Soon-to-be MSNBC host Chris Hayes speaks to The Wrap’s Lucas Shaw about joining MSNBC and his new program:

As someone who has predominantly been a print journalist, how does it feel to be a TV host now?

I’m super stoked. It’s like planting a flag in virgin soil. I don’t think there is anything else on cable news that looks like this. Obviously Alex Witt has being doing weekends for a while but it’s the first post-Lean Forward weekend programming.

So in what way is it unique?

The way I’ve been describing it to people in a Tim Robbins in “The Player” shorthand is if you took the format and aesthetic sensibility of “Morning Joe” and the substantive perspective and sensibility of “The [Rachel] Maddow Show” and fused them. It will less prompter driven and more multi-vocal with chances for the explanatory journalism that I like to do.