NBC News plans to sack Republican Ronna McDaniel, who joined the network last week as an analyst, following backlash from current and former staffers.
NBC’s decision to bring on the former Republican National Committee chairwoman was met with an immediate barrage of criticism from several high-profile pundits associated with the network, according to a Puck News report on Tuesday. The network now intends to fire McDaniel, with its executives "deliberating over details" and an announcement pending, Puck News senior correspondent Dylan Byers said Tuesday in a post on X.
McDaniel resigned as head of the RNC last month amid a falling out with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, though she had supported Trump's allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election and attempts to overturn President Joe Biden's victory.
Chuck Todd, an NBC News analyst, said on Sunday that "a lot of journalists at NBC News are uncomfortable with" McDaniel’s hiring because "many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting [and] character assassination."
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, meanwhile, cohosts of Morning Joe on MSNBC, on Monday condemned the hiring, with the latter urging NBC to "reconsider its decision."
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on Monday said she wanted to "associate myself with all my colleagues both at MSNBC and NBC News who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company putting on the payroll someone who hasn't just attacked us as journalists but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government."
"[McDaniel] is still trying to convince Americans that this election stuff—it doesn’t really work, that this last election, it wasn’t a real result, that American elections are fraudulent," Maddow added, calling NBC’s decision to sign McDaniel "inexplicable."
Jen Psaki, an MSNBC host and former White House press secretary for Biden, also denounced McDaniel’s hiring. "Look, this is not about Republicans versus Democrats. This is not about red versus blue. This is about truth versus lies. Service to the country versus service to one man committed to toppling our democratic system," Psaki said.