The fired MSNBC host, Joy Reid, is facing a firestorm of criticism after she speculated that Vice President Vance might leave his wife, Usha, for Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika, in order to upgrade to what she called “a white queen.” 

Ms. Reid appeared on the “I’ve Had It” podcast, co-hosted by Jennifer Welch, who has been cast as liberals’ answer to podcaster Joe Rogan. 

“They can’t have the successor to MAGA be the guy with the brown Hindu wife,” Ms. Reid claimed. “They’re also Christian nationalists. That ain’t going to work. That’s why he’s throwing his wife under the bus. Poor Usha. Or she’s in on it.”

Ms. Welch then made a derogatory reference to a close hug between Ms. Kirk and Mr. Vance when they were onstage at a Turning Post event late last month. The vice president, Ms. Welch claimed, was “playing slap and tickle with Erika Kirk,” which she said was the “weirdest s— I’ve ever seen.”

Ms. Reid then criticized Ms. Kirk’s outfits and behavior since the murder of her husband, saying, “You’re not doing the right thing. [You’re] supposed to be a widow, you in leather pants? That’s not widow wear.”

The fired MSNBC host went on to suggest that Mr. Vance believes it would be politically advantageous to leave his wife for Ms. Kirk.

“Wouldn’t it be the most perfect fairy tale, MAGA fairy tale, if he finally sees the light that he needs a white queen instead of this brown Hindu?” Ms. Reid said. “I mean, I’m not saying that’s happening, or maybe that Usha is not even in on it.”

The comments sparked swift backlash on X. 

The spokesman for Turning Point USA, Andrew Kolvet, posted on X, “Watch three deranged, likely post-menopausal women flippantly turn a moment of shared grief into a sexualized liberal fever dream where they project their own racism and disdain for Christians onto Erika Kirk, Vice President Vance, Second Lady Usha, and half the country.”

“This is an insight into the spiritual core of the radical left: sneering, deriding, and jeering at the suffering of a widow because her slain husband was conservative,” he said. 

A conservative commentator, Mary Katherine Ham, who a decade ago lost her first husband in a biking accident, wrote on X, “Her husband was murdered 75 days ago and these women are making up a scandalous sexual rumor to defame her and saying she can’t wear certain kinds of pants bc she’s a widow. Puritan ministers with injectables.”

Another user wrote, “Joy Reid is the same person that CNN’s super-serious journo Abby Phillip decided to hang out with so she could bash conservatives as being facts-challenged conspiracy-theorists.”

“Joy Reid mocks Erika Kirk for wearing leather pants and predicts that JD Vance is going to leave Usha for a white woman because it’s a “MAGA fairy tale. I can only imagine why MSNBC decided they could no longer tolerate giving this vile woman a show,” conservative commentator CJ Pearson said. 

A conservative columnist, Miranda Devine, wrote, “This wannabe mean-girl act is transparent self-loathing misogyny from lonely losers in life. No normal woman would want to be friends with any of them, and no self-respecting man would want to be anywhere near them.”

The White House did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.

Ms. Reid was suddenly fired from MSNBC this past February, as part of a programming re-organization, after NBCUniversal executives determined that her on-air inflammatory rhetoric – including racist comments about white women – made her position at the company untenable, according to multiple reports. 

Since her abrupt termination, Ms. Reid has ventured into what’s become familiar territory for fired cable news stars – going on her own on YouTube and Substack – with mixed results. She has not held back, drawing attention last week for alienating a powerful, far-left constituency, the transgender activist movement, by saying she didn’t want to have to look at a transgender woman’s penis, or “pee pee,” in the women’s locker room.

Ms. Reid’s comments about JD Vance and Erika Kirk were not the first time the co-hosts of the “I’ve Had It” podcast provided a forum for left-wing guests to speculate about the vice president’s marriage. 

In October, a former Biden White House press secretary and MS NOW host, Jen Psaki, made an appearance on the show and suggested that Ms. Vance secretly wants to escape her marriage. 

“I always wonder what’s going on in the mind of his wife,” Ms. Psaki said. “Like, are you OK? Please blink four times. Come over here, we’ll save you.”

Mr. Vance shot back at Ms. Psaki’s “disgraceful” comments, saying, “I am very lucky to have a wonderful wife and I know — at least I hope — that my wife feels the same about me.”

He also defended Ms. Vance in July after the far-right provocateur, Nick Fuentes, criticized the vice president for having a Hindu wife. Mr. Vance called Mr. Fuentes “a total loser” and said of Ms. Vance that “she’s beautiful, she’s smart… don’t attack my wife — she’s out of your league.”