NBC News cuts ties with ex-RNC head after revolt
The Ronna McDaniel era at NBC News has come to an abrupt and chaotic end.
Facing an extraordinary on-air revolt by its leading stars, NBC’s top news executive said Tuesday that he had decided to cut ties with McDaniel, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, who was hired last week as an on-air political commentator.
Her tenure lasted four days.
McDaniel’s appointment, announced with fanfare on Friday, was immediately criticized by reporters at the network and viewers on social media. Fans of MSNBC, NBC’s left-leaning cable arm, were particularly outraged, citing McDaniel’s leadership of the Republican Party under former President Donald Trump and her handling of his false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.
“After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor,” Cesar Conde, the chair of the NBCUniversal News Group, wrote in a staff memo Tuesday.
He added, “I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down.”
Leaders in the NBC newsroom, convinced that election year audiences deserved to hear a perspective from conservatives like McDaniel, believed the hubbub would fizzle out. They did not bank on the temerity of their own at NBC stars, who on Monday lined up one by one to denounce NBC’s decision on its own airwaves. Rachel Maddow devoted 29 minutes on her show Monday night — the top-rated program on MSNBC — to address McDaniel’s hiring, calling it “inexplicable” and associating her with historical figures who attempted authoritarian takeovers of the government.
She told her bosses: “Take a minute, acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t the right call.”
Her monologue followed similar calls from hosts Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Nicolle Wallace, among others. Wallace, herself a former Republican who once earned Democrats’ ire as a chief defender of George W. Bush, said Monday that NBC had given a greenlight for “election deniers” to spread falsehoods “as paid contributors to our sacred airwaves.”
Television networks regularly hire Washington veterans as paid commentators; Reince Priebus, Trump’s former chief of staff, recently joined ABC News.
McDaniel, who occasionally clashed with Trump, left the RNC this month under pressure from the former president and his allies. She quickly signed with Creative Artists Agency and met with executives at several networks. Her deal with NBC was worth about $300,000 a year, according to a person familiar with its details.