NBC sensationally FIRES ex-RNC chair Ronna McDaniel just days after she was hired in $300,000-per-year deal following newsroom mutiny from her woke colleagues

NBC News officially dropped ex-RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel as a contributor following backlash from inside the network, a statement from the network’s chairman confirmed.

In the Tuesday evening statement, NBCUniversal chairman Cesar Conde said: ‘After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor.’

McDaniel had reportedly been signed to the left-leaning network in a deal that amounted to roughly $300,000 a year, according to the New York Times. 

Following the announcement of her hiring, major stars inside the company began a public campaign against her hiring. Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski said she would not be invited on their program. 

And Chuck Todd erupted into an on-air rant about her hiring, taking particular issue with her support for Donald Trump’s false 2020 election fraud claims. 

Todd’s meltdown was quickly followed by other liberal media stars, with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow describing the hiring as ‘inexplicable’ and said she hoped bosses would ‘reconsider that decision.’ 

According to Tuesday night’s statement, ‘reconsider that decision’ is precisely what executives did. Conde apologized to staff who were upset by McDaniel’s hiring.

‘I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down. While this was a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team, I approved it and take full responsibility for it.

‘Our initial decision was made because of our deep commitment to presenting our audiences with a widely diverse set of viewpoints and experiences, particularly during these consequential times. 

‘We continue to be committed to the principle that we must have diverse viewpoints on our programs, and to that end, we will redouble our efforts to seek voices that represent different parts of the political spectrum,’ he wrote.

According to Puck News, McDaniel has lawyered up following the sudden decision. 

Wall Street Journal reporting suggests that NBC News execs became close with  McDaniel during their successful attempt to win the rights to carry a Republican debate last  November.

The Journal also confirmed McDaniel had signed a three-year deal with NBC valued at close to $1million. She  was represented during the deal by agents at CAA, who have reportedly since cut ties with her. 

Fury at McDaniel’s hiring reportedly began behind closed doors, with top contributors taking offense to not being asked their opinions before the decision was made.

On Sunday, two days after McDaniel’ role was announced, the issue came to a boiling point when Todd went after his bosses for the decision.

Todd told his successor Kristen Welker that NBC executives had put her in an ‘impossible situation’ by having her interview McDaniel.

‘Let me deal with the elephant in the room,’ Todd said. ‘I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation, because I don’t know what to believe.’ 

When McDaniel appeared with Welker for the first time as an employee of the network, she seemed intent on distancing herself from her past rhetoric.

She insisted that Biden won the 2020 election ‘fair and square,’ adding: ‘He’s the president. He’s the legitimate president.’

McDaniel stepped down as RNC chief just two weeks before she was announced as a paid NBC contributor. 

Amid the backlash, MSNBC said she would not be appearing on the network and would only feature on NBC, as many of its top anchors followed Todd’s lead in sounding off in public. 

Amid confusion over the capacity in which McDaniel would appear, Rachel Maddow took the opportunity to also take a shot at her bosses. 

She said that MSNBC bosses had approved the hiring, but when faced with outrage, they then walked back the possibility of her translating over from NBC. 

Maddow said company executives had been attempting to ‘muddy that up in the press’ and make it appear they hadn’t caved to pressure.  

‘I can assure that, that is what happened at MSNBC,’ she said.

Following this, ‘Morning Joe’ hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski vowed to not have McDaniel on their show, as Brzezinski said she would not welcome ‘a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier.’ 

While the liberal network melted down over the hiring, others felt the criticism was hypocritical, because Democrat stars such as former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki have seamlessly moved from politics to punditry. 

Another ex-White House Press Secretary, Trump’s Sean Spicer, questioned: ‘Did (Todd) ever show concern about Jen Psaki joining the left-wing network?… Didn’t think so.’

NewsNation correspondent Geraldo Rivera also waded into the controversy, claiming that the backlash was fueled by ‘pretentious bulls***.’

‘Really, all of these people that have a stick up their behinds, how dare they!’ he said. 

‘Chuck Todd, I don’t remember his nine years at Meet the Press as being exactly triumphant. You know, she is the ultimate insider, and to say that they don’t want to hire her now because of election denialism, well then you don’t want half the country to watch your network.

‘Half the country is Republican, more or less, and they believe – a lot of them – or at least they’ve convinced themselves, about the election being, you know, fraudulent or whatever it is.’

Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele has been a contributor at NBC for years without issue from inside the newsroom. 

Psaki, now host of MSNBC’s ‘Inside with Jen Psaki, chimed in on the controversy, and said experience in front-line politics ‘only matters and only has value to viewers if it is paired with honesty and good faith.’ 

Todd also said critics of his response were being intentionally dishonest, and he was offended by the hiring of an election denier, not that McDaniel was a Republican.

‘This is about whether honest journalists are supposed to lend their credibility to someone who intentionally tried to ruin ours,’ he said on X. 

Todd’s takedown of the network was seen by some as a watershed moment, with it previously unheard of for a contributor to blast a colleague’s employment live on the air. 

McDaniel had served as RNC Chair since 2017, after previously serving as chair of the Michigan Republican Party and helped deliver the state for Trump in 2016. 

She is the granddaughter of late Michigan Governor George Romney and niece of Utah Senator Mitt Romney.

However, her tenure made her unpopular among some factions in the Republican Party, particularly as the party lost ground in the House, Senate and White House over varying midterms and presidential elections.