Author and political strategist Symone Sanders is gearing up for the May 7 premiere of her MSNBC show, Symone. But although she’s worked very closely with the Biden Administration, serving as Senior Advisor to the 2020 Biden campaign and the former Senior Advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris, Sanders won’t use her time on air to be a cheerleader for the President. In fact, the 32-year-old says she will say what’s on her mind, even if it puts the President on blast. “I’m going to be honest, and sometimes the honesty means that what I have to say is not what the administration would have to say. And that’s fine because it’s my show,” she told The Hill.
Sanders’ show, which will air on MSNBC at 4pm ET on Saturdays and Sundays, will cover the political headlines of the day with a little pop culture and other news sprinkled in, something she hopes will attract an audience that doesn’t normally watch cable news. Sanders will also host a streaming show on Peacock on Mondays and Tuesdays.
“So my show is going to reach people like me: young people who are engaged, who are paying attention, who care, but who may not be watching TV as regularly,” she says.
Although she doesn’t want to spend all of her time defending the current administration, Sanders has gone on record calling some of her former boss’ coverage sexist, including a New York Post opinion piece which referred to the VP as “Madam Maytag — the loneliest girl in D.C.” because of her high staff turnover. “My personal opinion is that she is covered in this particular way because she’s the first. She’s something that people have not ever seen anybody like her before: a woman, a Black woman,” she says. “The coverage changes when you are talking about a woman, period.”
Symone viewers should get ready for the host to tell it like it is. In her 2020 book, “No, You Shut Up: Speaking Truth to Power and Reclaiming America,” Sanders inspires readers to fight injustice wherever they face it. And she does it with a confidence that can’t be ignored. Sanders says she developed that confidence while working at a D.C. consumer advocacy think tank. After a rocky start, Sanders says it dawned on her that the only way she would be able to break through would be to say what’s on her mind.
“One day, I realized everybody else was just saying what they think, what they want, and then we’re cobbling it together and making a strategy. So maybe I just need to start saying what I think, what I want,” she says.
If preparing for the launch of her new show wasn’t enough, Sanders is also getting ready to tie the knot in Mexico with fiancé Shawn Townsend in August.