News
NBC Insiders ‘Pissed’ Over Ronna McDaniel Hiring as Maddow Reaction Awaited: Report
NBC News and MSNBC staff, including on-air personalities are reportedly “pissed” at the network’s top brass who “unanimously” decided to hire former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel despite her false statements about the 2020 election and alleged involvement in attempting to overturn the results, as Politico reports “NBC’s McDaniel mess threatens to explode.”
Public outrage online exploded when the announcement was made Friday by NBC News senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown, a former Politico editor. That anger swelled when McDaniel, as announced, appeared Sunday on the network’s top branded property, “Meet the Press,” in an awkward and controversial interview with moderator Kristen Welker. The show’s former host, Chuck Todd, told Welker on-air Sunday after the McDaniel interview that NBC News executives “owe you an apology for putting you in this situation.” Todd also denounced the hiring of McDaniel.
“’There’s a reason a lot of journalists at NBC News are uncomfortable with this,’ Todd said,” CNN reported, “explaining that under McDaniel, the RNC engaged in ‘gaslighting’ and ‘character assassination’ when dealing with the news media.”
RELATED: ‘Handmaid of American Fascism’: Ronna McDaniel’s New NBC News Gig Sparks Fury
And yet, the hiring of McDaniel had its roots in the network’s hard-fought efforts to secure a GOP debate.
“It’s yet unclear whether the NBC-McDaniel relationship can survive the uproar. It was forged last year when NBC executives wooed her to land a Republican presidential debate, a high priority at the network. CNN had beat NBC in the race to host a Trump town hall, and securing a debate took on extra significance,” Politico noted. “Through that process McDaniel built a good rapport with NBC News executives Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president of politics, and Rebecca Blumenstein, president of editorial. They secured a deal, at a price: McDaniel insisted MSNBC could not simulcast the debate.”
Taking a swipe at its competitor, CNN added: “It is unusual and widely considered unethical for a news organization to put an election denier on its payroll, never mind someone who for years has smeared the credibility of the organization and its journalists.”
Politico interviewed “executives, hosts, correspondents, and producers in the wake of Todd’s public excoriation,” which “revealed a breakdown in trust and communication among the company’s balkanized and ideologically fractured divisions.”
Amid “a growing sense inside the Washington bureau that Comcast sees its news division, which has been subject to recent layoffs and other cuts, as a divisive nuisance to be stripped down,” there was anger not only at the hiring of McDaniel, but the $300,000 price tag.
“’Across MSNBC they have been cutting contributors,’ said one of the network’s hosts. ‘So everyone’s like, what the fuck? You found 300 for her?'”
READ MORE: Trump Ally’s Stunning Request: ‘If This Election Doesn’t Go Our Way the Next Day We Fight’
The decision to hire McDaniel appears to have been made in a C-suite bubble, as network top executives did not consult with hosts, anchors, producers, or other staff.
“People are pissed. It is a deeply unpopular move,” one insider told Politico.
Other network hosts, like MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, also denounced McDaniel’s hiring.
“We weren’t asked our opinion of the hiring but if we were, we would have strongly objected to it for several reasons,” Scarborough said Monday, The Hollywood Reporter added. Brzezinski said, “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. It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on Morning Joe in her capacity as a paid contributor.”
And now, all eyes are on Rachel Maddow, who is known to carry tremendous weight inside and outside the network.
“Network insiders are now watching to see if other hosts and contributors speak their minds, as well, with eyes particularly peeled for MSNBC’s prime-time lineup Monday, where tent-pole anchor Rachel Maddow is set go live at 9 p.m.”
Enjoy this piece?
… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.
NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.
Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.
 |
Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
