- NBC announced it was dropping the former RNC chairman as a political contributor
- McDaniel’s hiring sparked outrage among NBC’s on-air talent
Ronna McDaniel expects to be paid in full for her contract at NBC News, despite being cut just four days after it was announced she would be joining the network as a political contributor.
The ex-RNC chairman’s contract was $300,000 per year for two years, Politico reported.
With her lone appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, which lasted less than 20 minutes, that amounts to more than $30,000 per minute or $500 per second.
McDaniel has not spoken publicly about her short-lived tenure since NBC’s announcement Tuesday night that she was being dropped.
But Politico reports that she has filed a lawsuit and spoke with Bryan Freedman on Tuesday about her legal options, even beyond getting the money back from her original contract.
He is the attorney who represented Megyn Kelly in her split with the network, as well as other anchors who have been dropped, including Chris Cuomo, Don Lemon and Tucker Carlson.
Ronna McDaniel appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday after it was announced that she had been hired by NBC as a political contributor. She was dropped by the network just days after joining the network after hiring outraged employees
NBC officially dropped McDaniel on Tuesday, just four days after she announced she would be joining the network as a political contributor. The announcement of her hiring on Friday sparked an immediate backlash from on-air talent across the network.
In a statement Tuesday evening, NBCUniversal chairman Cesar Conde said, “After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be a contributor to NBC News.”
While NBC staffers were outraged by her appointment, conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, a friend of McDaniel’s, said he had never seen anything so “bold” from her ouster.
“Ronna is going to sue everyone who defamed her for breach of contract, for deliberately bending mental distress,” Hewitt said during an appearance on Fox News.
“They are going to file suit for destroying her business opportunities that come from her being on TV,” he added.
“I think they made a terrible decision and allowed MSNBC to take over their network.”
He claimed that the “cult has taken over the news department.”
Politico reported that it is investigating possible defamation and hostile work environment claims after some of the biggest names at NBC slammed her on air.
Radio host Hugh Hewitt blasted NBC for dropping McDaniel on Fox News and said she was going to sue for inflicting mental distress.
McDaniel chaired the RNC while Trump was president. Under pressure from Trump, she resigned from her position on March 8
McDaniel was chair of the RNC from 2017 until earlier this month, when she resigned under pressure from Trump, who wanted loyalist Michael Whatley and his daughter-in-law Lara Trump to lead the party.
During her time as RNC chair, she promoted Trump’s false claims of election fraud. It was one of the reasons her hiring at NBC sparked backlash among network employees.
NBC has hired a series of other political operatives for on-air hosting and contributor gigs over the years.
They include Jen Psaki, who served as White House press secretary in the Biden administration, and Symone Sanders, who was spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris.
The network’s on-air staff said they were outraged by McDaniel’s hiring, not because she was a Republican, but because of her actions.
Former Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd lambasted the network shortly after McDaniel’s only Meet the Press interview as an employee.
He said many journalists were uncomfortable with the network’s appointment of her because their professional dealings with the RNC over the past six years “faced gaslighting and character assassination.”
