NBC News Drops Ronna McDaniel After Rachel Maddow Speaks Out

NBC News will be dropping former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel less than a day after a talent rebellion at MSNBC that featured a powerful Rachel Maddow segment.

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Rebellion Leads To NBC News Dumping Ronna McDaniel

Dylan Byers of Puck News posted, “NBC NEWS plans to drop ex RNC-chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor following on-air revolt from NBC/MSNBC talent. Execs are deliberating over details; announcement pending. Meanwhile, McDaniel is seeking legal representation.”

None of this official yet, but McDanuel is looking for a lawyer and planning to sue the network.

The on-air talent rebellion at MSNBC was unprecedented because the most powerful hosts on the network went public and told their audience what was going on and why McDaniel did not belong at NBC News.
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski started off the day by announcing that McDaniel would essentially be banned from Morning Joe.

Nicolle Wallace hosted Timothy Snyder to discuss how MSNBC was appeasing a dictator by hiring McDaniel.
The centerpiece was Rachel Maddow who used her whole first segment to explain why McDaniel was essential to an authoritarian like Trump taking over the Republican Party, and how she worked to overthrow our system of government.

Maddow said, “We are contending with this now not from William Dudley Pelley’s brown shirt militias, right, but from the multi-billion massive political operation of one of the two governing parties of the United States of America. And that’s new. And with our country up against something that daunting and that scary and that dangerous for the country, I think bad decisions will inevitably happen. Mistakes will be made. But part of our resilience as a democracy is going to be recognizing, us recognizing when decisions are bad ones. And reversing those bad decisions. Listening to legitimate criticism, responding to it, and correcting course. Not digging in, not blaming others. 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. It is a sign of strength. And our country needs us to be strong right now.”

Video of Maddow:

Lawrence O’Donnell followed up with his own history lesson and reasoning for why McDaniel could not be on the network:

Stephanie Ruhle closed the day by adding her support to the Never Ronna rebellion and from then on, it was just a matter of time until NBC pulled the plug.

Ronna McDaniel Won’t Be On NBC News, But What Happens Next?

NBC News is going to announce that they won’t hire Ronna McDaniel and then they will be sued by McDaniel.

Just because McDaniel won’t be on MSNBC does not mean that the threat is over. McDaniel had meetings with multiple networks, so the corporate media hasn’t learned anything. They will keep trying to hire Trumpers who want to end our democracy.

NBC News is currently being run by executives who come Republican-friendly big corporate outlets like Politico and The New York Times. These executives believe that America is a conservative country, and they are trained to court Trump and his party.

The other important lesson is that NBC News didn’t back down on McDaniel due to viewer outrage. It took an unprecedented on-air rebellion to make this change happen. NBC News executives didn’t care what MSNBC viewers wanted. The left appearance of the network was nothing more than branding for them.

Ronna McDaniel was rejected, but as long as corporate media looks for ways to appease Trump, there will be many more challenges coming for democracy and journalism in the United States.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

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