'Credibility Issues': NBC's Chuck Todd Blasts 'Unfortunate' Ronna McDaniel Hiring On-Air
Mar. 24 2024, Published 2:00 p.m. ET
NBC News' Chuck Todd publicly slammed his own network's decision to hire former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a political analyst while live on the air, RadarOnline.com can report.
"Let me deal with the elephant in the room. I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation," Todd told Meet the Press host Kristen Welker, who had just concluded an interview with McDaniel.
Welker told viewers that the interview had been scheduled weeks before NBC News announced on Friday that McDaniel would be joining the network. "This will be a news interview, and I was not involved in her hiring," Welker said.
NBC News announced on Friday that it would be hiring former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel as a political analyst.
"I don't know what to believe. She is now a paid contributor by NBC News," Todd said in a panel following the interview. "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. So she has credibility issues that she still has to deal with," he continued." Is she speaking for herself or is she speaking on behalf of who's paying her? Once at the RNC, she did say that. 'Hey, I’m speaking for the party.' I get that, that’s part of the job. So, what about here?”
"Your interview did a good job of exposing, I think, many of the contradictions. 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, have been met with character assassination."
"There's a reason why there's a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with this," Todd said of McDaniel's hiring.
"When NBC made the decision to give her NBC News' credibility, you got to ask yourself, what does she bring NBC News?” Todd asked. "And when we make deals like this, and I've been at this company a long time, you're doing it for access. Access to audience. Sometimes it's access to an individual."
"And we can have a journalistic ethics debate about that. I'm willing to have that debate. And if you told me we were hiring her as a technical adviser to the Republican Convention, I think that would be certainly defensible," he added. "If you told me, 'We’re talking to her, but let's see how she does in some interviews,' and maybe vet her with actual journalists inside the network to see if it's a two-way, what she can bring the network."
"So I do think, unfortunately, this interview was always going to be looked through the prism of, 'Who is she speaking for?' I think you did everything you could do. You got put into an impossible situation booking this interview, and then all of a sudden, the rug's pulled out from under you, you find out she's being paid to show up."
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Kristen Welker spoke to McDaniel in an interview that was scheduled weeks before her hiring was announced.
"It’s unfortunate for this program, but I am glad you did the best that you could," Todd concluded. "That's why the three of are on here, to try to bolster that editorial independence."
"I appreciate that," Welker replied.
Ronna McDaniel had a close relationship with Donald Trump.
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Todd isn't the only one has raised concerns over McDaniel's addition to the NBC News team.
As RadarOnline.com previously reportedly, the ex-RNC chair, who had a close relationship with former President Donald Trump and supported his claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, is "not welcome" on the network's sister channel MSNBC.
"As columnists we are held to strict standards of factuality and truth, and are expected to have a fundamental understanding of our democracy," MSNBC columnist Marisa Kabas wrote on social media. "McDaniel has proven time and again she adheres to none of those values, and lacks that very basic understanding."
Carrie Budoff Brown, who oversees NBC News' political coverage, wrote in an internal memo that "it couldn't be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna's on the team. She will support our leading coverage by providing an insider’s perspective on national politics and on the future of the Republican Party."
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