Fresh off her exile from the Republican National Committee, former chair Ronna McDaniel has announced that she will be joining NBC News as a political analyst for the 2024 election season.
Despite railing against liberal media outlets as chair, McDaniel has chosen an odious path toward a paycheck from the network that owns ultra-liberal MSNBC. While viewers won’t see McDaniel on Rachel Maddow’s show anytime soon, they can expect to see more of the former GOP leader on both channels as a reliable conservative juxtaposition to their stable of liberal prognosticators.
“It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” Carrie Budoff Brown, who oversees NBC’s political talent, wrote in an internal memo obtained by the New York Times, adding that McDaniel would provide “an insider’s perspective on national politics and the future of the Republican Party.”
McDaniel is expected to be a prominent feature in election night coverage later this year, joining other former Republican operatives like Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, and Brendan Buck, an advisor to former House Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner.
Her arrival into the pasture of legacy conservative analysts indicates that McDaniel has been all but sidelined by Michael Whatley, the RNC’s new chair, and former President Donald Trump’s campaign.
In February, McDaniel stepped down following three dismal years of party fundraising and pressure by President Trump, who privately lamented the party’s lack of focus on election integrity. Whatley, a top Trump ally and leader of the North Carolina Republican Party, has been joined by co-chair and daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who recently announced that the RNC had its best fundraising month in over a year.
McDaniel’s final months were marred by ham-handed leadership of GOP presidential debates sans Trump and criticism from other candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy who used her as a foil to gain recognition in a crowded field. She officially pulled the plug after South Carolina’s Republican primary on February 24th, another resounding win by President Trump over Nikki Haley, his lone rival at the time.
McDaniel will debut on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this Sunday.