Start with a screen grab from the bottom of the HuffPo item:
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| That gives the flavor. |
The indication is there was no soft landing. Quoting HuffPo:
McDaniel was ousted following a meeting of top executives from NBC amid growing backlash to her hiring last week. McDaniel used her position as the RNC chair to spread falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election, and continued calling the election results into question even after thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Every one of us knows we can never let what we saw in 2020 happen ever again,” McDaniel said during her party’s summer meeting in August 2021. “Democrats waged war on election transparency, security and integrity — undermining our elections, and we at the RNC are using every tool at our disposal to protect the vote.”
NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde announced McDaniel’s firing in an email to staff late Tuesday afternoon.
[...] Creative Artists Agency, which helped broker the deal to bring McDaniel on as a political analyst for the network, also cut ties with McDaniel on Tuesday, Variety reported. CAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
McDaniel announced her departure as the RNC’s chair in February as Lara Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, took over as co-chair. McDaniel was then hired by NBC to be an on-air contributor, the network announced last week.
“It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” NBC News executive Carrie Budoff Brown said in a memo Friday, adding that McDaniel’s hiring would give “an insider’s perspective on national politics and the future of the Republican Party.”
Guess what? It turned out, it couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s off the team. Once the team found out and rebelled. I.e.
Just minutes after McDaniel made her debut on the network Sunday, Chuck Todd blasted the decision.
“So when NBC made the decision to give her NBC News’ credibility, you’ve got to ask yourself, ‘What does she bring NBC News?’” Todd asked on “Meet the Press,” a program that he previously moderated.
And MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow dedicated 29 minutes of her show on Monday to lambaste the decision, calling McDaniel’s hiring “inexplicable” and likening it to the hiring of a “mobster to work at the DA’s office.”
“I want to associate myself with all my colleagues, both at MSNBC and NBC News, who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company putting on the payroll someone who has not just attacked us as journalists, but is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government,” Maddow said in part.
In his email to staff, Conde apologized for the hiring decision.
He did so without using the term "brainfart." Instead -
“I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down,” he said. “While this was a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team, I approved it and take full responsibility for it.”
Remembering having seen Ronna was kin to some politician, but not remembering who, her Wiki page was accessed. Not kin to a single politician, but to a dynasty. As to which dynasty, hint - she earned a BA in English from Brigham Young University, with the Wiki early life and education link also noting:
The third of five children born to Ronna Stern Romney and Scott Romney, the older brother of Mitt Romney, McDaniel is a granddaughter of three-term Michigan Governor George W. Romney. Her mother ran for the U.S. Senate in 1996 against Carl Levin, served on the Republican National Committee, and was a delegate to the 1988 Republican National Convention. Romney's grandmother, Lenore Romney, ran for the U.S. Senate in 1970.[14] McDaniel has said her career in politics was inspired by her family.[15]
Uncle Mitt ran for President and lost. Paternal grandfather George ran for President and lost. Neither of the two mentioned female family members won a Senate seat.
