By Marisa Laudadio
6:00pm PDT, Mar 31, 2024
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She's hired! She's fired!
On March 22, NBC announced it had hired Ronna McDaniel, the former leader of the Republican National Committee, as a paid political analyst in a deal worth about $300,000 a year, The New York Times reported.
The move came two weeks after McDaniel left the RNC due to pressure from former President Donald Trump.
But just four days after sharing the hiring news, NBC fired McDaniel, caving to pressure after several prominent figures at the network and beyond spoke out against the hire, with many citing her role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and her history of attacking the media.
Join us as we take a look at some of the best reactions from MSNBC talent, Trump, entertainers and more…
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MSNBC host Rachel Maddow compared NBC's hiring of Ronna McDaniel to hiring "a made man, like a mobster, to work at a [district attorney]'s office" or hiring "a pickpocket to work as a TSA screener."
"I find the decision to put her on the payroll inexplicable and I hope they will reconsider that decision," she said on her show on March 25, urging NBC brass to "take a minute, acknowledge that maybe it wasn't the right call."
"It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge when you are wrong," she added, pointing out that the former RNC chairperson for many years demonized the media and called the media "fake news."
"We do not take it personally when we get attacked, when they say they want to put us on trial and execute us for treason," Maddow said. "And so I want to associate myself with all my colleagues at MSNBC and NBC News who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company for 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. Someone who is still trying to convince Americans that this election stuff doesn't really work. That this last election wasn't a real result. That American elections are fraudulent."
After McDaniel was fired, Maddow praised the decision, CNN reported, saying, "I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are. That leadership was willing to change on this, I'm grateful to them."
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Former President Donald Trump first mocked former RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on his Truth Social social media account, writing on March 26, "Wow! Ronna McDaniel got fired by Fake News NBC. She only lasted two days, and this after McDaniel went out of her way to say what they wanted to hear. It leaves her in a very strange place, it's called NEVER NEVERLAND, and it's not a place you want to be."
"These Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY, and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK. They were BROKEN and EMBARRASSED by LOW RATINGS, HIGHLY OVERPAID, 'TALENT.' BRING BACK FREE AND FAIR PRESS — MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN 2024!" he added.
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Then, hours later — the same day he mocked Ronna McDaniel and NBC in a Truth Social post — former President Donald Trump attacked Brian L. Roberts, the chair of NBCUniversal's parent company, Comcast, for McDaniel's firing.
"What boss or executive would allow a man or woman, in this case Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd, who was fired for dismal performance coupled with horrendous television ratings, to publicly SCOLD them as to their weakness and stupidity in hiring Ronna McDaniel. Actually, they should be scolded for hiring 'Sleepy' for Meet the Fake Press, and keeping him on so long despite his poor performing skills, bad ratings, and bias," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
"The sick degenerates over at MSDNC are really running NBC, and there seems nothing Chairman Brian Roberts can do about it. Watching Chuck Todd, of all people, viciously giving Roberts a piece of his small mind, and then berating him for hiring Ronna without his, or the other lunatics, approval, was just a step too far," Trump added.
"Brian's great father would have fired Chuck Todd, and all the rest of these losers, on the spot. Perhaps Brian still will. If I knew Ronna was going to troubled MSNBC, I would have advised her to change her name back to Romney, she would have had a better chance!" he concluded.
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"I'm not sure what they were thinking. … NBC has to take some heat for this. This is on NBC. What is it you were trying to do? Because you can find Republicans. But you didn't find a Republican [in Ronna McDaniel]. You found someone who was trying to take down the country. And why did you think your people wouldn't be upset about it? She's in the indictment!" —"The View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg on the March 27 episode of the show
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"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," "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski said on her show, which she leads with husband Joe Scarborough.
"We hope NBC will reconsider its decision. It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on 'Morning Joe' in her capacity as a paid contributor," Brzezinski added.
