The co-hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe are furious over NBC News’s decision to hire former Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, specifically due to her support of former President Donald Trump.
NBC News announced Friday that McDaniel would join the network as an on-air contributor, with McDaniel making her first appearance since the announcement on Sunday’s episode of Meet the Press. Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough stated Monday that he and fellow co-host Mika Brzezinski had not been informed of McDaniel’s hiring ahead of time but would have opposed it due to her partaking in Trump’s “fake election scheme.”
“To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage, but it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier, and we hope NBC will reconsider its decision,” Brzezinski said. “It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on Morning Joe in her capacity as a paid contributor.”
The show then displayed footage of McDaniel’s appearance on Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, during which the former RNC chairwoman argued that while President Joe Biden won the 2020 election “fair and square,” there were still “problems” in the last presidential election. In reflecting on the footage, Scarborough argued that McDaniel “summed up the sickness in the Republican Party.”
The Morning Joe co-hosts are not the only ones critical of MSNBC’s hiring, as former Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd argued that Welker was owed an apology by her higher-ups. Welker seemed less than thrilled with the network’s decision, stating clearly before her interview with McDaniel that the interview was scheduled “weeks before” her hiring, in which she had no involvement.
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McDaniel was hired about two weeks after she left her position at the RNC on March 8. In announcing her departure last month, McDaniel said she is still committed to “winning back the White House and electing Republicans up and down the ballot in November.”
Michael Whatley, the former chairman of the North Carolina GOP, has replaced McDaniel as the chairperson of the RNC, with Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, replacing former RNC co-leader Drew McKissick as co-chairperson. As part of her new leadership role, Lara Trump has vowed to conduct legal ballot harvesting and increase fundraising ahead of the 2024 elections.
