MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski said Monday they will not invite Ronna McDaniel on their “Morning Joe” show after the former RNC chair was hired by parent NBC News. (Watch the video below.)
McDaniel made her network debut on “Meet the Press” Sunday in a controversial segment. NBC had announced her new gig as a contributor days earlier, sparking internal protests.
“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,” Brzezinski told viewers on Monday. “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.”
MSNBC President Rashida Jones reportedly told anchors they were not obligated to book McDaniel on their programs.
Scarborough also made his opposition to McDaniel’s hiring emphatically clear.
“I know you won’t be surprised to know that we’ve been inundated with calls this weekend, as have most people connected with this network, about NBC’s decision to hire her,” Scarborough said.
“We learned about the hiring when we read about it in the press on Friday. We weren’t asked our opinion of the hiring, but if we were, we would have strongly objected to it for several reasons, including but not limited to, as lawyers might say, Ms. McDaniels’ role in Donald Trump’s fake elector scheme and her pressuring election officials to not certify election results while Donald Trump was on the phone.”
“Morning Joe” showed snippets of her “Meet the Press” interview in which she conceded that President Joe Biden fairly won the election after a grilling by “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker, who replayed a previous denial. Yet McDaniel still advanced claims of “problems” in 2020.
McDaniel, who was replaced in part by Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara, to head up the Republican National Committee, characterized her support of Trump in her former post as taking one “for the team.” Ex-“Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd later came on and told Welker:
“I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation because I don’t know what to believe.”