NBC News is planning to drop Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor after less than a week, according to a report on Tuesday.
The report comes after the former Republican National Committee chairwoman was signed as an analyst just last Friday. What followed was a revolt by current and former staffers and unprecedented on-air rebukes of network leadership by NBC and MSNBC hosts, including stars Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid and Nicolle Wallace.
Puck News reported NBC planned to drop McDaniel and executives were deliberating over the details. It also reported McDaniel is seeking legal representation. There has not been an official network announcement about McDaniel but one is pending, reporter Dylan Byers wrote on X.
McDaniel, known for her close alliance with Donald Trump while RNC chair, came under fire immediately after her hiring was announced, due to her association with efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election defeat and previous rhetoric that President Biden’s victory was unfair. MSNBC President Rashida Jones, who initially had signed off on bringing on McDaniel, had to assure her progressive channel’s talent that McDaniel wouldn’t appear on their “sacred airwaves,” as Nicolle Wallace put it.
McDaniel has made only one appearance as an analyst, and it was to be interrogated on Sunday by “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker, who told viewers ahead of time she was uninvolved with McDaniels’ hiring. Afterward, former host Chuck Todd slammed network leadership for the hire and publicly aired the complaints of NBC journalists over bringing on McDaniel, who had been touted as an important pickup by NBC News political chief Carrie Budoff Brown.
“There’s a reason why there are a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with this, because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination,” Todd said Sunday. He called on NBC honchos to apologize to Welker as well.
