Ronna McDaniel Dropped by CAA as NBC News Cuts Ties With Controversial Hire

CAA, the agency that helped broker Ronna McDaniel’s deal with NBC News as a political analyst, cut ties with the former RNC chair on Tuesday, according to an insider with knowledge of the situation.

NBC News also reversed its much-protested decision to hire McDaniel on Tuesday. McDaniel is reportedly interviewing attorneys for a possible legal fight with the network after the high-profile firing.

The McDaniel debacle is a significant black eye for NBC News chairman Cesar Conde, who was named to the position in May 2020. McDaniel’s short-lived employment was approved “unanimous[ly] across leadership” from NBC News and MSNBC, an executive at the network told TheWrap on Monday.

MSNBC immediately distanced itself from the decision to hire the divisive figure and an unprecedented series of NBC journalists went on the air and social media to denounce the decision. Anchors across the network panned leadership for hiring McDaniel, citing her promotion of election fraud claims in 2020 alongside Trump.

The on-air criticism was kicked off by NBC News’ Chuck Todd, who appeared on “Meet the Press” following McDaniel’s interview on Sunday’s show.

“Look, there’s a reason why there’s a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with this,” Todd said. “Because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination.”

MSNBC anchors followed suit on Monday, engaging in a parade of on-air criticisms of the network’s decision and calling for a reversal. Among them were Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Nicolle Wallace, Joy Reid, Jen Psaki, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell.

The backlash was so strong that NBC’s sister network, MSNBC, had to reassure staff on Saturday that it had no plans to have McDaniel on any of its shows.

Since she was signed by NBC, McDaniel downplayed her role in trying to overturn the 2020 election, although, as the party’s spokesperson, she was among those complaining of “irregularities” and voting machine errors.

As the New York Times noted on Tuesday, these allegations were disputed by election officials and later debunked. She repeated unsubstantiated claims of “deceased voters” and “batches of votes that were invalidated,” including a Fox News appearance on Nov. 10 in which she said “that is stealing” of allowing the election results to be certified.

Fox News later had to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million in the largest-ever payout in a defamation suit and admit they had broadcast false statements about the company. However, the network was not required to make those statements on-air.

In Sunday’s “Meet the Press” interview with Kristen Welker, McDaniel said she now believes that Joe Biden won the 2020 election “fair and square.”

The New York Times first reported the news of McDaniel’s ouster on Tuesday.

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