MS NOW star Rachel Maddow implores ex-60 Minutes star Scott Pelley to join her network and warns his firing after petulant outburst confirms CBS is sliding into Hungarian OLIGARCHY

Rachel Maddow invited former 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley to join her over at MS NOW multiple times this week. 

Maddow, 53, made her case while reacting to news of Pelley’s Tuesday firing during a ‘special primary coverage’ special in real-time.

‘I don’t know where Scott Pelley will land. Frankly, I hope he lands right here. I hope he’s on TV tomorrow,’ MS NOW’s marquee star said at one point.

Earlier on, she joked the new 60 Minutes executive who clashed with Pelley Monday while being accused of being unqualified and beholden to CBS brass, Nick Bilton, was ‘part of [a] sort of bald-faced, Hungarian-style oligarchic takeover of’ the network.

‘Come work for us. Scott Pelley, if you’re watching, come work with us. I actually don’t have the power to hire you’, she said with a laugh.

‘Sure you do!’ panelist Jen Psaki laughed.

Stephanie Ruhle, at this point, chimed in: ‘If MS [NOW] takes a vote, we vote, “Yes.”‘ 

The rest of the panel, which was rounded out by Michael Steele and Chris Hayes, all agreed.

Pelley, 68, was fired Tuesday night following his clash with Bilton over the latter’s vision for the show.

Maddow maintained that Pelley’s firing was an instance of censorship.

‘There’s nobody who is more acutely attuned to the value of a free press than those who are trying to take it away,’ Maddow said.

‘And I hope that everybody in journalism and everybody who values a free press figures out ways to outmaneuver the people who are trying to take the free press from us.

‘But it is a fully joint fight at this point. I think any pretense that anything else was happening here is over.’ 

Pelley, meanwhile, accused editor Bari Weiss of ‘murdering’ 60 Minutes, and Bilton of having ‘slender qualifications’ for the job. Weiss, 42, was brought in by then-new Paramount CEO David Ellison in October.

Bilton, 49, responded by attempting to move the discussion along before being met with more pushback from Pelley.

The conversation reportedly grew so tense that Bilton eventually had to tell Pelley that he would not be ‘intimidated,’ outlets that obtained the recording reported. 

CBS’ managing editor, Charles Forelle, also had to step in twice to say Pelley was being ‘rude.’

Pelley responded with not one but two statements, one released after he was fired Tuesday and another after CBS News head Bari Weiss’s explanation to staff during a Wednesday conference call.

The two essentially traded jabs and undermined each other’s version of events leading to Pelley’s dismissal.

Weiss told staffers: ‘Despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways

‘We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose.’

She also said that she was ‘only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect,’ and that Pelley had ‘broken’ that cardinal rule.

Pelley responded: ‘I’m saddened to see the transcript of the CBS News morning editorial meeting. Bari Weiss knows what she said is not true.

‘In the meeting on Tuesday, in which I was effectively fired, there was no effort of any kind to “find a way back,” as Weiss said in the editorial meeting.

‘At no point did anyone in the Tuesday meeting suggest that there could be steps taken by either side that would lead to a resolution. Weiss and Tom Cibrowski were openly hostile from the start,’ Pelley continued.

‘No CBS executive, at any time, suggested “a way back.” To say so now is disingenuous. And they know it.’

The Daily Mail approached CBS News for comment. Pelley worked at the network for 37 years.

MS NOW was rebranded from MSNBC this past summer, as part of parent company Versant’s split from NBCUniversal.