Ronna McDaniel Reportedly Seeks Full Contract Payoff As Trump ...

27 Mar 2024

Forbes

Topline

Former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel is seeking the full payment from her two-year contract with NBC—reported to be $600,000 total—after the network dropped her as a paid contributor just days after her hiring was announced following backlash from NBC’s on-air personalities, according to Politico.

FILE - Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel speaks before a Republican presidential ... [+] primary debate hosted by NBC News, Nov. 8, 2023, at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County in Miami. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

McDaniel is expecting to be paid in full for the two years of her contract, maintaining she complied with all of the contract’s terms, according to Politico, which cited a person close to McDaniel.

Following her hiring announcement last week, McDaniel only appeared on air once, in a contentious interview on “Meet the Press,” where host Kristen Welker told viewers the interview had been scheduled before McDaniel’s hiring announcement and that Welker played no role in her hiring.

Politico also reported that McDaniel met with attorney Bryan Freedman to weigh legal options Tuesday and could pursue claims related to defamation or a hostile work environment, though the outlet noted no agreement was final—Forbes has contacted Freedman for comment, and McDaniel could not immediately be reached for comment.

Freedman has taken on several high-profile ousted media personalities as clients before, including Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson and Chris Cuomo—reportedly securing Kelly the remaining $30 million in her contract.

Forbes has contacted NBC for comment.

Key Background

Some NBC journalists publicly questioned the decision to hire McDaniel, with some noting McDaniel, as the former chair of the RNC, backed former President Trump’s evidence-lacking claims that the 2020 presidential election was marred by election fraud. She went as far as calling two local Michigan canvassers and encouraged them to not certify their election results, claiming, “we will get you attorneys.” On her “Meet the Press” appearance Sunday, she addressed her past statements questioning the integrity of the 2020 election and claimed that President Joe Biden won “fair and square” and is the “legitimate president.” NBC’s Chuck Todd was one of several on-air personalities who questioned the hiring, telling Welker in a panel after the interview, “I have no idea whether any answer she gave to you was because she didn’t want to mess up her contract.” Politico has reported that the decision to hire McDaniel was unanimous among network executives, with NBC News’ head of political coverage Carrie Budoff Brown, reportedly involved in McDaniel’s hire, saying in a staff memo at the time: “it couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” according to the New York Times.

Chief Critics

Former President Donald Trump, who had pushed for McDaniel’s ouster from the RNC in favor of North Carolina Republican Michael Whatley and his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, criticized NBC for firing McDaniel on Tuesday, writing on his social media platform Truth Social “these Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY, and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK.” He noted McDaniel “went out of her way to say what they wanted to hear,” an apparent reference to her “Meet the Press” interview. Trump said the firing leaves McDaniel in “a very strange place, it’s called NEVER NEVERLAND, and it’s not a place you want to be.” Elon Musk also weighed in, claiming that NBC fired McDaniel “because the team refused to let even one Republican join them.”

Big Number

$300,000. That’s how much McDaniel was expected to make in each year of her contract as a guest contributor with NBC, according to multiple media outlets, a premium price for a cable news contributor. In 2019, several former Fox News contributors were forced to disclose their salaries in financial disclosure forms because they went on to join the Trump Administration. Eight Trump staffers who formerly worked as Fox News contributors were paid, on average, $141,000—John Bolton, who became Trump’s National Security Advisor, had received the highest salary with $569,423, according to the Hollywood Reporter. McDaniel’s salary was a point of contention among NBC staff as well—the NBC News Guild union criticized the network for the salary amount in light of recent cuts in the newsroom.