NBC News cut ties with Ronna McDaniel, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, just days after announcing she had joined the network as a political analyst.
NBCU News Group Chairman Cesar Conde sent a note to the entire company on Tuesday night announcing that McDaniel would not be a contributor:
There is no doubt that the last several days have been difficult for the News Group. After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor.
No organization, particularly a newsroom, can succeed unless it is cohesive and aligned. Over the last few days, it has become clear that this appointment undermines that goal.
I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down. While this was a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team, I approved it and take full responsibility for it.
Our initial decision was made because of our deep commitment to presenting our audiences with a widely diverse set of viewpoints and experiences, particularly during these consequential times. We continue to be committed to the principle that we must have diverse viewpoints on our programs, and to that end, we will redouble our efforts to seek voices that represent different parts of the political spectrum.
Take Care,
Cesar
NBC brass met on Tuesday to discuss McDaniel’s fate after her hiring sparked an internal revolt at the network that quickly exploded onto the air, first with a stunning rebuke from Chuck Todd on Sunday’s Meet the Press, then with a series of condemnations from MSNBC’s top stars throughout Monday.
Puck’s Dylan Byers reported after the meeting that NBC planned to drop McDaniel as a contributor.
On Friday, NBC News announced internally that McDaniel was joining the network. A network source told Mediaite she would be appearing on both NBC News and MSNBC. The contributor deal reportedly paid McDaniel nearly $300,000 a year. The contract was signed, I’m told, so NBC will at the very least have to pay McDaniel out.
McDaniel’s hiring sparked fury inside NBC. Some staffers took to X, formerly Twitter, in protest. Critics fixated on her role in promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies and her efforts in furtherance of his attempts to stay in power. Social media posts in which she trashed NBC and MSNBC were resurfaced before she could delete them.
Within a day of the news, the Wall Street Journal reported that MSNBC president Rashida Jones, in an effort to tamp down the backlash, was telling staffers McDaniel would not be appearing on MSNBC.
By Sunday, the backlash erupted on air. After Kristen Welker’s interview with McDaniel on Meet the Press, which had been booked before she was hired by the network, former Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd panned the hiring on a panel.
“I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation,” Todd told Welker following her interview. “There’s a reason why there’s a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with this, because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting.”
Over the next 24 hours, McDaniel took a battering from the network she had just been hired by. Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Nicolle Wallace, Joy Reid and Jen Psaki all used their MSNBC programs to condemned McDaniel for her conduct and NBC for hiring her.
Rachel Maddow, MSNBC’s biggest star, took to the air on Monday night. In a dramatic monologue, Maddow condemned McDaniel as an election denier and blasted NBC for the “inexplicable” hire.
“I want to associate myself with all my colleagues, both at MSNBC and at NBC News, who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company putting on the payroll someone who hasn’t just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government,” Maddow said.
She then made an appeal for NBC to fire McDaniel: “You wouldn’t hire a made man like a mobster to work at a D.A.’s office, right? You wouldn’t hire a pick-pocket to work as a TSA screener. So I find the decision to put her on the payroll inexplicable, and I hope they will reverse their decision.”
Lawrence O’Donnell followed Maddow in the 10 p.m. hour and leveled a brutal attack on McDaniel that took aim at her fealty to Trump.
“Why did you change your name for Donald Trump?” O’Donnell asked on his show. “Before Trump ran for president, her name was Ronna Romney McDaniel. How does that feel, to change her name to curry favor with the madman because he doesn’t like your uncle? How did you explain that to your kids?”
