NBC News is already planning to drop ex-RNC chair Ronna McDaniel as a contributor after backlash from the network, reports claim.
The former top Republican will be gone within a week of her controversial appointment and has responded by seeking legal assistance, as reported by Puck news.
It comes after the network’s chief political analyst, Chuck Todd, gushed about McDaniel’s hiring on air, specifically questioning her support for Donald Trump’s false 2020 election fraud claims.
Todd’s crisis was quickly followed by other liberal media stars, with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow describing the hiring as “inexplicable” and saying she hoped bosses would “reconsider that decision.”
NBC News is already planning to drop ex-RNC chair Ronna McDaniel (pictured) as a contributor after backlash from within the network
McDaniel’s reported ouster comes after NBC analyst Chuck Todd (pictured) went on a tirade over her hiring for his show, Meet the Press
The anger over McDaniel’s hiring reportedly started behind closed doors, with key employees feeling insulted because their opinions were not asked in advance.
On Sunday, two days after McDaniel’s new role was announced, it spilled over into Todd’s presentation of his show, Meet the Press, as he blasted his bosses.
Todd told his successor Kristen Welker that NBC executives had put her in an “impossible situation.”
“Let me just deal with the elephant in the room,” Todd said. “I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation because I don’t know what to believe.”
When McDaniel first appeared with Welker as a contributor to the network, she seemed intent on distancing herself from her past rhetoric.
She insisted that Biden won the 2020 election “fair and square,” adding, “He is the president. He is the legitimate president.”
McDaniel had resigned as RNC chief just two weeks before she was announced as a paid NBC contributor.
Amid the backlash, MSNBC said she would not appear on the network’s liberal wing, and would only appear on NBC.
Maddow clashed with her bosses in another stunning moment of internal rebellion over the issue, as she said efforts had been made to muddy the details of McDaniel’s exclusion from MSNBC appearances.
“I can assure you that is what happened at MSNBC,” she said.
Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, now an MSNBC host with her own show, was cited by critics as an example of an individual who moves seamlessly from politics to science
In her first appearance as a paid contributor to NBC, McDaniel appeared intent on walking back her past rhetoric, conceding that Biden won in 2020.
After this, “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski promised that they would not have McDaniel on their show, as Brzezinski said she would not welcome “someone who used her position of power to be an election denier against democracy.”
As the liberal network fizzled over the hires, others found the criticism hypocritical, and stars like former White House press secretary Jen Psaki serve as examples of individuals who seamlessly transition from politics to science.
Another ex-White House press secretary, Trump’s Sean Spicer, wondered, “Did (Todd) ever express concern about Jen Psaki joining the left-wing network?…Thought not.”
Psaki, now host of MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki,” weighed in on the controversy, saying that experience in frontline politics “only matters and has value to viewers if it is accompanied by honesty and good faith.”
Todd also said critics of his response were deliberately dishonest, and that he was offended by the hiring of an election denier, not that McDaniel was a Republican.
“This is about whether honest journalists should lend their credibility to someone who has deliberately tried to ruin ours,” he said on X.
Todd’s removal from the network was seen by some as a turning point, with it previously unheard of for an employee to throw out a colleague’s job live on air.
McDaniel had served as chairman of the RNC since 2017, having previously chaired the Republican Party of Michigan and helped carry the state for Trump in 2016.
She is the granddaughter of the late Michigan Governor George Romney and the niece of Utah Senator Mitt Romney.
However, her tenure made her unpopular with some factions in the Republican Party, especially as the party lost ground in the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the White House during alternating midterm and presidential elections.
