REPORT: NBC TRIED TO THROW JEN PSAKI UNDER THE BUS TO SAVE RONNA McDANIEL - 3.28.24

SEASON 2 EPISODE 148: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The head of the POLITICAL unit at NBC News is now reported to have been actively working with the former Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee to try to stir up a social media groundswell to save Ronna McDaniel’s job at NBC. And she – and perhaps the CHAIRMAN of NBC News as well - were reportedly willing to throw MSNBC under the bus - specifically, willing to throw its ex-Biden-Press-Secretary, now budding star Jen Psaki, under the bus, and throw Chuck Todd under the bus, in hopes of saving Ronna McDaniel.

Puck News is reporting that after Ronna McDaniel debuted on “Meet The Press” on Sunday and after Kristen Welker told the audience she had no say in McDaniel’s hiring and after Chuck Todd attacked the hiring, NBC News Chairman Cesar Conde and Vice President Carrie Budoff Brown were unnerved, but both quote “seemed to anticipate the impending insurgency and frantically tried to pre-empt it. On Sunday, Budoff Brown reached out to McDaniel’s aide and former chief of staff at the RNC Richard Walters, to see if there were any friends or colleagues who could speak up on her BEHALF. The two sides also discussed having those folks call attention to what they saw as a double standard – after all this was the same network that was turning Psaki… into a Maddow-adjacent prime time star. Walters later assured Budoff Brown that they’d been able to advance conservative pushback on social media against (Chuck) Todd, specifically, and that this might give NBC News some cover, for which Budoff Brown thanked him,” unquote.

The report - and a similar story by The Hollywood Reporter - also highlights MSNBC President Rashida Jones's role in hiring McDaniel, and raises questions about Kristen Welker's on-air denial that she was at all involved in the hiring (it says she was AT a meeting at which Budoff Brown continued to pitch McDaniel).

It's a disaster, it's still unfolding, and there's no telling how many different NBC News executives will follow McDaniel out the door.

B-Block (28:19) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: First Maria Bartiromo blamed the Baltimore bridge collapse on "wide open borders." Now she wants to make sure no money is allocated to rebuild it. James Comer claims Merrick Garland and The Deep State are indoctrinating people into believing he has no evidence against Biden. And Sage Steele, with whom I once co-anchored SportsCenter, says the devil tried to keep her from speaking out against liberals by hitting her in the mouth with a golf ball.

C-Block (40:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Okay, the still-evolving Ronna McDaniel scandal is a doozy. But this is NOT NBC/MSNBC's worst crisis ever. Let me take you back to the thrilling day of Existential Challenge when the Chairman of GE was ready to shut the network down, pay everybody off, and fire all of us, because his Mommy had seen Bill O'Reilly criticize him on Fox, because of what I said about O'Reilly on MSNBC.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.