Here's How Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, And Joy Reid Are Making History

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Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid, and Nicolle Wallace anchor three of MSNBC's popular shows, and they've hosted multiple MSNBC Live events for the 2020 Presidential Election, but the bigger picture is that this trio is changing norms for women. That a major TV network put these three women in positions of leadership shows that the status quo in news may be changing. 

In addition to breaking the "glass ceiling" for women, these MSNBC anchors genuinely support each other — they are friends. The positive bond between Maddow, Reid, and Wallace is unusual to see in 2020's divisive political climate. Their rapport is apparent when you see the women together on-camera. But the friends regularly give each other compliments and shout-outs off-camera. In 2017, Maddow wrote in an essay for Variety on why Wallace is her favorite Republican, "We'll never agree on tax policy or the Iran deal, but I trust her, I respect her, and I know for a fact that she is thinking circles around most of the rest of us, most of the time."

On October 22, 2020, before the final 2020 presidential debate, Joy Reid tweeted, "Nothin but love for these ladies. Always a pleasure to hang out and break down political news and events with my brilliant friends @maddow, @NicolleDWallace and the 30 Rock crew!" One day later, Wallace retweeted Reid's post, adding to the Twitter lovefest, posting "This is the best part of camping 2020 – love spending time with @JoyAnnReid, @maddow."

Read on to find out more about these three remarkable women and their friendship! 

Rachel Maddow is MSNBC's prime-time star

According to MSNBC, The Rachel Maddow Show is the most successful show launch in the cable network's history and significantly increased ratings when it launched in 2008. Maddow's show has won three Emmys, and it has been nominated six times. The news program also won a GLAAD award twice.

Rachel Maddow is a Stanford graduate and earned her doctorate at Oxford, and she's also a Rhodes scholar. Maddow's accomplished career and education are even more remarkable because she is the first openly gay woman to anchor a news show in prime time. The popular anchorwoman is married to artist Susan Mikula, and the couple splits time between New York City and Massachusetts.

Maddow won multiple awards for the podcast Bag Man in 2019. As if she wasn't busy enough, she's written three books (via Amazon): Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power was a #1 New York Times best seller in 2017, and Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth was a successful book that came out in October 2019. In December 2020, Maddow and Michael Yarvitz's book, Bag Man: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up, and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House, will publish.

Nicolle Wallace worked for George W. Bush and John McCain Before MSNBC

Nicolle Wallace hosts MSNBC's Deadline: White House. Her show is so popular that in 2020, it was expanded to two hours on weekday afternoons (via Deadline). Before hosting her MSNBC news show, Wallace was the White House Communications Chief for President George W. Bush. She served as a senior advisor for the presidential campaign of John McCain in 2008 (via MSNBC).

HBO turned the McCain-Palin presidential campaign into a movie in 2012. In the film Game Change, Ed Harris played John McCain, Julianne Moore played Sarah Palin, and Sarah Paulson played Nicolle Wallace!

After working for Bush and McCain, Wallace was one of the hosts of The View and worked as a political analyst for multiple news shows. The Republican newswoman somehow found time to write three fiction books (via Amazon). Wallace's three books were part of a successful series about fictional character Charlotte Kramer, who became the 45th president of the United States. In 2010, the first book, Eighteen Acres, became a best seller. In 2011, It's Classified was published, and in 2015, the final book in the series, Madam President, was published.

2020 was Joy Reid's breakthrough year

On July 20, 2020, MSNBC's Joy Reid became the only Black woman currently hosting a news show on a major network in prime time (via Vogue).

The Reid Out consistently delivered primary political interviews immediately. The new prime-time anchor also has a major major Twitter game with 1.8 million followers and hosts three podcasts! According to MSNBC, "Reid also hosts the podcast "Reid This-Reid That" with veteran journalist Jacque Reid, a book podcast called "What to Reid" and a MSNBC and Wondery podcast "Kamala: Next in Line."

Just like Maddow and Wallace, Reid is a best-selling author. She is the author of The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story and Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide. Reid co-edited the book We Are the Change We Seek: The Speeches of Barack Obama with Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne. Reid had a front-row seat in the 2008 Obama presidential campaign (via Politicon).