NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 The internal furor over NBC News鈥 decision to hire former Republican 好色tv Committee head Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor spread Monday, with MSNBC personalities Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki, Nicolle Wallace, Joy Reid, Lawrence O'Donnell and Joe Scarborough all using their shows to publicly object.
Maddow, MSNBC's most popular personality, compared it to putting a mobster to work in a district attorney's office.
鈥淚 find the decision to put her on the payroll inexplicable and I hope they will reconsider that decision,鈥 she said on her weekly program Monday night.
There was no immediate comment on Monday from NBC News or McDaniel about the extraordinary public revolt against network management that former 鈥淢eet the Press鈥 moderator Chuck Todd a day earlier. Todd said that many NBC News journalists were uncomfortable with the hiring because of McDaniel's 鈥済aslighting鈥 and 鈥渃haracter assassination鈥 while at the RNC.
MCDANIEL WAS HIRED QUICKLY AFTER LEAVING THE RNC
The network announced McDaniel鈥檚 hiring on Friday, as the RNC leader, saying McDaniel would add to NBC News鈥 coverage with an insider鈥檚 perspective on national politics and the future of the Republican Party.
Maddow said she'd been told that MSNBC management had signed off on the hiring, but that when staff 鈥渆xpressed outrage,鈥 it was made clear that McDaniel would not appear on the cable network, which appeals primarily to liberal viewers. Since then, she said there's been an effort in other parts of the company to 鈥渕uddy that up in the press鈥 and make it seem like that's not what happened.
鈥淚 can assure you, that is what happened at MSNBC,鈥 she said.
Maddow told her viewers 鈥 and presumably her bosses 鈥 that 鈥渋t is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge that you're wrong."
The on-air MSNBC rebellion stretched from pre-dawn to late in the evening, starting with 鈥淢orning Joe鈥 hosts Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski promising viewers they would not see McDaniel in her NBC News capacity. Brzezinski said it's fair to seek Republican voices to balance election coverage, but 鈥渘ot a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier.鈥
Wallace said that with the hiring, NBC has said to election deniers 鈥渘ot 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.鈥
Said O'Donnell: 鈥淭here is an easy way to avoid the controversy that NBC News has stumbled into. Don鈥檛 hire anyone close to the crimes.鈥
Psaki said she decided to speak up because, as a former press secretary to President Joe Biden, her name has been used by McDaniel supporters to point out that a former Democratic political appointee was hired by MSNBC without internal objection.
She said that for a television personality, that kind of experience in government 鈥渙nly matters and only has value to viewers if it is paired with honesty and good faith.鈥
One of those GOP critics was U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who mentioned Psaki among several others who switched to news after working in politics for Democrats, including the late 鈥淢eet the Press鈥 moderator Tim Russert.
鈥淏ut NBC hired a Republican??!!鈥 he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 鈥淚t's the end of the world.鈥
In a social media posting on Monday, Todd said that those who are trying to make it an issue of left vs. right were being intentionally dishonest. 鈥淭his is about whether honest journalists are supposed to lend their credibility to someone who intentionally tried to ruin ours,鈥 he said.
The 鈥淢orning Joe鈥 hosts aired an exchange from McDaniel鈥檚 interview the day before on 鈥淢eet the Press鈥 with current moderator Kristen Welker, who wondered why the former RNC chairwoman didn鈥檛 speak up earlier after saying Sunday she disagreed with Trump鈥檚 contention that people jailed for their part in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol should be freed.
鈥淲hen you鈥檙e the RNC chair you kind of take one for the whole team, right?鈥 McDaniel said. 鈥淣ow I get to be a little bit more myself, right? This is what I believe.鈥
THERE鈥橲 A HISTORY OF POLITICIANS AS COMMENTATORS
It鈥檚 not unusual for television news outlets to hire politicians as analysts and commentators. One of McDaniel鈥檚 predecessors at the RNC, Michael Steele, is an MSNBC contributor who hosts a weekend news program there. CBS News faced some backlash for hiring two former officials in the Trump administration, Reince Priebus and Mick Mulvaney, as analysts. Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former White House communications director during the Trump administration, became a CNN political commentator.
But McDaniel鈥檚 tacit endorsement of Trump鈥檚 false claims that the outcome of the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent makes her hiring even more sensitive, given the continuing legal and political ripples of the Jan. 6, 2021, siege at the U.S. Capitol that was an outgrowth of the fraud allegations.
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David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him at
