WOW: NBC hosts REVOLT over hiring of Ronna McDaniel

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 and we hope NBC will reconsider its  

decision Speaker 1: There is revolt happening  at NBC news and MSNBC over the hiring of former  

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna  McDaniel, who tried to facilitate a fake slate  

of electors to steal the 2020 election. She  has now been hired by NBC as if she's a. 

Speaker 2: Completely normal. Speaker 1: Political analyst,  

rather than a threat to democracy, who was  unwilling to call out Trump's lies for years  

about the election. And there are MSNBC hosts who  are saying no. Here is Chuck Todd appearing over  

the weekend with Kristen Welker and saying to  Kristen Welker, who interviewed Ronna McDaniel  

on the program yesterday, I can't believe that  you had to do this. They are revolting. And  

MSNBC and NBC news, take a look at this. Speaker 2: Let me deal with the elephant  

in the room. Yeah, I think our bosses owe you  an apology for putting you in this situation,  

because I don't know what to believe. She is now  a paid contributor, right by NBC news. I have  

no idea whether any answer she gave to you was  because she didn't want to mess up her contract.  

She wants us to believe that she was speaking for  the RNC when I was paying for. So she has she has  

credibility issues that she still has to deal  with. Yeah. Is she speaking for herself or is  

she speaking on behalf of who's paying her what  she wants at the RNC? She did say that. Hey, I'm  

speaking for the party. I get that that's part of  the job. So, what about here? I will say this. I  

think your interview, did a good job of exposing,  I think, many of the contradictions. And, look,  

there's a reason why there's 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. So it  is, you know, that's where you begin here. And so,  

when NBC made the decision to give her NBC  news this credibility, you got to ask yourself,  

what does she bring NBC news. And when we make  deals like this, and I've been at this company  

a long time, you're doing it for access. Access to  audience. Sometimes it's access to an individual.  

And we can have a journalistic ethics debate  about that, and I, I, I'm willing to have that  

debate. And if you told me we were hiring her as  a technical adviser to the Republican convention,  

I think that would be certainly defensible if  you told me where we're talking to her. But let's  

let's see how she does in some interviews and  maybe vet her with actual journalists inside the  

networks to see if it's a two way, what she can  bring the network. So I do think, unfortunately,  

this interview was always going to be looked  through the prism of who is she speaking for? 

Speaker 1: There is no question here that what  Chuck Todd is saying is absolutely right. And it  

doesn't seem, at least as of right now,  that they care over there at MSNBC and  

NBC. Here is this morning, from Morning Joe,  Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski saying,  

she's not going to be a guest on this program. It  is not typical to see on air talent criticize the  

hiring of other on air talent in this way.  Will it make a difference? I don't know.  

Let's listen to what Joe Scarborough had to say. Speaker 2: Be surprised to know that we've been  

inundated with calls this weekend, as have, most  people connected with this network about NBC's  

decision to hire her. We learned about the hiring  when we read about it in the press on Friday. We  

weren't asked our opinion of the hiring, but if  we were, we would have strongly objected to it for  

several reasons, including but not limited to, as  lawyers might say, miss McDaniel's role in Donald  

Trump's fake elector scheme and her pressuring  election officials to not certify election  

results while Donald Trump was on the phone. Speaker 1: Right. What he's saying here is,  

you could argue that Ronna McDaniel is  effectively an unindicted coconspirator  

in one of the greatest and most deplorable  attempts to subvert democracy in American  

history. Now she's going to be commenting on NBC. Speaker 2: Be clear. Oh, 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. And 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. Here's why. But to the question,  though, do you disagree with Trump saying he's  

going to free those who have been charged? I do  not think people who committed violent acts on.  

Your sex should be freed. So you disagree with  that? He's been saying that for months. Bronagh,  

why not speak out earlier? Why? Just speak  out about that now? When you're the RNC chair,  

you kind of take one for the whole team. Right  now. I get to be a little bit more myself, right? 

Speaker 1: So listen, she's making the argument. I  said what I had to say when I was running the RNC,  

and now I'll say what I have to say, or now I  guess she's saying she'll tell the truth about  

what she thinks now because she's now unshackled  or whatever. But as Chuck Todd said, was it her  

real opinion then or now? Or are all of these just  things she's saying because she's getting paid?  

But I think the bottom line of it is this I get  being a spokesperson for something else, but to  

be a spokesperson for the lowest anti-democracy,  conspiracy that I remember. I mean, I don't I  

can't remember a worse one being attempted by  a sitting president ever in the United States  

to say, I'm just a paid spokesperson. This is my  job. At a certain point you have to say, this is  

too low, this is too low. I get that I'm the RNC  chairwoman and I have to defend, I guess, what the  

Republican Party is doing. But these attempts  to subvert democracy, I'm not just going to do  

it because I'm getting money. And she never did  that. So we don't know what she thought then what  

she thinks now, what she really thinks. Here's  a little bit of a of another excerpt from her  

interview with Kristen Welker over the weekend. Speaker 2: I live in Wayne County. Are you okay?  

Are you all right? Vote your conscience. Not  pushing them to do anything. And then let  

me finish. Let me add one other thing. She was,  threatened to such a degree, Monica, that somebody  

is going to jail. I'm not going to say the threats  that she had, but. But we can't as parties say we  

shouldn't be attacking election workers. Election  workers need to be safe. And then when it happens  

to Republicans, ignore it and only, only report  it when it happens. I don't want to j I understand  

what these attacks. I understand what you're  saying about the concerns about her safety,  

but you got on the phone with her with the then  president of the United States. How can anyone  

say that other than change your vote? But you  said, how do you not sign it? If you can go home  

tonight, do not sign it. How can people read that  as anything other than a pressure campaign? No.  

The pressure was being put on them from the hours  and hours of threats and abuse they were receiving  

that forced them to change their vote, and they  shouldn't have had to do it. But if they're on the  

phone with you and Donald Trump, who was then the  president, I will not tell them anything. What I'm  

saying is, I support you voting your conscience.  Do you wish, knowing what you know now? Do you  

regret making that phone call? I regret the  fact that people are being threatened for  

doing their job in this country. There you go. Speaker 1: Do you regret making that phone call  

to start urging election officials not to sign  off on the results? I regret that people were  

getting threatened. So, Joe Scarborough, Mika  Brzezinski, Chuck Todd, they are all absolutely  

correct. This is not a free speech issue. I know  that we will get the right wingers saying, oh,  

David, you want her speech taken away, being  a $300,000 a year paid contributor on NBC is  

not a right. It's not the government who is  suppressing her speech. If they don't hire her,  

much like I don't have a right to speak at  whatever college I might want to speak at,  

she doesn't have a right to make these comments on  em on NBC or MSNBC, so I don't even care if they  

fire her. I just I don't watch this crap, and I  don't plan to pay any attention to the things she  

says, beyond the fact that it's interesting that  there was an on air revolt against her. But it is,  

it it really shows the gamification. Oh, well,  you know, this was someone in a position of power,  

so she would make for a good analyst. Now,  she participated in a vile and disgusting  

attempt to overturn democracy. And she's now  being rewarded as someone who is going to  

give us insight into what is taking place  at the Republican Party. Give me a break