Fury among NBC staff over the hiring of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel spilled onto the screen Sunday when veteran analyst Chuck Todd told viewers that his bosses should apologize.
The liberal network surprised D.C. insiders on Friday when it announced that the combative Republican would be joining its election-year roster of commentators.
And she found herself directly challenged by new colleague Kristen Welker over her claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump when she appeared on Meet The Press.
MSNBC, NBC’s left-wing cable arm, said McDaniel would not appear on its shows, and former Meet The Press host Chuck Todd told her successor that her bosses had put her in an “impossible situation.”
“Let me deal with the elephant in the room,” Todd said, “I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation, because I don’t know what to believe.”
Veteran NBC analyst Chuck Todd attacked his own bosses for hiring former RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Sunday’s Meet The Press, as fury among the network’s staff played out for viewers.
The former Meet The Press host told his successor Kristen Welker that she had been put in an “impossible position” when station bosses demanded she interview the new recruit on Sunday’s show.
Welker asked McDaniel if she owed an “apology” to the American people, and McDaniel seemed willing to tone down her former fiery rhetoric, telling Welker that Biden won the election “fairly and equitably.”
Welker felt forced to distance herself from McDaniel at the start of the show, telling viewers, “This is going to be a news interview and I had no part in hiring you,” before the pair faced off in the studio.
The host asked McDaniel if she owed an “apology” to the American people, and McDaniel seemed willing to tone down her former fiery rhetoric, telling Welker that Biden won the election “fairly and equitably.”
‘He is the president. He is the legitimate president,’ he insisted.
“I have always said, and continue to say, that there were problems in 2020. I think both things can be true.”
Sources told The Wall Street Journal that MSNBC president Rashida Jones (pictured) “has no plans to have McDaniel on the channel.”
But that wasn’t enough to satisfy Todd, still furious about his “gaslighting” and “smearing” of NBC staff during his time working for Trump.
“You have credibility issues that you still have to deal with,” he told Welker.
‘Is she speaking for herself or on behalf of who pays her?
‘I’m going to say this. I think your interview did a good job of exposing many of the contradictions.
But the fury over McDaniel’s partisan past unnerved viewers accustomed to seeing former Biden White House staffers Jen Psaki and Symone Sanders as analysts on the channel.
‘Did you ever show concern about Jen Psaki joining the left-wing network? Symone Sanders? -asked Sean Spicer.
“I don’t believe it.”
McDaniel was first elected RNC chairwoman in 2017. Before that, she was chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party and helped deliver the state to Trump in 2016.
She is the granddaughter of the late Michigan Governor George Romney and the niece of Utah Senator Mitt Romney.
But under his leadership of the RNC while Trump was president, Republicans lost the House and Senate and then the White House in 2020.
In late February he announced he would step down from his Republican leadership role after pressure from Trump, who publicly endorsed stalwart Michael Whatley and his daughter-in-law Lara Trump for leadership as he closed in on the Republican presidential nomination.
NBC News senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown told staff Friday that “it couldn’t be a more important time to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team.”
As chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, she spent nearly eight years at the highest levels of American politics.
“She will support our outstanding coverage by providing an inside perspective on national politics and the future of the Republican Party.”
Symone Sanders was a chief spokesperson and senior advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris before being hired by MSNBC.
Jen Psaki spent a year as White House press secretary under President Joe Biden before being hired by MSNBC in 2022.
But Todd, who hosted Meet The Press between 2014 and 2023, insisted the channel would regret its decision.
‘When NBC made the decision to hire her, what does she bring to NBC News?
‘And when we make deals like this, and I’ve been at this company for a long time, you do it to have access. ‘Access to the audience is sometimes access to an individual.
‘This is a Washington agent who I don’t think is going to contribute to the network what they think he wants to contribute to the network.
“I understand the motivation, but I think this execution was poor.”