NBC decided not to hire Ronna McDaniel, former chair, of the Republican National Committee, after an on-air revolt by its biggest stars.
Her loud defense of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election were unacceptable to the NBC and MSNBC commentators.
Amid a chorus of on-air protest from some of the network’s biggest stars, NBC announced on Tuesday night that former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel will no longer be joining the network as a paid contributor.
The announcement came in a memo from NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde, who said he had listened to “the legitimate concerns” of many network employees. “No organization, particularly a newsroom, can succeed unless it is cohesive and aligned,” he wrote. “Over the last few days, it has become clear that this appointment undermines that goal.”
Conde also apologized to employees “who felt we let them down” and took “full responsibility” for the hiring…
But the company’s on-air personalities — especially those on NBC’s liberal-leaning cable affiliate MSNBC — disagreed vehemently, saying that McDaniel’s promotion of Donald Trump’s media-bashing and false election-fraud claims disqualified her for a role in their news divisions.
And one by one, they took to the airwaves to deliver that message to their bosses in front of their live audiences Monday.
“Take a minute, acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t the right call,” MSNBC’s top-rated star Rachel Maddow said on her show that night. “It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge when you are wrong.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
She lasted less than one Scaramucci. WTH were NBC execs even thinking?
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Yes, Scaramucci lasted 10 days. She was hired on Friday, gone by Tuesday.
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I wonder if Ronna walked away with one of the six to eight figure golden parachutes.
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I’m sure they had to buy her out
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Sometimes you have to bite the bullet
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Geese, Lloyd, did you have to mention that possibility? My ignorance was bliss!
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She definitely wasn’t a good fit for NBC – maybe FOX. We don’t need to hear the Trump perspective on politics, we need to hear the truth. Having an individual buying into conspiracy theories is not someone we want to hear from on “the news”. What she says is all propaganda and should be kept away from the spotlight. NBC already has some conservatives on the payroll and Ronna is NOT a conservative.
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Her admitted involvement in the Jan 6th events should have disqualified her from any news organization. As Rachel said last night, this was inexplicable.
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2024 is a battle for the soul of the USA. The liberals must paradoxically be as ruthless as the right-wing; they never play nice.
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Unfortunately, detereminddespitewp, that’s why liberals, or more accurately, Democrats, lose elections: they play “too nice” and use it as their moral high ground. I’ve quoted Gene Hackman from Mississippi Burning here regarding this as it pertains to MAGA:
Ward (Willem Dafoe): “Don’t drag me into your gutter, Mr. Anderson!!!”
Anderson (Gene Hackman): “These people crawled outta the sewer, Mr. Ward!!! Now maybe the gutter is where we should be!!!”
Democrats, liberals need to go to the gutter. Get dirty, muddy, stinky and nasty. It’s easy for MAGA because there’s no shame nor any compunction. It takes more courage for Democrats, liberals to get there.
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That is an excellent quote and apt quote Yossarian.
Lincoln did whatever it took to win the Civil War. Two mutually suspicious and morally questionable democracies sided with a brutal dictatorship to bring down two even more repugnant dictatorships in WWII.
The Democrats have had amply opportunities to rip and apart and sink the opposition from Trump’s disgusting ‘heroes’ comment about the late John McCann through to Boebert’s ‘Silly Little Girl’ babblings about Jesus and guns, and those were the easy ones.
You do what has to be done to quite frankly keep the least worst option afloat for ‘better days’ to grow.
My own quote is from the incomparable Joan Rivers whenever she came out with something that really push the boundaries, without missing a beat, she add to the audience:
‘Oh grow up!’
And win them every time.
We could do with her on Biden’s team now.
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The Lincoln Project agrees with you.
I agree with you.
About half of the Democrat party are liberals and/or progressives, and they have to learn how to fight fire with fire at every level. They have to go low.
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Hi Lloyd, your ‘you tube’ warms the heart of this old british realist.
Hit them hard, hit them heavy and don’t stop. Go back to the WWII propaganda play book if you will.
I’ll repeat the sentiments I just said to Yossarian.
In the words of the late great Joan Rivers when she pushed way beyond…
‘Oh grow up!’
(PS: Suggestions-
Scare the pants off the complacent and the fashionably cynical who won’t vote- Tell them if Trump wins the Republican Right particularly those arch hypocrites lurking in the Evangelical wings will come from them, or those they hold close.
And as for those who say they won’t vote for Biden because of his support for Israel. Ask them if letting Trump in is going to benefit any Palestinians? – apart from the recruiting sergeants of Hamas that is )
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A news organization hiring R. McDaniels reveals the same absence of understanding and discernment that has also gone missing in the entire Trump-Maga world . . . aka: a relativism of moral/ethical principles and resultant fuzzy and self-serving thinking about the difference between normal goings-on in the press in a free press world where truth is not always arrived at, but always sought, and an attack on the very foundations of those goings-on.
It’s the same thing as putting a fox (ahem) in the henhouse; or a rotten apple in the barrel, or pouring salt in a cake mix, or hiring an already known as corrupt referee for football games, or let your baby crawl into the street. No amount of profit-making can justify or qualify such idiocy.
It’s not just adding a different viewpoint to ensure variety and bring nuances of truth to an influential opinion desk when that opinion is about destroying the free press itself. It’s foundational, stupid. You move from room to room in your house, and can do so as long as you live, or until you set fire in the basement.
