The stars of MSNBC Good morning, Joe began Monday by adding their voices to a growing chorus of NBC News journalists publicly chastising the media company for hiring former Republican National Committee chairwoman Rona McDaniel as a network pundit.
“I know you won’t be surprised to learn that we were inundated with calls this weekend, as were most people associated with this network, about NBC’s decision to hire her,” co-host Joe Scarborough said at the start of Monday morning’s broadcast. . “We found out about the hire when we read about it in the press on Friday.”
The Good morning, Joe the hosts “were not asked our opinion on the hire, but if we had been, we would have strongly objected to it for several reasons,” Scarborough continued. According to the former GOP congressman, the main point of contention was “the role of the former RNC chair in Donald Trump’s fraudulent voter scheme and her pressure on election officials not to certify election results while Donald Trump was on the phone.”
Co-host and Scarborough’s wife Mika Brzezinski further attacked NBC bosses, claiming the main problem with McDaniel was her credibility, not her ideology. Furthermore, Good morning, Joe the co-host urged the network to quickly reverse course and part ways with McDaniel.
“To be clear, we believe that NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their coverage of the election. But it should be conservative Republicans, not a man who used his position of power to deny elections against democracy,” Brzezinski fumed. “And we hope NBC reconsiders its decision.” It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on Good morning, Joe in her capacity as a paid contributor.”
The MSNBC morning show’s open rebellion comes a day after NBC News political director Chuck Todd sharply rebuked the broadcast media on air just moments after McDaniel wrapped up his first official appearance at the network on Meet the press. Todd also expressed sympathy for his own Meet the press successor Kristen Welker, who she felt was put in an “impossible situation” by the network.
“Our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation,” Todd told Welker, adding, “There’s a reason a lot of journalists at NBC News are uncomfortable with this. Because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the past six years have been met with gaslighting, met with character assassination.
RNC Chair Rona McDaniel makes remarks ahead of the Republican presidential debate on NBC News.
Joe Riddle/Getty
Todd also said Welker “pulled the rug out from under” her because she found out just days before the interview that McDaniel was “paid to appear,” something that Meet the press an editor pointedly noted at the beginning of Sunday’s broadcast.
“This interview was planned weeks before it was announced that McDaniel would become a paid contributor to NBC News,” she stated flatly. “This will be a news interview and I was not involved in her hiring.”
During the interview itself, Welker pressed McDaniel about her past support for Trump’s efforts to cancel the 2020 presidential election, prompting the former RNC chief to call Joe Biden the “legitimate” president. Meanwhile, McDaniel said: “It’s fair to say there were issues in 2020.”
The on-air revelations from some of the network’s top hosts and journalists will undoubtedly put pressure on other MSNBC personalities to speak out on the issue in an effort to get their bosses to step in and void McDaniel’s contract, which reportedly pays former The GOP boss $300,000 a year.
The former RNC chairman’s comfortable salary at NBC, amid sweeping newsroom layoffs, is also a point of contention among network staffers. “MSNBC is cutting contributors,” one anchor told Politico Playbook. “So everyone’s like what the hell? Did you find 300 for her?
However, much of the problem appears to lie in a lack of communication between NBC’s management and its news department, multiple network sources told The Daily Beast. NBC News executives courted McDaniel and finalized a deal with her without seeking support from their reporters and anchors, with NBC News executives Carrie Budoff Brown and Rebecca Blumenstein building a good relationship with McDaniel throughout the process.
MSNBC president Rashida Jones, who appeared to try to quell the backlash at the liberal-leaning channel, reportedly told her staff over the weekend that “the cable network has no plans to put McDaniel” on its air. It came after Budoff Brown announced McDaniel’s hiring to appear “across all NBC News platforms.”
However, Jones was reportedly part of the board that unanimously supported the McDaniel deal. Additionally, sources have clarified to other outlets that there is no ban on McDaniel at MSNBC and that any individual show can use her if they choose.