Many people have been wondering what would become of Ronna Romney McDaniel and her new contributorship at NBC News once Rachel Maddow’s program aired last night. Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski had laid into the network. Chuck Todd’s journalistic sensibilities were offended by the network hiring such a brazen liar. Chuck Todd’s journalistic sensibilities, we said! And not as a joke! (Although it sounds like it could be a Cards Against Humanity card.)
We don’t know where McDaniel is this morning or whether she’s been pulled into any suits’ offices, but Maddow has spoken, and it’s brutal and great. It’s what a fascist bootlicker like McDaniel deserves. It’s what should greet her in every job she goes out for, even Walmart greeter. (In that scenario, the little bouncing price-slashing yellow dot would do the monologue about what a piece of dogshit McDaniel is.)
Here is a big clip, Maddow talks about how, as the recent head of the Republican National Committee, McDaniel was literally a participant in the January 6 insurrection, one of the prime movers who tried to help Donald Trump steal the 2020 election, and she brings the receipts.
Maddow said this country has had a “long history of forgettable men,” hellbent on telling the country we need a “new system of government.” She continued:
“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 said, in reference to the former president.
“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 … decide that she would not just abide him, she would help. She would help with the worst of it,” Maddow said.
“And so 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,” she made clear.
McDaniel’s hiring was “inexplicable,” Maddow went on, comparing it to a member of the mafia working in a district attorney’s office or a pickpocket being hired as a TSA screener at the airport. “I hope they will reverse their decision.”
She continued that she understands that the brass at MSNBC was fine with it when NBC News decided to issue McDaniel a vest and a nametag, but that when just about every MSNBC employee in the building screamed FUCK NO YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES, they changed their tune and told them specifically that McDaniel would not appear on their air at MSNBC. She noted that there are people trying to muddy that message in the press, trying to make it like that’s not exactly what happened at MSNBC. She said that’s exactly what happened at MSNBC.
“In the news business, yes, we are covering an election, which we do all the time, but we’re also covering bad actors trying to use the rights and privileges of a democracy to end democracy,” she said. “The chief threat among them now is not the rioters and the kooks, but the slick political professionals who are turning their considerable talents to laundering violently revolutionary claims that … America’s election results aren’t real and they shouldn’t be respected.”
The well-dressed fascists, she meant. And quite frankly, that’s the people in charge at the Republican Party, which is no longer an American political party, but rather a fully insurrectionist, insurgent movement.
The clip above ends with Maddow making clear that admitting you’re wrong is a sign of strength, not weakness, so you know what to do, NBC.
After Maddow, it was time for Lawrence O’Donnell, who also went off on the network. (“Don’t hire anyone close to the crimes” was part of his advice.) Jen Psaki has gone off on the network. (“Our democracy is in danger because of the lies that people like Ronna McDaniel have pushed on this country,” said Psaki.) Nicolle Wallace and Joy Reid have had words. Truly, the whole building is livid. A source at the Washington Post calls it an “insurrection” that NBC now has to contend with. Though not the kind that wears furry QAnon shaman hats, unless Nicolle Wallace surprises us on that front.
And of course, NBC News itself is having to report on it.
We’ll see if NBC hears the call and rights the ship, or if they decide to give McDaniel a hand with the fascist bootlicking. Wish we could say we had faith in the outcome here. Prove us wrong.
YESTERDAY!
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