On-air talent at left-leaning MSNBC expressed outrage after learning NBC News had hired former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel to be an on-air political contributor.
It was reported Friday that McDaniel had been hired to join NBC News' stable of political analysts. However, MSNBC President Rashida Jones, trying to quell internal backlash, then signaled to staffers that McDaniel wouldn't appear on any of the cable channel's original programming.
In recent days, various anchors and pundits displayed anger when discussing their company's hiring of someone who had been associated with former President Donald Trump.
After McDaniel appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, former host Chuck Todd told current host Kristen Welker that "our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation."
"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," Todd told Welker.
On-air anchors and hosts at MSNBC were quick to express their fury about McDaniel's hiring, Politico reported.
"This isn't about red versus blue. This is about truth versus lies," said MSNBC host Jen Psaki, who was hired by the network after serving as President Joe Biden's press secretary. "Service to the country versus service to one man committed to toppling our democratic system. That is the type of experience that Ronna McDaniel brings to the table."
"It's saying that we have to entertain the idea that the election was stolen on an equal level as we entertain the idea that we should be a multiracial democracy," MSNBC host Joy Reid said. "That is not fairness and balance; that is capitulating to an autocrat in advance by saying, 'Yes, we will take your apparatchik and allow them to be elevated and platformed with us.'"
"What we've … said to election deniers is not just that they can do that on our airwaves, but they can do that as one of us, a badge-carrying employee of NBC News, as paid contributors to our sacred airwaves," MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace said.
"There is an easy way to avoid the controversy NBC News has stumbled into: Don't hire anyone close to the crimes. That's what happened to the [former President Richard] Nixon gang," said MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, alluding to Watergate.
"None of the people who were involved in hiring Ronna Romney McDaniel were old enough to live through any of that history. Some of them were not born yet."
"Bad decisions will inevitably happen. Mistakes will be made. But part of our resilience as a democracy is going to be us recognizing when decisions are bad ones, and reversing those bad decisions," MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said. "Take a minute. Acknowledge that maybe it wasn't the right call. It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge when you are wrong."