NBC News cuts ties with Ronna McDaniel after internal backlash

(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)

NBC News cuts ties with Ronna McDaniel after internal backlash

Stephen Battaglio

March 26, 2024

NBC News has scrapped its plan to have former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel contribute to its political reporting.

“After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be a contributor to NBC News,” NBC News Group Chairman Cesar Conde said in a memo to staff on Tuesday.

The decision to reverse course comes after a stunning rebuke of the plan from the division’s broadcast talent. On Monday, nearly every opinion host on NBC’s progressive cable news channel MSNBC condemned McDaniel’s hiring for her defense of former President Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election.

The fact that McDaniel is on the payroll at NBC News is inexplicable to me.

Rachel

Maddow said to her

MSNBC

program. You wouldn’t hire a wise man, you wouldn’t hire a made man, like a gangster

,

working in a D

.

a

.

s office.

The onslaught of internal criticism of McDaniel came immediately after the announcement Friday that she would appear in political coverage on NBC News platforms including MSNBC. (In a memo to staff, NBC News senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown said

,

said

:

It couldn’t be a more important time to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team.)

The conflict is a major embarrassment for Brown and the other top NBC News Group executives who signed the $300,000 deal to sign McDaniel, somewhat mitigated by their willingness to

dump drop

from the pact within a week of it being announced.

McDaniel appeared on Sunday’s edition of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where moderator Kristen Welker pressed her on her views regarding Trump’s continued belief that the 2020 election was stolen from him due to voter fraud.

McDaniel publicly acknowledged for the first time that President Biden won the election “fair and square.” She also broke with Trump’s plan to pardon the January 6 rioters who have been convicted and jailed.

But her credibility was questioned Sunday by former “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd in the panel discussion following Welker’s interview. The next day the floodgates opened on MSNBC.

She is now a paid contributor to NBC News,” Todd told Welker. “I have no idea if the answer she gave to you was because she didn’t want to mess up her contract. She would have us believe that she spoke for the RNC even though the RNC paid for her.”

Todd’s comments opened the floodgates for MSNBC personalities, who harassed McDaniel all day on their programs and begged their NBC News bosses to reconsider the hiring. TV news industry veterans said they have never seen such a public carnage of talent against a management decision.

The unrest over McDaniel’s hiring and quick departure demonstrates the challenge TV news channels face in presenting partisan positions in a politically polarized environment. Much of the belief system in the Trump wing of the Republican party consists of

S

of disinformation about the 2020 election.

For outlets outside the conservative media sphere, finding talking heads who support Trump but are not election deniers has become a major challenge. “It’s very difficult,” says an agent who deals with news talent.

McDaniel’s hiring was especially problematic for NBC News staffers like her

had

Participated in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results.

MSNBC host Joy Reid described McDaniel as a major peddler of the big lie, referring to the falsehoods of the Trump election. She cited how McDaniel Trump was on the phone with GOP officials in Michigan, urging them not to certify the state’s 2020 election results.

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