During her Monday broadcast, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow joined some of her MSNBC and NBC News colleagues in protesting the hiring of former Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
Maddow likened McDaniel’s hiring to a district attorney’s office hiring a mobster in her lengthy monologue about McDaniel.
She also said that MSNBC management assured the on-air talent McDaniel would not appear on MSNBC’s programming.
“[I] want to associate myself with all my colleagues both at MSNBC and at NBC News who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company putting on the payroll someone who hasn’t just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government, someone who still is trying to convince Americans that, this election stuff, it doesn’t really work, that this last election, it wasn’t a real result, that American elections are fraudulent,” she said. “Because that argument, that is a necessary part, that is the most necessary part of the overall project of getting us as Americans to give up on this election stuff, because wouldn’t we rather have a real man in charge anyway, somebody who could really get some stuff done, if only we could clear away all the things in his way? We have a long history in this country of forgettable men telling us that we need a new system of government where everything is under their control, and politics is over, and this new strongman way of government is going to make America great again. We have had a lot of these guys.”
“But our generation’s version of this guy has gotten a lot farther than all the rest of them,” Maddow continued. “And why is that? He would have been as forgotten as all the rest of them had he not been able to attach himself to an institution like the Republican Party, and had the leader of that party in his time not decided that she wouldn’t just abide him; she would help, she would help with the worst of it. It’s my understanding that MSNBC’s leadership did not object to Ronna McDaniel being hired by NBC News when the matter first arose. But when the hiring was announced, and MSNBC staff essentially unanimously and instantly expressed outrage, our leadership at MSNBC heard us, understood, and adjusted course. We were told this weekend, in clear terms, Ronna McDaniel will not be on our air. Ronna McDaniel will not be on MSNBC.”
“And I say that and give you that level of detail because there has been an effort since by other parts of the company to muddy that up in the press and make it seem like that’s not what happened at MSNBC. I can assure you, that is what happened at MSNBC,” she added. “Ronna McDaniel will not appear on MSNBC, so says our boss since Saturday, and it has never been anything other than clear. And I will also say, if you care what I think about this, I will tell you, the fact that Ms. McDaniel is on the payroll at NBC News, to me, that is inexplicable. I mean, you wouldn’t — you wouldn’t — you wouldn’t hire a — like, a wise guy. You wouldn’t hire a made man, like a mobster, to work at a DA’s office, right?”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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