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"We've been inundated with calls this weekend, as have most people connected with this network, about NBC's decision to hire her," "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough said during the show he leads with wife Mika Brzezinski. "We weren't asked our opinion of the hiring, but, if we were, we would have strongly objected to it for several reasons."
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"I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation," Chuck Todd told "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker after she interviewed Ronna McDaniel on the show on March 24. (Welker informed viewers that the interview had been scheduled to take place before NBC announced that McDaniel had been hired as a paid contributor for the network.)
"There's a reason why there's a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with [McDaniel's hiring], because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting," he added.
Todd also explained in a post on X that the controversy really wasn't a partisan issue despite critics' efforts to make it one.
"The issue isn't about ideology, it's about basic truth. Those trying to make this a left-right issue are being intentionally dishonest. This is about whether honest journalists are supposed to lend their credibility to someone who intentionally tried to ruin ours," he wrote about McDaniel.
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"NBC just hired and immediately fired Ronna McDaniel, because the team refused to let even one Republican join them — that's how biased they are!" —Elon Musk, on X
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Jen Psaki — who until 2022 served in President Joe Biden's administration as the White House press secretary — began hosting "Inside with Jen Psaki" on MSNBC in 2023.
She took issue with Ronna McDaniel's hiring and efforts to compare it to her own deal with MSNBC, as someone with a previously overtly political job.
According to Psaki, those "in the right-wing ecosystem" who were fueling the comparison were off base since Psaki's political experience was "paired with honesty, and with good faith" while McDaniel's was devoted to "service to one man" — Donald Trump.
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"The children at Dem-SNBC are mad," Megyn Kelly said on the March 26 episode of her SiriusXM podcast "The Megyn Kelly Show," addressing the controversy over former RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel's hiring. "Our sacred airwaves! They must be protected from liars! After all, they are in the business of honesty!" she added sarcastically.
She also went after Jen Psaki, the former Biden White House press secretary who was hired as an MSNBC host despite having a political job beforehand. "Hey, you had no problem hiring Jen Psaki who lied for a living for years as an Obama and then Biden spokesperson, so… what gives?"
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"Chuck Todd was a Dem staffer. Tim Russert was a Dem staffer. George Stephanoupolos was a senior Dem WH staffer. Jen Psaki was a senior Dem WH staffer. But, NBC hired a Republican??!!?! It's the end of the world." –Senator Ted Cruz, on X
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"NBC News is, either wittingly or unwittingly, teaching election deniers that what they can do stretches well beyond appearing on our air and interviews to peddle lies about the sanctity and integrity of our elections," Nicolle Wallace, host of MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," said on her show.
She also said that by hiring McDaniel, NBC was telling election deniers "not just that they can do that on our airwaves, but that they can do that as one of us, a badge-carrying employee of NBC News, as a paid contributor to our sacred airwaves."
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"The reality is, this isn't a difference of opinion. She literally backed an illegal scheme to steal an election in the state of Michigan," MSNBC host Joy Reid said on her show.
Reid later appeared on the air with fellow MSNBC star Rachel Maddow where she said of Ronna MCDaniel's hiring and firing, "I know I felt very strongly about it, I know you felt very strongly about it. And I just have to say, when somebody does the right thing, I feel like it should be acknowledged as publicly as we acknowledged our outrage. I know how I feel about it. I'm grateful to Cesar [Conde, NBCUniversal News Group president] for actually making the right decision. I think it was the right decision."
