Rachel Maddow will step away from her top-rated nightly newscast. According to a report from The Wrap, Maddow will use her time away from television to work with Ben Stiller on a film adaptation of her podcast, Bag Man. The audio series explores the bribery scandal that led former Vice President Spiro Agnew to resign in 1973.
“Ben Stiller is going to direct it, he is incredible. One of the producers of the film is Lorne Michaels, yes that Lorne Michael. This has been in the works for a while now, but it looks like it is gonna to happen. I am super excited about it, and I am going to take a little bit of time off from this show to go help with the movie,” Maddow said during her show on Monday.
MSNBC will reportedly use a rotating cast of journalists and political pundits to fill in for her. Elsewhere, MSNBC has added Matthew Dowd and Symone Sanders to its rosters to ease the work load. Dowd will work as a political analyst while Sanders’ leads weekend news programs for NBC’s streaming platform, Peacock.
At this time, it is unclear when Maddow will return. Rather, she vaguely said that she’ll leave for a “few weeks.”
