Back in April, Harlem’s famed Apollo Theater served as the setting for a meeting of MSNBC minds as star anchors Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow took the stage for an extended conversation in front of a packed house. Flash-forward one month and the rest of the country is getting the chance to listen in courtesy of Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow Live at the Apollo, a filmed recording of their in-person chat.
TVNewser has an exclusive clip from the two-hour special, which premieres Saturday, May 4 at 9 p.m. ET on MSNBC and streams the following day on Peacock.
Watch an exclusive clip from Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow Live at the Apollo below:
This particular Maddow and Reid meet-up was timed to the recent release of the latter’s latest book, Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America, chronicling the relationship between the married civil rights pioneers. But as this clip reveals, their conversation extends into the present day as the duo reflect on how the winding path of history is inherently cyclical.
“It does sometimes feel like we keep reliving the same eras in American history over and over again,” Reid observes. “When you’re talking about the 1930s and ’40s, what it sounds like what you’re talking about is now.”
As the audience breaks into applause, Reid goes on to describe how former President Donald Trump—who at the time of the Apollo event had yet to enter the Manhattan Criminal Court for the first day of the first-ever criminal trial of an ex-U.S. president—fits into the larger idea of history being a record that repeats itself. “You think Donald Trump is some sui generis thing that’s never existed before… it’s pretty much the same playbook.”
“Nothing’s new under the sun,” Reid continues. “People don’t change the tactics of evil—they just repeat it because people forget that it happened.”
Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow Live at the Apollo premieres May 4 at 9 p.m. ET on MSNBC and streams May 5 on Peacock.