Tipsheet

Ex-Kamala Harris Aide's MSNBC Debut Is a Total Ratings Disaster

Symone Sanders, a Bernie Sanders acolyte, jumped ship to join the Biden camp in 2020. She was then placed to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ senior adviser and mouthpiece. The only problem is that you can’t advise someone who doesn’t want it or do the work, as Harris has shown, and you can’t help someone communications-wise who is just abjectly terrible. Kamala Harris doesn’t read the briefs prepared by her staff. She’s beyond awkward in front of the camera. She cannot go off-script. It’s a train wreck. We’ve seen this pervasively when given tasks to helm that she is not qualified to offer advice or comment. Her work environment is as radioactive as Nagasaki in 1945. I’ve lost count of the stories that have unveiled how awful the VP office has become. Top staffers are leaving left and right. When Harris got COVID, her isolation could have been served in her office. No one is there. 

Sanders reached for her parachute and jumped in December of 2021. Like soon-to-be-former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Sanders got a gig on MSNBC. Not a shocking move since MSNBC and CNN are the two job havens for former or disgraced Democratic operatives. The problem is that Sanders’ debut was a tire fire. Again, no one really watches MSNBC. Ever since Rachel Maddow decided to step away, the network has a void regarding on-air talent. Maddow was the face of this progressive cesspool. No way Sanders was going to be able to fill that void. First, unless you’re really into the weeds, you don’t really know who she is outside of Democratic or liberal media circles, so the ratings disaster isn’t entirely her fault (via NY Post):

Symone Sanders’ popularity is about as bad as the approval rating of her former boss.

The ex-Biden administration official who was most recently a top spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris tanked in her debut this past weekend on MSNBC, according to newly released Nielsen ratings.

Sanders drew just 361,000 total viewers for her 4 p.m. show, titled “Symone,” on Saturday. She also managed to attract just 29,000 viewers in the advertiser-coveted 25-54 demographic.

The program’s viewership fell well short of Fox News Channel’s “Fox News Live,” which drew 842,000 total viewers, including 163,000 in the 25-54 demographic.

Sanders’ debut program featured an interview with First Lady Jill Biden.

With Psaki heading to MSNBC, watch she takeover for Sanders if these trash ratings continue. Not saying that Jen will be a grand slam but being the face of the Biden White House and serving as a State Department spokesperson under Obama—she is more widely recognized. Whatever the case, not a good showing for the former Harris staffer though I’m sure anywhere but that office must seem like an oasis, bad ratings or not.