Emotional Rachel Maddow Torches NBC News’ ‘Inexplicable’ Hiring of Ronna McDaniel, Urges Bosses to ‘Reverse Their Decision’
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow tore into NBC News’ controversial decision to hire former Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Ronna McDaniel on Monday and urged her bosses to “reverse their decision.”
During her weekly monologue on Monday evening, Maddow declared:
I want to associate myself with all my colleagues, both at MSNBC and at NBC News, who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company 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 still is trying to convince Americans that this election stuff, it doesn’t really work. That this last election, it wasn’t a real result. That American elections are fraudulent.
The MSNBC host added:
It’s my understanding that MSNBC’s leadership did not object to Ronna McDaniel being hired by NBC News when the matter first arose, but when the hiring was announced, and MSNBC staff essentially unanimously and instantly expressed outrage, our leadership at MSNBC heard us, understood, and adjusted course. We were told this weekend in clear terms Ronna McDaniel will not be on our air. Ronna McDaniel will not be on MSNBC.
Maddow then joined MSNBC and NBC colleagues Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and Chuck Todd in directly condemning McDaniel’s hiring, declaring, “The fact that Ms. McDaniel is on the payroll at NBC News, to me that is inexplicable.”
“You wouldn’t hire a made man like a mobster to work at a D.A.’s office, right? You wouldn’t hire a pick-pocket to work as a TSA screener,” she concluded. “So I find the decision to put her on the payroll inexplicable, and I hope they will reverse their decision.”
The announcement on Friday that McDaniel had been hired by NBC News as a political analyst mere weeks after her resignation as chair of the RNC led to condemnations from employees at NBC and MSNBC, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and beyond.
After McDaniel appeared on NBC News’ Meet the Press, Sunday, Todd called her presence “unfortunate for this program” and questioned, “You got to ask yourself, what does she bring NBC News?”
Watch above via MSNBC.
