Former NBC News “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd criticized his employer Sunday for hiring former Republican National Committee head Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor. On the air, Todd said many NBC journalists are uncomfortable with the decision.
For a change, Chuck Todd may be right.
Two of Todd’s MSNBC coworkers — Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski — criticized NBC’s decision Monday on their MSNBC program Morning Joe.
Scarborough objected to his employer’s announcement… and he claimed not to be alone.
“I know you won’t be surprised to know that we’ve been inundated with calls this weekend, as have most people connected with this network about NBC’s decision to hire her,” Scarborough said.
“We learned about the hiring when we read about it in the press on Friday. We weren’t asked our opinion of the hiring, but if we were, we would have strongly objected to it for several reasons including, but not limited to, as lawyers might say, Ms. McDaniel’s role in Donald Trump’s fake elector scheme and her pressuring election officials to not certify election results while Donald Trump was on the phone.”
Brzezinski dropped an even louder bombshell. She refused to invite McDaniel onto Morning Joe.
“To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage. But it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier. And we hope NBC will reconsider its decision,” Brzezinski added.
“It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on Morning Joe in her capacity as a paid contributor.”
Take a look —
Morning Joe hosts attack their employer, @NBCNews, for hiring @RonnaMcDaniel: “We weren’t asked our opinion of the hiring, but if we were, we would have strongly objected to it.” pic.twitter.com/llifVrosY4
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 25, 2024
Todd gave his piece Sunday on Meet the Press. Right beforehand, current moderator Kristen Welker had interviewed McDaniel about her role in the 2020 election aftermath.
“Our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation because I don’t know what to believe. I have no idea whether any answer she gave to you was because she didn’t want to mess up her contract [with NBC]. She wants us to believe that she was speaking for the RNC when the RNC was paying her,” Todd said.
“She has credibility issues that she has to deal with: Is she speaking for herself or is she speaking on behalf of who is paying for her?”
Todd said many NBC journalists are uncomfortable with the hiring because some of their professional dealings with the RNC during McDaniel’s tenure “have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination.”
NBC had no comment on Todd’s statement. The network announced McDaniel’s hiring on Friday, two weeks after she stepped down as the RNC leader, saying McDaniel would add to NBC News’ coverage with an insider’s perspective on national politics and the future of the Republican Party.
“NBC News has a legacy of serving its audience through reporting that reflects and examines the diverse perspectives of American voters,” Carrie Budoff Brown, NBC’s senior vice president for politics, said in a memo to staff members obtained by The Associated Press. She said McDaniel would contribute her analysis “across all NBC News platforms.”
One of the network’s platforms is the cable network MSNBC, on which Todd has hosted MTP Daily.
MSNBC President Rashida Jones told employees that the network has no plans to have McDaniel on the channel, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
MSNBC would not comment on that report on Sunday. An MSNBC executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person would not publicly discuss internal matters, said it would be up to individual network shows to decide whether to bring McDaniel on — not that there is a network-wide ban.
“I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation”
Not usually a Chuck Todd fan, but he absolutely eviscerates NBC over the Ronna McDaniel hiring.
Respect. pic.twitter.com/MQK4TTnTzf
— Angry Staffer 🌻 (@Angry_Staffer) March 24, 2024
"I was not involved in her hiring" — Kristen Welker makes sure to point out to viewers that she had nothing to do with NBC hiring Ronna McDaniel
(lol you can tell it's going well when a host has to say this) pic.twitter.com/WKXMvTmg7J
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 24, 2024
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.