NBC cuts ties with former Republican committee chief Ronna McDaniel after employee objections

NBC News cut ties on Tuesday with former Republican National Committee chief Ronna McDaniel less than a week after hiring her as an on-air political contributor, a decision that followed a furious protest by some of its journalists and commentators. In announcing the decision in a memo, NBC Universal News Group chairman Cesar Conde apologised to staff members who felt let down by the hire, acknowledging he had signed off on it. “No organisation, particularly a newsroom, can succeed unless it is cohesive and aligned. Over the last few days, it has become clear that this appointment undermines that goal,” Conde said. But he said the network remained committed to centring “voices that represent different parts of the political spectrum”. There was no immediate comment from McDaniel, who stepped down as RNC leader just over two weeks ago. She found out she lost her job through media reports, not from NBC directly, said a person close to her who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak about it publicly. NBC announced on Friday that McDaniel would contribute commentary across network platforms. It said it wanted the perspective of someone with inside knowledge about the Republican Party and former president Donald Trump heading into the 2024 election, in which Trump is seeking a second term. The response from journalists and others within the network was swift – and public. Former Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd criticised his bosses on the air on Sunday for the hire, saying he did not know what to believe from her after she supported former Trump in “gaslighting” and “character assassination” following the 2020 election. Republican Party leader to step down after pressure from Trump An extraordinary succession of MSNBC hosts – Joe Scarborough, Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid, Nicolle Wallace, Jen Psaki and Lawrence O’Donnell – all publicly protested against the decision to hire McDaniel on their shows on Monday. Republicans countered that the protest indicates that people at NBC News, particularly at MSNBC, were unwilling to countenance opposing viewpoints. The hiring, and quick firing, represents one of those rare instances likely to unite the left and right – in anger. “NBC caving in to the censors,” Elon Musk, owner of X, formerly Twitter, posted on his platform. On his Truth Social site, Trump said: “These Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY, and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK.” Those who protested against McDaniels’ hiring claimed that it was not because she is a Republican, but because she helped promote Trump’s lies about the “stolen” 2020 presidential election and helped in efforts to overturn the results. Efforts by news organisations to hire former politicians is hardly new. NBC News hired Psaki directly from her job as press secretary to US President Joe Biden, and another former Republican National Committee chairman, Michael Steele, hosts a weekend show on MSNBC. But there are concerns that the McDaniel episode may make it difficult for networks to find voices this year that can provide insight into Trump and his campaign. Former Trump chief of staff Reince Priebius is an ABC News contributor and Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former White House communications director during the Trump administration, is a CNN commentator. Conde said NBC News remains committed to the principle that there must be diverse voices on the network. “And to that end, we will redouble our efforts to seek voices that represent different parts of the political spectrum.” Donald Trump hit with gag order in New York hush-money criminal case McDaniel’s tenure at NBC may have lasted less than a week, but a mess surrounding it could last much longer. She was dropped on Tuesday by Creative Artists Agency, who she hired to negotiate her television deal, and has been consulting lawyers since learning that deal had ended. The succession of MSNBC stars who denounced McDaniel and the hiring reached its peak during the weekly show by Maddow, the network’s most popular personality. She spent nearly half an hour on the issue, drawing a comparison between crackpot efforts by authoritarians to gain power in the US, and the Republican backing of Trump under McDaniel’s leadership. She called her hiring by NBC News “inexplicable”, comparing it to a mobster being given a position in a district attorney’s office. Trump’s social media company rises 40% in its Nasdaq debut Maddow appeared on Tuesday on Reid’s programme. Reid said she was grateful for the decision to oust McDaniel, and Maddow echoed that. “To see essentially the unanimous feeling among all the journalists … and all of the senior staff and producers and everybody in this building about this was one thing,” she said. “Then to see the executives and the leadership hear that and respond to it and be willing to change course … I have deep respect for that.”