NBC News’ decision to hire Ronna McDaniel, the former chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, as a political commentator has sparked a round of sharp criticism from her new colleagues in recent days. Top personalities at NBC and its cousin, MSNBC, including Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow, took the unusual step of publicly condemning their bosses’ decision.
Those inside critics said that by hiring Ms. McDaniel, the network was endorsing electoral denial. In the days following the 2020 election, Ms. McDaniel promoted some false theories promoted by then-President Donald J. Trump, including miscounting votes in key battleground states and helping pressure election officials in a Michigan county to stop certifying the results. She has since sought to play down her role in challenging the integrity of the election and on Sunday told “Meet The Press” that President Biden defeated Mr. Trump “fairly and squarely.”
Many mainstream news organizations have focused on internal tensions at NBC. But the upheaval at the network has been viewed differently among many conservative commentators, who have argued that it shows how journalists at NBC News are overwhelmingly liberal and intolerant of conservative views.
Fox News
In one segment, after clips were played in which Mr. Todd and MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski described their opposition to Ms. McDaniel’s hiring on air, participants on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” expressed disbelief at the reaction.
“If someone said that on Fox News, they’d be kicked out the door,” said Bill Hemmer, the show’s host.
“I was really disappointed to hear Chuck Todd, someone who is a journalist, comment on it that way,” said Kayleigh McEnany, co-host of Fox’s “Outnumbered,” who was White House press secretary under Mr. Trump. . “Which on your network, NBC or MSNBC, represents the 46.7 percent of the country that says in the RealClearPolitics average, when you look at the polls, that they support Trump?”
“The liberal media can’t stand the idea of ​​having a different point of view on their air,” said Jeanine Pirro, host of “The Five” on Fox. Ms. Pirro went on to point out that MSNBC and NBC commentators did not object to the network’s hiring of Michael Steele, another former RNC chairman, in 2011.
Bill O’Reilly
Speaking to NewsNation on Monday, former Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly said Ms McDaniel had “made a huge mistake” when she tried to convince voters in Michigan not to ratify the 2020 election results.
But she said she was still paying an unfair price for that decision, and that her comments on Sunday that Mr. Biden won the 2020 election should have been enough for the network’s talent to accept her hiring.
“This is not good enough for NBC,” Mr. O’Reilly said. “It must be cancelled. It must evaporate, it must disappear.”
Newsmax, Breitbart and National Review
Newsmax, an outlet that promoted false theories about the 2020 election, covered the response to Ms. McDaniel’s hiring in a news article that described the MSNBC hosts as “scorched earth” on the former RNC chair.
Breitbart, a conservative news site, focused on Ms. Maddow’s response to Ms. McDaniel’s hiring, referring to the host’s monologue about Ms. McDaniel as a “watch.”
The National Review, a conservative magazine that has sometimes voiced its opposition to Mr. Trump, pointed out that MSNBC employed several hosts who held prominent positions in the Biden administration.
“There was no such outrage when MSNBC impeached former White House press secretary Jen Psaki and Kamala Harris’ former communications staffer, Simone Sanders,” one news story said.
