Wasserman-Schultz Held Secret Meeting With MSNBC Chief To Fix 'Frayed Relationship'

The chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee met with MSNBC’s top executive to ally the channel to the Democratic Party, according to a May 2 email from the 20,000 emails exposed by the Wikileaks site.

“Our relationship with NBC/MSNBC is severely frayed given what they perceive as a snub with the last debate, and CNN getting favored treatment,” wrote DNC Communications Director Luish Miranda, in a “DNC Communications Briefing” May 2 email to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.-Fla.), who has led the DNC for more than five years.

Phil Griffin, the president of the news channel, “may raise that concern, and ideally we could lower the temperature and seek common ground,”

Miranda described to the Florida congresswoman the goals for the May 3 meeting of the two leaders  in Griffin’s office from 10 a.m., to 10:30 a.m.

“This is an opportunity to say hello and touch base on the timing and setting for a voting rights town hall (agreed to during the NH debate negotiations); and to stress that we want to have greater collaboration with their team on having the Democratic Party represented on their shows,” he wrote.

Miranda told Wasserman Schultz to talk about Mika Brzezinski, the left-wing co-host of the channel’s Morning Joe program.

Brzezinski, who once on-air tried to set a script on fire, instead of reading it, had been a reliable voice for the Democratic Party and liberalism. But, during the primary fight between Sen. Bernie Sanders (D.-Vt.) and former first lady Hillary Clinton, Brzezinski became a constant critic of Clinton and of Wasserman Schultz–in fact, she called for the DNC chairwoman to resign because of DWS’s seeming alliance with Clinton.

“While Mika won’t be there, you should point out that you’re reaching out to re-engage with her,” he wrote.

Another one of Miranda’s concerns he prepped the congresswoman on was that as MSNBC struggled with ratings and Griffin himself struggled to keep his job, Democrats were getting squeezed off the air.

“MSNBC has largely moved to having their contributors and talent do most of the on-air commentary and we don’t get many opportunities to have the Party represented,” he wrote.

“There had been stories suggesting that MSNBC was in turmoil last year, and they underwent a major shift on programming. There had been rumors that Griffin was going to be fired. However, internal sources suggest he is fine and not going anywhere and MSNBC has seen a significant improvement over last year in ratings.”