Ronna McDaniel Likely to Sue NBC
There will be lawyers.
POLITICO Playbook (“Ronna strikes back“):
The ramifications of NBC’s decision yesterday to part ways with contributor RONNA McDANIEL just two days after her paid network debut on “Meet the Press” are just starting to shake out. But they could be expensive.
McDaniel expects to be fully paid out for her contract, two years at $300,000 annually, since she did not breach its terms, we’re told — meaning that her single, not-quite-20-minute interview Sunday could cost the Peacock more than $30,000 per minute, or $500 per second.
That’s just one tidbit we’ve picked up from McDaniel’s side of things following yesterday’s announcement from NBCUniversal News Group Chair CESAR CONDE, and it might be just the beginning of the fallout. McDaniel spoke yesterday with BRYAN FREEDMAN, renowned lawyer to the estranged cable-news stars, to discuss legal options even beyond recouping the dollar value of her original contract.
While no arrangement is final, a person close to McDaniel tells us, Freedman would be an obvious choice: He represented MEGYN KELLY in her own acrimonious parting with NBC, as well as ousted anchors CHRIS CUOMO, DON LEMON and TUCKER CARLSON in disputes with their respective former networks.
McDaniel, we’re told, is exploring potential defamation and hostile work environment torts after MSNBC’s top talent — momentarily her colleagues — took turns Monday blasting her on air. (NBC declined to comment about the $600,000 figure or her potential claims.)
McDaniel was silent yesterday as the fallout from the internal network revolt mounted, and her perspective and role in the deal was largely lost as it unraveled in real time. She and her allies are, unsurprisingly, furious about how everything went down, believing she was misled about how much she’d be welcomed into the fold by executives who had aggressively recruited her. They blame the same NBC brass for botching the situation by not having her meet with top network talent ahead of the rollout, then caving to internal pressure from liberal-leaning hosts.
Most of all, they’re furious that the network did little to push back on a multi-day campaign against their new hire on their own airwaves. Host after host cast McDaniel as an enemy of democracy for, among other things, participating in a November 2020 phone call where then-President DONALD TRUMP sought to convince Michigan GOP elections officials not to certify election results.
“The part that pisses me off most about this is not necessarily that they folded; it’s [that] they allowed their talent to drag Ronna through the mud and make it seem like they were innocent bystanders,” the person close to McDaniel said.
I’m not privy to the terms of McDaniel’s contract and have little expertise in employment law in any case. While there are ongoing efforts to change it, New York (where I presume the contract is based) is an at-will state, meaning employment can usually be terminated for any reason that doesn’t defy public policy. But, since she wasn’t fired for cause, NBC would presumably owe her the contracted amount.
The main example I’m familiar with on these matters is that of athletic coaches, both at the college and pro levels. Most of those contracts require fired coaches to be paid either the full amount due or some specified lower amount. Most also require them to mitigate by finding suitable employment in the field with some sort of offset. I would guess that something like this is in McDaniel’s contract.
NBC absolutely should have anticipated the reaction to her hiring. I find it astounding that they allowed their talent—particularly non-commentators—to go on their air and trash the hire. It’s just a bad look for the network all around.
That said, I don’t know on what basis McDaniel would have a case for additional damages. She is a known liar, repeatedly claiming that the 2020 election was stolen despite no evidence for that and dozens of court findings and other evidence to the contrary. That various NBC and MSNBC hosts found it outrageous that she was hired on the grounds that it diminished their journalistic reputation is certainly defensible and, indeed, would seem to be protected speech.
I genuinely don’t know what NBC was thinking. McDaniel is damaged goods, and will be for years if not decades. They absolutely should have anticipated the backlash and anyone who “aggressively recruited” her should have their head(s) examined, or they should be fired themselves, or both.
McDaniel represents everything that is wrong in the current GOP. She traded her convictions for a job, becoming a certified fabulist and propagator of the Big Lie that the election was stolen. She might get bought out of the contract, but the defamation charges should get tossed out, if she’s bold/arrogant enough to file them.
Maybe, just maybe, networks will use this mess to pause this revolving door between Trump sycophants and highly paid consultant gigs.
Fixed that for POLITICO.
I’m not sure they could have stopped it. I suspect some of them weren’t bluffing when they said they’d rather quit than work with McDaniel. The big surprise was Chuck Todd taking a public stand.
One would hope that after failing to involve their talent in the decision they were bright enough to involve legal in the decision to dump her. That they hired McDaniel at all, and were oblivious to the predictable reaction, does not speak well to the integrity of NBC management.
Some NBC executive just cost the company several million dollars when everything is said and done and a good chunk of its reputation, that’s usually a good reason to get rid of such executive. Having the common sense of a door nail is not the way to run a company. My only question is was this hire vetted by legal. I only ask because Ronna is in the middle of some criminal prosecutions.
Agreed. I mean, yes, they were right. But still. Scrambling all over each other to see who could be more self-righteous in preening about “journalistic integrity.” It was nauseating to witness, especially from Chuck Todd, the reigning champion of Beltway Bothsidesism since Chris Cillizza got booted.
Has Maddow ever apologized for helping Trump in 2016 by starting the dumb frenzy over Hillary’s “Wall Street speeches?” A New York senator talked to her constituents — the horror!
