This Saturday, MSNBC officially becomes MS NOW, marking one of the biggest reinventions in modern cable news, and The Weekend, cohosted by Jonathan Capehart, Eugene Daniels, and Jackie Alemany, will lead the way as the network’s first program to air under its new banner. The change comes nearly six months into the trio’s on-air partnership, a show that’s already built a reputation for sharp political interviews, viral cultural moments, and rare on-screen warmth.
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The elevator hums softly inside New York City’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Its brass doors close on the reflection of decades of television history — the interviews, the anchors, the interns rushing between floors. Beneath the shoes of anyone lucky enough to ride it lies a burgundy carpet patterned with the gold silhouettes of NBC’s famous peacock, a vestige of network broadcasting’s golden age.
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Capehart has spent much of his career walking across that carpet. When he first came to NBC News as a student intern nearly four decades ago, he remembered stepping into 30 Rock for the first time and realizing he was standing where the country’s attention gathered.
“I remember walking those halls for the first time and thinking, this is where news is made,” he told The Advocate in a joint interview alongside his cohosts last week. The experience, he said, shaped everything that came after, from writing editorials that won a Pulitzer Prize to interviewing presidents and civil rights leaders.
Seven weeks ago, he posted a photo of it on Instagram with a simple caption: “30 Rock elevator carpet shots while we still can.” The image shows his feet pointing toward the closed elevator doors, a quiet snapshot of transition. “I’ve been taking pictures on the carpet in the elevator every time,” Capehart said. “I’m going to miss that carpet.”
When The Weekend returns to the air this Saturday, the show, which made history in May when it became the first major network news show with two gay cohosts, will make history once again. It will be the first broadcast under the network’s new name, MS NOW, as MSNBC formally separates from NBC News to operate as an independent newsroom under the recently created Versant corporate umbrella.
The new name is a statement of intent: MS NOW stands for “My Source for News, Opinion, and the World,” highlighting the network’s core promise to blend rigorous reporting, thoughtful commentary, and global perspective in one destination.
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“It’s been fun,” Capehart said, reflecting on the show’s launch. “We’ve had a lot of news to cover. We’re going through a lot with the split from Comcast, but at a time when the industry is shrinking, we’re expanding as a company. Even though we’re splitting off, we’ll have a new name — MS NOW — but the mission remains the same. Our jobs do not change, and our shows do not change when the name of the network changes.”
Building chemistry on live television
In six months, The Weekend has evolved from a promising concept into one of the most fluid, conversation-driven programs in political media. Daniels, who joined the network as an analyst in 2021, said jumping into his first full-time television role earlier this year “was like being thrown right into it.”
“There was no easing into it,” he said. “Getting Jackie back was really fun. Jackie, Jonathan, and I — you put the three of us together, and we really enjoy each other. We actually like each other. We have the same approach to journalism, which is that if you come on our show, we are going to ask you hard questions, no matter what party you’re from. But we also think about all of this a little bit differently, too.”
Alemany, who returned from parental leave in late August after anchoring only the first show before tending to her newborn infant, said her cohosts made that adjustment to early morning call times smoother than she expected.
“Jonathan and Eugene couldn’t have made the transition easier for me to come back to work,” she said. “I underestimated how challenging that would be. They’ve just been so welcoming and supportive and have really shepherded me along.”
Their collective background explains that natural rhythm. Capehart, a longtime former associate editor at The Washington Post and host of PBS NewsHour, previously hosted The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart, which earned a 2025 GLAAD Media Award nomination. Daniels came from Politico, where he was chief “Playbook” correspondent and White House reporter, and previously led the White House Correspondents’ Association. Alemany arrived from The Washington Post, where she shared a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the January 6 insurrection and attack on the Capitol.
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“This joy of working together obviously exists hand in hand with the grim and, at times, very sad reality of the news landscape that we’re living in,” Alemany told The Advocate. “Those two experiences can coexist, and we’re able to find the joy every Saturday and Sunday morning with our audience while still being able to capture the reality of what’s going on for so many people in the country right now.”
One segment that tested their teamwork came when former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was running for mayor as an independent, joined The Weekend on November 1, just days before the New York City mayoral election. During the interview, Cuomo mixed up the names of Capehart and Daniels several times as he claimed that “diversity was a strength but also could be a weakness.”
