NBC News Terminates Former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel Just Days After Hiring Her As Analyst After Revolt Among Top Anchors

NBC News has terminated former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a political analyst just days after hiring her after an unprecedented revolt among its anchors and staffers at its news division, who questioned why a person who supported former President Donald Trump‘s false statements about the 2020 election was hired in the first place.

“There is no doubt that the last several days have been difficult for the News Group,” NBCUniversal News Group President Cesar Conde told staff in an email. “After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor.”

“I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down,” Conde wrote. “While this was a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team, I approved it and take full responsibility for it.”

In early March, McDaniel stepped down as RNC chair after former President Donald Trump pushed her out after serving for seven years in service due to poor fundraising results.

The RNC’s membership unanimously elected North Carolina Republican Party Chairman Michael Whatley to replace her as the committee’s new chairman, and Trump’s daughter, Lara Trump, to serve as the co-chair.

On Friday, NBC News trumpeted the announcement of McDaniel’s hiring.

“It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” the senior vice president of NBC News Carrie Budoff Brown, who oversees NBC News political coverage, wrote in a memo.

She stated that McDaniel would offer “an insider’s perspective on national politics and the future of the Republican Party.”

When announcing her hiring on March 22, the network noted that her political background had contributed editorial and ideological balance to its coverage.

McDaniel was to be particularly involved in the coverage of the 2024 campaign, such as election nights.

She joined the NBC News journalist Kristen Welker on Meet the Press on March 24 for her first interview as a paid employee. She was expected to contribute to both NBC News and MSNBC. 

“Donald Trump says one of his first acts if he is re-elected to a second term would be ‘to free those charged and convicted of crimes related to January 6,'” Welker said.

“Do you support that?” she asked McDaniel.

“I want to be very clear,” the former RNC chair replied. “The violence that happened on January 6 is unacceptable. It doesn’t represent our country. It certainly does not represent my party.”

“We should not be attacking the Capitol,” she declared. “We should not be having violence.”

“I said it that day,” she recalled. “I put a statement out that day that this is not acceptable. If you attacked our Capitol and you have been convicted then that should stay.”

“So then to the question though,” Welker stated.

“Do you disagree with Trump saying that he’ll free those– ,” Welker tried asking before McDaniel interrupted her.

“I do not think that people who committed violent acts on January 6 should be free,” McDaniel claimed.

Employees — especially on-air talent — at NBC News expressed their frustration with NBC News’ decision to hire McDaniel, noting the way she paid lip service to Trump’s false statement about his 2020 election loss, but also pointed to her attacks on certain NBC News journalists.

During a Meet the Press panel discussion following the interview, veteran NBC News anchor Chuck Todd condemned his network’s leadership for hiring McDaniel.

“Look, let me deal with the elephant in the room,” Todd told Welker. “I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation. Because I don’t know what to believe. [McDaniel] is now a paid contributor 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 the RNC was paying for it,” he claimed.

“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, who have been met with character assassination,” the NBC News anchor stated.

“So it is – you know – that’s where you begin,” he mentioned.

“And so, when NBC made the decision to give her NBC News credibility, you got to ask yourself, ‘What does she bring NBC News?'” Todd added.

Before the interview, Welker clarified that it had not been timed to coincide with the former RNC chair’s hiring. She said the interview was scheduled for weeks.

“This will be a news interview, and I was not involved in her hiring,” she stated.

During their broadcast on March 25, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the Morning Joe hosts, fiercely criticized the network for hiring McDaniel and told NBC News to reconsider the decision.

“To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage,” Brzezinski stated. “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,” she continued. “It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on Morning Joe in her capacity as a paid contributor.”

Scarborough started by saying the co-hosts were “inundated with calls this weekend” about the NBC News decision.

He said that he and Brzezinski were not consulted prior to this decision but that, if they were, they would have strongly advised the network against hiring McDaniel.

“We learned about the hiring when we read about it in the press on Friday,” Scarborough stated.

“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, Ms. McDaniel’s role in Donald Trump’s fake electoral scheme, and her pressuring election officials to not certify election results while Donald Trump was on the phone,” he added.

On Monday night, key MSNBC anchors Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell and Joy Reid also condemned McDaniel’s hiring.