Chuck Todd admonishes his bosses on-air over NBC hiring Ronna McDaniel

NBC News political director isn’t ready to defend his network’s hiring of former GOP chief Ronna McDaniel as a political analyst.

On Sunday, he made sure his bosses — and everybody else — knew it.

Ms McDaniel’s hiring as a paid contributor at NBC News this past week was reported to have made a number of journalists at the network uncomfortable. As Meet the Press turned to its panel segment on Sunday morning, Todd vocalised those objections in a fiery admonition of NBC brass, whom he said owed moderator Kristen Welker an apology for booking Ms McDaniel as one of her interviews for Sunday’s programme.

Welker’s interview with Ms McDaniel touched on several topics including her leadership of the Republican National Committee (RNC). Her tenure as RNC chair came to an end this year after Donald Trump endorsed her removal following the South Carolina primary.

Ms McDaniel’s time at the head of the party was punctuated by poor fundraising which trailed that of the party’s Democratic foes in 2023 and left a number of state parties in dire financial straits. A year prior, Republicans saw a dismal showing in US midterm congressional and statewide elections. A number of high-profile candidates endorsed by Donald Trump lost important races for governorships and congressional seats leading to the GOP eking out a tiny majority in the lower chamber and failing to capture a minority in the Senate.

Asked about those statistics and a description of her as a failure by an RNC member who spoke to NBC News, Ms McDaniel responded: “I push back on that very hard,” and went on to tout gains the party made with recruiting women and people of colour to run for congressional seats under her leadership.

She took the role at the RNC shortly after