No Candor, No Credibility: Hiring RNC Ronna Is a Flub for NBC

She has spent years questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

Ronna McDaniel in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, November 8, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

NBC’S HIRING OF RONNA MCDANIEL, the recently ousted chair of the Republican National Committee, as a commentator is a disservice to viewers and to its own journalists. It is also yet another in a long line of disturbing examples of how political misinformation is being normalized. The network should not be able to get away with its whitewashing of McDaniel.

In her role at the RNC, McDaniel repeatedly vilified the media—including the very network hiring her—as “fake news” and “corrupt.” On Sunday, in her first interview as a paid contributor on NBC’s Meet the Press, McDaniel conceded after years of denial that Joe Biden won the 2020 election “fair and square”—but then she immediately resumed casting doubt on the integrity of the election. The defense she offered of her own role in the election aftermath and beyond lacked candor and introspection.

In a comment that could pass for satire, one media correspondent stated that McDaniel will add “a reliably conservative voice to NBC’s stable of political analysts.” Based on her performance as the leader of the RNC, it is clear that she cannot be relied upon at all.

McDaniel’s complicity in the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election should be a clear disqualification for a media role that must be rooted in trust to succeed. Someone who blamed not Donald Trump but the news media in November 2020 for “stealing our faith in the election process” cannot be trusted to deliver intelligent, truthful analysis. Someone who signed a letter two weeks after the 2020 election demanding that Michigan’s canvassing board delay its certification of Biden and audit the election results, notwithstanding the lack of evidence warranting such a postponement and the fact that such an audit would be contrary to state law, cannot be trusted to comment on future elections.

A “conservative voice” does not spread misinformation for political advantage. An extremist does. And an extremist should not have a place at the table of a legitimate news outlet.

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A STATEMENT OFFERED BY NBC in support of McDaniel’s new role was shockingly tone-deaf and an ominous sign of what might pass for news coverage during this crucial year. The head of political coverage for NBC News lauded McDaniel’s “important voice” and “insider’s perspective,” noting the network’s “legacy of serving its audience through reporting that reflects and examines the diverse perspectives of American voters.”

But Ronna McDaniel’s record gives no reason to expect that she can offer a perspective worthy of that legacy. She has sought to undermine America’s confidence in two of the institutions most critical to the working of our democracy: the electoral process and the news media. Confidence in both has been severely eroded for years by false claims of voter fraud and repeated accusations of “fake news” by those who seek to denigrate facts that inconveniently do not align with their goals. And McDaniel has been an accomplice in, an enabler of, and sometimes a leader of that effort.

By hiring McDaniel as a commentator, NBC is gaslighting its audience. The network presumably hopes to lure new conservative viewers. But there is no shortage of legitimate conservative thinkers who could offer smart, provocative thinking—individuals who did not seek to undercut democracy, and who did not contribute to one of the most troubling periods in American history.

Such legitimate conservative commentators can disagree on policy and politics with the liberal commentators who sit across from them. But they share a belief in our constitutional system, in our democratic processes, and in a universally shared set of facts. They review information and then draw conclusions that may differ widely based on their analysis of those facts in accordance with their own worldview. As the old saying goes, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

With the public discourse flooding with misinformation and disinformation, the country is in desperate need of journalists and news outlets committed to factual veracity. NBC undermines its integrity and harms democracy by providing a platform to someone who spent years gaslighting America.

Once again, Maya Angelou’s wise counsel bears repeating: When someone shows you who they are, believe them. We have been shown who Ronna McDaniel is. Who are you, NBC?