Ronna McDaniel might already be facing turbulence in her new role at NBC News. Just one appearance as a political news contributor has set off a storm of concern compelling the network's top brass to schedule an urgent meeting for Tuesday.

The decision to bring McDaniel onboard reportedly did not sit well with many within the NBCUniversal editorial staff.

According to Variety, high-profile anchors, including Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow, have voiced their opposition on “Meet The Press” and MSNBC, criticizing the network for providing a platform to someone closely associated with efforts to question the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election in support of Donald Trump.

Dylan Byers of Puck News reported on Tuesday that NBC is planning to terminate McDaniel's contract as a result of the significant on-air opposition from NBC and MSNBC personnel. The network's executives are currently fine-tuning the specifics of this decision, with an official announcement expected soon.

 

Just days after jumping the sinking ship at the RNC, McDaniel seemed to find her life raft on MSNBC. Just last week she was hired as a contributor on the network.

“I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation,” Todd told Kristen Welker on Sunday following her interview of McDaniel on Meet the Press. “There’s a reason why there’s a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with this, because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting.”

During her appearance on Meet the Press, McDaniel diverted from the mainstream media narrative on Donald Trump's campaign promise to pardon non-violent J6 defendants.

Variety reported:

All of NBC News’ senior executives signed off on the plan to bring McDaniel aboard, according to people familiar with the matter. Yet under an unorthodox corporate structure, most of those people wouldn’t be tasked with managing McDaniel’s relationships with programs and producers. Since the exit of former NBC News president Noah Oppenheim in January of last year, NBC News has been broken up into smaller units, each with its own leader. The “Today” morning franchise is managed in one unit, “NBC Nightly News” and streaming in another, and newsgathering, “Meet The Press” and “Dateline” in a third. What’s more, MSNBC and CNBC also have separate management teams.

McDaniel’s hire, seen as a bid to gain access to the thinking of the current Republican party, was announced by Carrie Budoff Brown, the NBC News executive who oversees “Meet The Press” and political coverage. But Budoff Brown reports to Rebecca Blumenstein, president of editorial for NBC News, and has little say over how McDaniel might be incorporated into “Today,” MSNBC, “NBC Nightly News” or NBC News Now, the company’s streaming outlet.

Other networks have tested similar hires. CBS News’ 2022 decision to hire Mick Mulvaney, a former Trump White House chief of staff, drew scrutiny, and CNN’s 2019 effort to bring aboard political operative Sarah Isgur, a former spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice under Jeff Sessions, generated pushback after executives proposed using her in a managing editorial role.