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"One of the things that [Ronna McDaniel] told Kristen Welker on 'Meet the Press,' she said when you work for the RNC, you take one for the team. So that means that working for the Republican party means lying and enabling criminal behavior, right? Cause now she says she's different now, she's not the same person anymore, so she was lying then, so that to me is the reason they can't take her cause you can't really trust where she's coming from. She's an election denier. She supports [Donald] Trump. She changed her name from Romney [dropping it as her middle name] — she's [Republican Senator Mitt] Romney's niece. She changed her name [she uses publicly] to McDaniel because she wanted to be embraced by Trump, who hated Romney." —"The View" co-host Joy Behar on the March 27 episode of the show
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"I think this underscores that the media is struggling with how to cover somebody who is a historically unfit candidate but also the GOP frontrunner. … I think it is incredibly important to have Republican voices on the airwaves — we represent a portion of the country. But here's the distinction: Some of the names I rattled off before are sort of Never Trumpers — like myself — people who've said they're not going to support [him]. I'd go further. I appear on CNN with Republicans regularly who still support Donald Trump but they never lied about the election, they denounced Jan. 6 and when he says things or talks about policies that are dangerous, they call it out because they're independent from him, they're not beholden to him. The problem with Ronna McDaniel is her career was built around supporting Trump. She engaged in some incredibly anti-democratic and un-American, I would argue, behavior, and now you don't know who she's beholden to. Is she gonna say one thing because NBC's there, is she holding out for future opportunities in the Republican Party?" —"The View" co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former White House director of strategic communications during Donald Trump's tenure, on the March 27 episode of the show
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"I think journalism for a long time was you give both sides equal weight. Journalists must be objective. And journalism has changed because people no longer agree on basic facts. So journalism has to respond to that. I want to put a button on it by quoting Lester Holt, because he was receiving the Edward R. Murrow Award for lifetime achievement in journalism in 2021. He said this: 'The idea that we should always give two sides equal weight and merit does not reflect the world we find ourselves in. Decisions to not give unsupported arguments equal time are not a dereliction of journalistic responsibility or some kind of agenda. In fact, it's the opposite. Providing an open platform for misinformation, for anyone to come and say whatever they want, can be quite dangerous. Our duty is to be fair to the truth.' And that is what is missing today in this conversation. And that is what I think NBC News missed when they hired Ronna McDaniel" —"The View" co-host Sunny Hostin on the March 27 episode of the show
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"[Ronna McDaniel] was beyond a surrogate for Donald Trump — she was someone who participated in those calls to the Michigan electors [to try to disenfranchise Black votes]… So I tend to think, when you've taken that step, there's got to be a hard stop eventually. We are talking about a democracy and its processes. And we already have a major distrust not only in Congress but in the media, in the Supreme Court — you cannot continue to fuel that. I think this takes away some of the integrity that I think news organizations have always tried to [have] — you're asking journalists who sat side by side fighting this conversation itself for years, having to fact check in real time — you've put that all on them and now you sit them next to someone [like McDaniel]. That not only puts everyone in there in a precarious position, it calls into question trusting the media." —"The View" co-host Sara Haines on the March 27 episode of the show
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"There is an easy way to avoid the controversy that NBC News has stumbled into. Don't hire anyone close to the crimes," said MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell.
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"When everybody who works at MSNBC rose up to demand the firing of Ronna McDaniel, was that an insurrection or just a rebellion?" —Ann Coulter, on X
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"There is no doubt that the last several days have been difficult for the News Group," NBCUniversal News Group President Cesar Conde said in a memo to staff on March 26. "After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor."
"I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down," he added. "While this was a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team, I approved it and take full responsibility for it."
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"If we can talk NBC out of making a big mistake with Ronna McDaniel, we can talk America out of making a much bigger mistake with Donald Trump. Everyone speak up and speak out." —George Takei, on X
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"BREAKING: NBC News plans to drop former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor, per Puck News. This is a good decision." —Dan Rather, on X
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"You had this cabal of aging superstars at the network who insisted that this person was somehow inappropriate — says who and according to whom?" Geraldo Rivera said on NewsNation of Ronna McDaniel's hiring and firing. "It really is outrageous. This is censorship."
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"And she's gone! Ronna McDaniel didn't last long at NBC! How long until Elon Musk hires her???" —Perez Hilton, on X