And don’t even get me started on Joe & Mika attacking Fani Willis while they yet benefit from their own adulterous workplace fraternization.
I’m pretty sure contractual law is relevant and employment law is not.
@Jen:
They weren’t, because there never was an upside.
Traditional Republicans don’t like her because she’s associated with too many losing election cycles.
MAGA Republicans don’t like her because something something allowed the debates something something Nikki Haley damaged Trump something something RINO.
And everybody else doesn’t like her because she’s an election denier with no credibility who participated in the fake elector scheme. (As a Dem partisan, I cheer McDaniel for leaving the RNC in such shambles it’s been turned over to even more incompetent leadership.)
She had no constituency or cachet to bring to NBC. And now she’ll still get a bunch of NBC’s money. I almost admire McDaniel’s ability to fail up — any other RNC chair would’ve been ousted after the 2018 Blue Wave. She must’ve been very nice as a young lady, because she has really good personal karma.
@DK:..she has really good karma.
If she has good karma, whatever that means, then I hope karma stays away from me.
All NBC has to do is pay off her $600k contract. That’s it. No lawsuit.
$600k is not even a rounding error for NBC News.
@Mister Bluster: I could use an extra $600k (+a possible award for contract breach) for failing miserably at my previous job while having to do zero work at the new company about to payout the $600k, couldn’t you?
Tangent: Ronna
RomneyMcDaniel is the “Have You Seen Me” poster child for those who think they can ride Trump to a higher status but then are pushed out of the car to wander in the dark alone. It. Never. Works. Never. But there are suckers born every minute. Here’s Trumps modus operandi: 1a) Find someone who is so damaged that they see Trump as their only chance, OR 1b) Find a weak person and deliberately damage them. McDaniel falls into the 1b category. He made her literally change her name in return for the job which immediately painted her as a needy patsy, and then continued to humiliate her in various ways over the next several years. He made it obvious to everyone that he held her in contempt and then “graciously” let her keep her job.Step 2) Decide that they stand in the way of something he wants and then turn on them viciously, leaving them truly and completely destroyed and knowing that if they ever want a comeback, it will only be through him. In McDaniels’ case he wanted her to engage in something that is arguably criminal: directing RNC funds to Trump’s legal fees to the exclusion of everything else. She didn’t publicly say no, but she also didn’t quickly capitulate and that was enough. Suddenly she is a piece of garbage, an idiot, a stooge, someone to mock and laugh at, and so she must go. He replaces her with a family member who immediately makes a strident speech stating that basically all funds will go to Trump’s legal bills.
No one ever gets next to Trump without getting covered with shit. He’s covered in the most foul smelling crap imaginable, but he don’t care. And he’s more than happy to flick some on you as you walk by, friend or foe
@EddieInCA: Don’t know how these contracts are written but if there is a chance, I would make Ronna hang around and do something dull and boring like paperwork.
Same with fired but wealthy football coaches. Make them pick up jock straps or something to earn their money.
@Scott: Nobody is going to sign that kind of contract. Indeed, those with the most leverage often refuse to include even an offset clause, meaning that they get the full salary from the firing institution while also getting the full salary from the next hire, whether another coaching job or a television gig.
@EddieInCA:
One complain, I think from unionized NBC employees, was the contrast between personnel reductions and somehow having $300 grand per year to give to Ms Romney.
NBC will pay because it has to, but many employees will remain unhappy anyway.
@MarkedMan:
Maybe we should spend a few trillions in a project to resurrect PT Barnum.
Has anyone calculated exactly how many Scaramuccis she lasted at NBC? 0.5?
As a point of the relevant law, this is presumably not an employment contract under labour code, but rather more likely a service contract as like one contracts with an advisor or other Contractor, rather than under employment code. Certainly that would be the proper and intelligent way to do such (although proper and intelligent seem not to have in order given they actually signed anything with her at all).
As such the service contract terms are likely under contract law rathe rather than employment. How clever their lawyers were, NBC, to be seen.
@DK:..she’s an election denier with no credibility who participated in the fake elector scheme.
So karma, whatever that is, has rewarded her financially for being a liar and supporting Trump who is a rapist and grabs women by the pussy.
It’s America, baby. Of course there will be lawyers
@James Joyner: Oh, you’re no fun!
@EddieInCA: I’m not so sure about that. She has a decent case of tortious interference. If I were her, I’d not only go after NBC on multiple fronts, but potentially the on-air talent that bashed her.
Having the top talent trash her is probably the only thing that makes NBC look good in this fiasco. The news anchors have editorial independence.
@Mister Bluster: No, as I said originally, she must’ve been a really nice person when she was young. Because her karmic success certainly can’t be coming from her current trajectory.
(Also, karma is not real.)
Defamation? The published words would have to be demonstrably false, so scratch that. This is a contract case, and NBC can swat it away with a check for $600K. What the network should do is rethink the “we want to have diverse voices” idea and exclude known liars and propagandists, thereby avoiding big payouts to the likes of Megan Kelly, Greta Van Susteran, and Ronna “I can’t be hyphenated in front of Trump” McDaniel.
@<a she droped her name to work for a convicted sex offender that say it all for me
@DanteorMilton:
You’re so, so wrong.
She’s a public figure. If she’s paid off, what are the damages? NBC will have fulfilled their end of the deal. If she chooses to sue anyone, she’d lose. Quickly.