There was some success, Mitt being a Utah senator and Mass. Gov.; George in Michigan. As to losing, the Wiki page says -
Since McDaniel's 2017 election as chair of the RNC, the Republican Party has had a net loss of seven governorships, three seats in the United States Senate, and 19 seats in the House of Representatives, and the presidency. In December 2022, Axios wrote that McDaniel "has thus far failed to preside over a single positive election cycle."[2]
Events during Ronna's heading the RNC, and political decisions she made, make up the bulk of her Wiki coverage:
Support for Trump
The New York Times described McDaniel as "unfailingly loyal to Trump".[4] According to a 2018 study in The Journal of Politics, under her leadership the RNC has sought to consistently promote Trump and his policies.[3] This includes running ads for Trump's 2020 campaign as early as in 2018, putting a considerable number of Trump campaign workers and affiliates on the RNC payroll, spending considerable funds at Trump-owned properties, covering Trump's legal fees in the Russian interference investigation, hosting Trump's "Fake News Awards", and harshly criticizing Trump critics within the Republican Party.[3] The day after Republican congressman Mark Sanford, known for his criticism of Trump, lost his primary against a pro-Trump candidate, McDaniel tweeted that those who do not embrace Trump's agenda "will be making a mistake".[47][48] In April 2018, McDaniel praised Trump as a "moral leader".[49]
Politico reported that after Trump endorsed Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore just days before the special Alabama Senate election, the White House influenced McDaniel to resume RNC funding for Moore, who lost in a narrow election to Democrat Doug Jones in December 2017. According to two people close to McDaniel, she privately complained about spending time and money on Moore's behalf. McDaniel was reportedly shocked by Trump's decision to endorse Moore but felt that she had little choice but to follow the president's wishes.[50]
In January 2019, Mitt Romney penned an editorial for The Washington Post criticizing President Trump's moral character. McDaniel said the editorial by her uncle, "an incoming Republican freshman senator", "feeds into what the Democrats and mainstream media want" and was "disappointing and unproductive".[51] In March 2019, McDaniel stated she would not support "the nicest, most moral person in the world" to be president if they were not "aligned with [her] politics".[52]
In May 2019, when House Representative Justin Amash became the first Republican member of Congress to call for Trump's impeachment, citing the evidence of obstruction of justice in the Mueller Report, McDaniel criticized Amash, saying he was "parroting the Democrats' talking points on Russia".[53] While she did not explicitly express support for a primary challenge against Amash, she tweeted, "voters in Amash's district strongly support this president".[54]
In September 2020, following the release of audio recordings from February 2020 where President Trump said he was intentionally downplaying the coronavirus, McDaniel defended Trump's handling of the coronavirus. She said, "history will look back on him well as how he handled this pandemic."[55]
By November 2021, the RNC was still covering the legal fees for former president Trump related to investigations into his financial practices in New York.[56]
False claims of fraud in the 2020 election
By May 2020, the RNC had allocated $20 million to oppose Democratic lawsuits to make voting easier during the coronavirus pandemic, in particular expanding vote-by-mail to states that had not adopted it previously.[57][58] McDaniel accused Democrats of trying to "destroy" and "assault" the integrity of elections.[59][58] McDaniel said, "a national vote by mail system would open the door to a new set of problems, such as potential election fraud."[57] According to Deseret News, "Election experts say while voting by mail can be abused, it's rare and inconsequential."[57] In general, research has found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the United States.[60]
In June 2020, McDaniel shared a RNC video warning about voter fraud in the upcoming 2020 election due to expansions of vote-by-mail related to the coronavirus pandemic.[61] The Washington Post fact-checker wrote that the video "tortures the facts to create a narrative of an election about to be stolen. The illegality being satirized here is a phantom. State election officials, in many cases Republicans, are expanding vote-by-mail as a public health precaution to prevent the risk of spreading the coronavirus — not to rig the outcome."[61]
After Joe Biden won the 2020 election, McDaniel claimed without evidence that there was electoral fraud and voter fraud, and had the RNC promote falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the election.[62][63][64][65] At the same time that she was making claims of fraud, President Trump endorsed her to continue to lead the RNC in the January 2021 RNC chairman election.[5][66][65]
