Esteemed political strategist Symone D. Sanders will join MSNBC to host new programs across cable and streaming, president of MSNBC Rashida Jones announced today.
Beginning this spring, the government and presidential campaign trail alum and celebrated author will host MSNBC on the weekends and Peacock’s The Choice from MSNBC. She will be based in Washington, D.C.
Sanders will bring her expertise, spirited rhetoric and sharp political insight to MSNBC’s multi-platform channels. Her program will explore issues at the intersection of politics, culture and race and break down how decisions made in Washington impact electorates, industries, and communities across the country. She will also interview law and policy makers, top government officials, scholars, and thought leaders.
A native of North Omaha, Nebraska and a recent alum of both the Biden-Harris administration and campaign, Sanders will bring her unique perspectives, midwestern sensibilities and lived experiences to MSNBC viewers with an insider’s take on Washington and the inner-workings of American politics.
Sanders’ announcement comes off the heels of MSNBC’s strategic focus on streaming in 2021 with the launch of The Choice from MSNBC on Peacock, the streaming destination for live, in-depth perspective and news. Sanders’ show will be featured alongside original programming hosted by Zerlina Maxwell, Mehdi Hasan and Ayman Mohyeldin on The Choice from MSNBC.
On cable, MSNBC delivered significant gains in 2021, ending the year as the #2 network across all of cable–dominating CNN for five straight years across total viewers–and finishing as the #1 cable network among African American viewers. Since 2015, MSNBC increased viewership by 160 percent, growing more than CNN and FOX News combined. MSNBC Digital also had its strongest year on record.
Continuing its commitment to impactful journalism and quality original streaming programming, NBCU News Group Chairman Cesar Conde made a significant investment in its streaming platforms, adding hundreds of new jobs and several new live hours of original programming across The Choice, NBC News NOW and TODAY All Day.
Before joining MSNBC, Sanders served as a senior member of the Biden-Harris administration serving as Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor and Chief Spokesperson to Vice President Kamala Harris. She was one of the earliest staffers of the Biden presidential campaign and later served as a senior advisor for the Biden-Harris ticket. Sanders first rose to prominence in 2016 as the youngest presidential press secretary on record working for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s then-presidential campaign.
Previously, Sanders was the national chair of the Coalition of Juvenile Justice Emerging Leaders Committee and member of the Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice. There, she worked to raise the profile of young voices in the fight for juvenile justice reform and brought millennial perspectives to policy conversations.
She published her first book, No, You Shut Up: Speaking Truth to Power and Reclaiming America in 2020, which explores finding her authentic voice and recounts stories from her life and those of young revolutionaries who came before her.
Sanders is a former resident fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School and the University of Southern California's Center for the Political Future.
