which featured guests

Mark Leibovich Mark Leibovich ( ; born May 9, 1965) is an American journalist and author. He is a staff writer at ''The Atlantic'', and previously spent a decade as the chief national correspondent for ''The New York Times Magazine'', based in Washington, D.C ...

Adam Kinzinger Adam Daniel Kinzinger (; born February 27, 1978) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for . The district covers eastern Rockford, most of Rockford's suburbs, and a swath of exurban territory around Chicago. He is a memb ...

, and Joyce Vance, as well as coverage of Wyoming's Republican primary—was seen by around 2 million viewers.

References

{{MSNBC programming 2022 American television series debuts 2020s American television news shows English-language television shows MSNBC original programming