Here’s what the NBC News brand gained by hiring former Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel: nothing. And here’s what the NBC News brand lost by reportedly firing her less than a week later: nothing.
Some congratulations should probably go to the corny hosts and anchors at NBC and its cable news arm MSNBC, though. Their on-air tantrums over McDaniel’s ephemeral employment are why she’s now out of a $300,000 contract and now they get to spend another 48 hours patting each other on the back for having once again fought off fascism.
That’s seriously how they think this ridiculous affair played out.
For non-NBC watchers (virtually everyone reading this), McDaniel’s contributor status was announced Friday and she made her first appearance as a paid talking head on Sunday’s edition of “Meet the Press,” where she sat for a 20-minute slog of an interview with host Kristen Welker. It was a predictable segment with Welker prodding McDaniel to either defend or disavow anything she ever said as chairwoman of the RNC during Donald Trump’s tenure as president. But afterward, Chuck Todd, the show’s former moderator, took it upon himself to defend Welker’s honor. (Nothing like a Democrat white man assuming his role as a black person’s savior.)
“I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation,” he said to Welker, as though she had just been asked to clean the toilets, rather than conduct an interview on a still-somewhat prestigious newscast. Thereafter on MSNBC, Joe Brzezinski Scarborough, Joy Reid, Jen Psaki, and Rachel Maddow took turns registering their own distaste with their new colleague, declaring McDaniel would never be allowed on their shows (which is a little like being banned from the Golden Corral— wait, no, please, I’ll be good, I swear…).
And they say what’s happening in Gaza is disproportionate.
The seething and nagging over such a banal personnel change was truly awe-inspiring. Political operatives and officials frequently come and go as paid TV news contributors. One of MSNBC’s most precious hosts, Nicolle Wallace, spun communications for the Bush White House to justify America’s grotesque nosedive into the Iraq War. Nobody else at NBC or otherwise comes even close to being so scandalous of a hire.
Least of all Ronna McDaniel, who is neither loved nor hated by substantial numbers of anybody in the Republican Party. Pro-Trump people don’t care about her. Nikki Haley voters don’t care about her. If there were any legitimate question about her employment, it would be what exactly NBC had to gain from it. I can’t think of anything. Fortunately for them, they’ll also lose nothing without her.
