Up, branded in its final incarnation as Up with David Gura, was a news and opinion television program that aired weekends on MSNBC.

"[8] In April 2013, Anne Thompson left her role as the Democratic National Committee's director of video production to become a segment producer for the program.

To prepare new guests for the program, Hayes advises them, "The first and foremost important rule of the show: we're not on television – no talking points, no sound bites... We have a lot of time for actual conversation.

A typical show consists of a 4-person panel discussion of relevant topics as well as several segments detailing specific stories or interviews with newsmakers.

Hayes notes that "Cable news is very white, male and straight", and aims for a younger more ideologically idiosyncratic set of guests who are reflective of the diversity of the country.

The official Twitter hashtag of the program is #uppers which began as a joke about the early show time that went viral.