What a tell: I’m glad whoever it was at NBC listened. But who the hell is that guy (or group), and why is he/she in such a powerful position in the first place? Don’t you watch your own news programs? CBK
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the difference between . . . a free press world where truth is not always arrived at but always sought and an attack on [these] very foundations
Thank you, Catherine. Exactly
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Addendum to my “that guy at NBC” note: ”Don’t you listen to your own news programs,” you clueless, profit-grubbing, transactional, moral-mush-brain? CBK
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Don’t be shy, CBK. Tell us what you really think. ROFL.
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Bob: Oh, that . . . it’s so hard to stay clean in a mud fight. CBK
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lol
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Smart move.
Now fire the person or people responsible for hiring her.
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Recommended reading about crazy conspiracy theories, on the alleged connections among the Moscow terror attack, the Baltimore bridge collapse, Zelenskyy and the Jews: https://open.substack.com/pub/malcolmnance/p/are-cia-ukrainian-terrorists-in-moscow?r=rls8&utm_medium=ios
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It is acceptable for a network to bring in commentators with divergent points of view. Liz Cheney has been on MSNBC, for example. However, someone that lies about the border, the economy and the integrity of our elections has no place on a legitimate news program. Lies are propaganda, not news.
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So several of us have made comments or posts about the nature of reporting on the MSM or more correctly; what is thought of as the “Liberal Media”. Especially when it comes to reporting on Economic news or topics , Education among them or political news which often has economic impact. Confession: I am not an original thinker on this topic. ”Liberal” Economist Dean Baker has had for well over a decade a Column / Blog titled ” Beat the Press “. Daily he questions the reporting of mostly the Nations two papers of Record, the NYTimes and WAPO on Economic news. Often pointing out how the reporting or columns are in direct contradiction to Government releases (ie. BLS or the Fed…) that are available to those news agencies as well as the General Public. Of course Baker isn’t all that original either Upton Sinclair had to self Publish ” The Brass Check ” in 1919, later on that. Baker pointed out back in late 2016 that as loathsome as Trump is and baseless as most of his ideas are. Not everything he said about the media is wrong. Of course anyone with a survival instinct does not want to criticize the “Free Press” when the one institution that can bring truth to power is under an assault by fascists. So baker goes after them news item by news item correcting them with the economic facts as per the available data and not a broad brush. Now I am not an economist but it is accepted by most economists that Keynes was correct and that “Animal Spirits ” move markets, be they Stock Markets or the Economy in General. Simply when people feel good they increase spending be it on goods and services or in investments and when they are afraid or depressed they cut back and markets decline. What seems to be less clear is what it is that makes people feel one way or another about those markets or the willingness to accept that mass media has a role in moving those “animal spirits”. Few economists will come out and say that it does, especially when they work for one of the Nations Papers of Record. Back in September of 2021 as Biden was getting slammed for pulling out of Afghanistan ,the media also went on a frenzy about inflation. The entire world was experiencing pandemic driven shortages of goods and supply chain issues. Gas was all of $3.21 a gallon. Which was actually cheaper than it was from 2011-2014 for four whole years. While fleet millage was up as were wages . Some how the NY Times managed to find a Station in California probably 11 miles off the coast where gas was $5.69 a gallon. They also found a repair shop owner who drove a 1970s Muscle car and a 2000 Escalade, who could not afford to feed the gas guzzlers. Don’t we all own a 1970 Souped Up Thunderbird? While NPR found a family in Texas who went through 9 Gallons of milk a week and was going broke. Of course the real story there is why they did not use birth control. What was missing from the inflation story was the lack of a “wage price spiral”. Everyone seems to have gotten the message that there was inflation but the wage side/ workers did not have the power to demand increases. Wages did rise for workers on the bottom as there was a shortage of lower paid labor. Corporate America decided the people expect inflation and we are going to give them what they expect. Profits rose to their highest point since 1945 as they raised prices far and beyond any increased costs. Where as in the 70s wages drove 70% of price increases in 2021-22 Profits were driving near 60%. It is hard to see how the medias hysterics on what has proven to be “Transitory Inflation” (it went down quickly without mass unemployment) did not drive the cycle. Prices occasionally come down but unless you want 1929 you better not wish for deflation. Krugman with out directly going after his employer has pointed out the role of party affiliation and peoples perception on the Economy and the role of media. Where as general surveys say of people are unhappy about the National Economy, when asked how they personally are doing the majority say good to excellent and those schizoid views go especially for people who identify as Republicans. Where more identify as being personally better off while the vast majority say the economy sucks . What Krugman also points out is that the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank has for decades tracked daily News reporting sentiment on the economy. Somehow the number of Negative news stories on the economy in 2023 when inflation was down to 3.1% and unemployment was at near record lows averaging about 3.7 %, the negative reporting was equal to the number of negative news stories about the economy in the depths of the Great Recession, in 2009 and 2010. A time when home owners were being evicted in mass ,unemployment was over 8% and banks were being bailed out… https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/data-and-indicators/daily-news-sentiment-index/Is it a wonder when people are surveyed they think that unemployment is near a record high not near record lows for the longest period since 1965. How does this happen? Baker would point out that the owners of even the “liberal Media ” MSNBC / Comcast are very wealthy people who stand to gain a lot of money especially in tax cuts and deregulation ,if Trump gets elected. Negative stories on the economy and crime , like “man bites dog ” are more profitable to gain viewers and advertising, and they would not be so disappointed to see a Trump victory. Back to Upton Sinclair , you might want to ask what the Brass Check has to do with mass media a century ago. In the early 1900s prostitution was illegal “The Brass Check ” was given to a client who paid down stairs so as not to have to give cash to the prostitute. The owners and the advertisers even in what we call the” Liberal Media” are like prostitutes in it for the money .
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