“We all looked at each other — we’re all like, uh-uh,” Daniels said. “It was my turn, kind of, to go. Without speaking, we’re all like, you’re definitely asking about that, right? We have a very clear, unspoken understanding between the three of us.”
The exchange drew national attention for Cuomo’s remarks and the hosts’ response. Daniels teased, “We have a footsie Morse code.” Cuomo ultimately lost to now Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist phenom.
Each cohost has a favorite on-air moment so far. For Capehart, it was actor Robert De Niro’s appearance in October to discuss the “No Kings Day” protests. “Not just having him on the show,” Capehart said, “but he was on set and then had us all clutching our pearls when his language turned a little salty. You can have someone as big as Robert De Niro coming on to talk not about acting, but about the country, and do it in a way that’s a little spicy for morning television.”
De Niro warned, “We cannot let up on protests, or we risk a Trump third term.” The moment became one of The Weekend’s most-viewed clips on MSNBC’s digital platforms, according to a company spokesperson.
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Daniels pointed to an exclusive sit-down with former Vice President Kamala Harris as a highlight. Conducted on short notice in Chicago, the interview captured Harris’s remarks about faith in the Justice Department and her criticism of the Trump administration’s politicization of the justice system. Everyone came together so quickly,” Daniels said.
Alemany said her favorite moments have been less about headline guests and more about the connection she shares with her cohosts. “Our interviews are very much a team sport,” she told The Advocate. “There’s been a lot of memorable moments because we listen to each other, we work off each other, and we elicit sometimes surprising responses.”
Asked who they’d like to interview next, each cohost offered an answer that revealed both their journalistic instincts and their curiosities about the current moment. Capehart said former President George W. Bush, explaining that he’d want to hear how the former president views today’s Republican Party. “Just talk about his feelings about where things are right now,” he said in the interview, a nod to Bush’s complicated legacy and distance from the Trump-era GOP.
Daniels said he would like to bring together former House speakers such as Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi, two political figures who helped define the modern congressional battlefield. He said he’d want to discuss how Republicans under Speaker Mike Johnson have relinquished political power. “Put them in a room together,” he said, smiling, imagining a conversation about power, polarization, and what governing has come to mean in a divided America.
Alemany, quick with a dry aside, added, “Vladimir Putin — maybe from Switzerland.”
The show’s evolution mirrors the reinvention of its parent network. On Saturday, when MSNBC becomes MS NOW, it will mark the birth of a new standalone entity within Versant, the independent media company formed after Comcast’s spinoff of NBCUniversal’s cable networks. Led by President Rebecca Kutler, MS NOW’s newsroom has added more than three dozen Pulitzer-, Emmy-, and Murrow-winning journalists, according to network details.
“It’s been a lot,” Capehart said. “We’re going through a lot with the split from Comcast.” For him, the shift feels hopeful. Daniels called it “a rare bright spot in journalism,” noting that MS NOW is “doubling, tripling, and quadrupling down on growing.”
Versant’s news division now includes a strengthened Washington Bureau, major content partnerships with Sky News and AccuWeather, and a rebrand campaign introducing the slogan “Same mission. New name.” According to Nielsen, the network averages 1.2 million primetime viewers — twice CNN’s audience — and has generated more than 6.7 billion views on TikTok and YouTube so far this year.
“People are looking for news they can actually trust,” Daniels said. “That’s what we’re building.”
Capehart and Daniels are both out gay men; Alemany is an award-winning journalist who’s covered the centers of power for a decade. Their presence on MS NOW’s flagship weekend show signals something bigger about representation in political journalism.
“You can’t tell the full story of America if everyone at the table comes from the same place,” Daniels said. Capehart added that empathy is central to the craft: “Truth and empathy aren’t opposites.”
Alemany said The Weekend gives her a chance to balance the urgency of breaking news with the depth of accountability reporting. “We can respond in real time,” she said. “It’s accountability you can see happen.”
Capehart says his journey from NBC intern to cohost of The Weekend is, by his own admission, surreal. With a Pulitzer Prize, Emmy, and GLAAD honors, and a New York Times bestselling memoir to his name, he’s preparing for a new chapter at MS NOW.
“To now be walking out of that same building, decades later, as part of a network that’s standing on its own, it feels full circle,” he said. “I’ve had an incredible run there. And I’ll always have those elevator pictures to remember it by.”
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