RNC weighs restricting NBC’s convention access following McDaniel firing

29 March 2024

Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel had been an NBC News contributor for less than a week when, on Tuesday, March 26, NBCU News Group Chairman Cesar Conde announced that she had been fired.

2024 GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has pushed for her to be ousted as RNC chair, responded to Conde's announcement by mocking and ridiculing McDaniel on his Truth Social platform. But despite Trump and the RNC's treatment of McDaniel, they obviously resent NBC News for firing her — and are, according to Politico, responding by considering limiting NBC News' access to the 2024 Republican National Convention this summer in Milwaukee.

NBC News' decision to hire McDaniel as a pundit was incredibly controversial in light of her willingness, as RNC chair, to promote Trump's false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. And a long list of major MSNBC hosts slammed the hiring as a terrible decision, including Nicolle Wallace, Rachel Maddow, and "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

The liberal Maddow made it clear that she had no problem with NBC News hiring conservatives. In fact, some of MSNBC's hosts are prominent conservatives, including Scarborough (a former GOP congressman), Wallace (who served as White House communications director under President George W. Bush), and former RNC Chairman/ex-Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. But Maddow, Scarborough and others argued that someone who blatantly promoted debunked lies about the 2020 election's outcome should have no place at a major news organization.

After NBC News fired McDaniel, Trump responded with a mean-spirited post on Truth Social — writing, "Wow! Ronna McDaniel got fired by Fake News NBC. She only lasted two days, and this after McDaniel went out of her way to say what they wanted to hear. It leaves her in a very strange place, it's called NEVER NEVERLAND, and it's not a place you want to be. These Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY, and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK."

Regardless, the RNC's new post-McDaniel leadership — which includes Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-Chair Lara Trump — is obviously upset about the firing.

Isenstadt reports that restricting NBC News' access to the 2024 Republican National Convention "would mark a dramatic escalation in the growing rift between Donald Trump-allies and the TV network — a rift that has stemmed from NBC’s decision to part ways with McDaniel amid a revolt among top on-air talent."

"The RNC has followed through on threats to TV networks before, including cutting out NBC from hosting a debate in the 2016 primary," the Politico reporter explains in an article published on March 29. "But the summer convention is a far bigger stage with much larger electoral consequences. It's also not certain how much control the Committee possesses over media access to the convention. The event requires the coordination of the Republican Party, convention hall officials, and local and state authorities. And congressional press gallery officials, not the RNC, run the credentialing process for access to the convention hall."

Two GOP sources told Politico that the RNC would be able to restrict access to at least parts of the Milwaukee venue where the convention is being held. But Rob Zatkowski, director of the House Periodical Press Gallery, says the RNC doesn't have full control over which media outlets are given press credentials for the Republican National Convention.

Zatkowski told Politico, "(If) the publication is credentialed on Capitol Hill, and one of the parties asked that the publication not be credentialed for the convention, we would credential the publication anyway. To my knowledge, this has never happened before."

Read Politico's full report at this link.

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