In 2022, McDaniel led efforts within the RNC to censure Republican members of Congress Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who had voted to impeach Trump over his incitement of a pro-Trump mob in the U.S. Capitol attack and served on a bipartisan committee to investigate the attack.[67][6] Within the Republican Party, Cheney had a consistently conservative record, aside from her criticisms of Trump.[67] The censure that McDaniel orchestrated characterized the U.S. Capitol attack as "legitimate political discourse".[6]
Campaign donations controversies
In October 2017 after Harvey Weinstein, a major donor to the Democratic Party, was accused of sexual abuse, McDaniel said that "returning Weinstein's dirty money should be a no-brainer"; the Democratic Party did give away some of Weinstein's contributions. In January 2018, Steve Wynn resigned as RNC finance chairman after he was accused of sexual misconduct and McDaniel came under pressure to return his donations. McDaniel said that Wynn should be allowed "due process" and that his donations would be returned only after the allegations were investigated by the Wynn Resorts board of directors.[68][69][70] In May 2019, it was reported that Wynn had donated nearly $400,000 to the national Republican Party, most of it to the RNC, the previous month. In 2017, Wynn and his wife donated $375,000 to the RNC. As of May 2019, none of the money has been returned by the RNC. Steve Wynn has never been convicted of the allegations.[71][72]
In September 2019, McDaniel emailed Doug Manchester, whose nomination to become Ambassador to the Bahamas was stalled in the Senate, asking for $500,000 in donations to the Republican Party. Manchester responded, noting that his wife had given $100,000 and that his family would "respond" once he was confirmed by the Republican-led Senate to the ambassadorship. Manchester copied the email to aides of two U.S. senators whose support he needed to win confirmation. CBS News described McDaniel's action as a "possible pay-for-play scheme" for the ambassadorship.[73][74] The San Diego Union-Tribune reported in May 2021 that a federal grand jury had issued a subpoena in a criminal investigation into Manchester's nomination, apparently focused on the RNC, McDaniel and RNC co-chairman Tommy Hicks, and possibly members of Congress. The Union-Tribune reported the investigation began in 2020.[75]
Other controversies
Under McDaniel's leadership, the RNC set up a website in April 2018 which attacked and sought to undermine former FBI Director James Comey and called him "Lyin' Comey".[76] McDaniel said Comey was a liar and a leaker, and said that the RNC would "make sure the American people understand why he has no one but himself to blame for his complete lack of credibility".[76][77]
In late July 2018, McDaniel falsely[78][79] claimed that Twitter was shadow banning Republicans, including herself.[80] Twitter did not shadowban Republicans, but due to a glitch, several prominent conservative and left-leaning Twitter accounts were not automatically suggested in the site's drop-down search results.[81][82][80] Twitter responded, saying it would fix the bug.[83]
Politico reported in November 2018 that McDaniel called on the Republican candidate Martha McSally to be more aggressive during the ballot counting process in the Arizona Senate race. The Arizona Senate race remained undecided for several days after election night while all ballots were being accounted in a close contest.[84] McSally held a lead by the end of election night, but her lead narrowed over the next few days, as more ballots were counted.[84] Reportedly, the McSally campaign was being pressured from McDaniel for not being aggressive enough.[84][85][86]
On May 13, 2020 ProPublica reported that big RNC contracts were awarded by McDaniel to companies closely connected to her.[87] Contracts went to her husband's company and companies that supported her 2015 run for the chairmanship of the Republican Party in Michigan.[87]
Later career
On March 22, 2024, NBC News announced that it had hired McDaniel as a contributor.[88] Many of the network's hosts publicly opposed the hiring, due to her statements about the 2020 election, which included instances of undermining journalism and attacks on journalistic integrity.[89] Days later, NBC reversed its decision and parted ways with McDaniel.[90]
SO - Based on that record, in toto, top crackerjack NBC decision makers briefly saw Ronna as suitably fit to comment upon the network's news outlets, on the network's behalf?? What the fuck were they smoking?
...................................
curiously, appended to the end of Ronna's Wiki entry, something which may remain there or later be stricken, but there now:
As of August 2023, disbarment proceedings are underway in California against John Eastman. These proceedings have been initiated on the basis of claims that Eastman's conduct showcases "moral turpitude, dishonesty, and corruption". It is also alleged that his actions represent "an egregious and unprecedented attack on our democracy", as stated by George Cardona, the State Bar's chief trial counsel. According to Cardona, Eastman has "violated his duty in an attempt to overturn election results for the highest office in the land".[9][10]
All in all, Ronna's touching Trump was like touching a third rail and suffering, much as Mike Lindall has most recently made news. While not on the ropes getting pounded, as Rudy and Lindall have fared nor facing disbarment as Eastman is, Ronna's going to perhaps have to send the resume to Rupert/FOX and hope.