UPDATE:
UPDATE: Crooks and Liars is reporting that NBC executives are having an emergency meeting today to discuss the Ronna McDaniel hiring.
Here are some X/Twitter comments on Carrie Budoff Brown:
CNN seems to be enjoying the blowback from staffers directed at NBC News management for the idiotic hiring of election denier and insurrectionist co-conspirator Ronna McDaniel, and they are spillng the tea at what is going on NBC. In other words, we are provided with the name of the ultimate idiot in charge, Cesar Conde, and his two henchweomen, Rebecca Blumenstein and Carrie Budoff Brown who were involved in hiring Ronna McDaniel. Yes, all the senior executives signed off on this lunacy, but it’s now up to Conde to decide what to do about the huge mess he made at NBC. And he’s failing at that too.
New YorkCNN —
Cesar Conde has a decision to make — and it’s not an especially difficult one.
The NBCUniversal News Group chair is facing a torrent of backlash from his own staff after greenlighting the hire of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid network contributor…
While NBC News president Rebecca Blumenstein and senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown were most directly responsible for McDaniel’s hiring, a decision that MSNBC boss Rashida Jones did not object to it at the time, the buck ultimately stops with Conde, who hold the real power at the Peacock Network. McDaniel’s hiring could not have happened without Conde’s blessing.
Emphasis is mine.
I was correct that Carrie Budoff Brown was involved in this fiasco (she’s the one who sent out the email saying what a great contribution Ronna McDaniel would be to NBC). MSNBC president Rashida Jones has been trying to contain the fallout from her “Yes, it’s fine with me to hire Ronna McDaniel” by claiming McDaniel will not appear on the air on MSNBC. But other than that, no one else at NBC or MSNBC management has stepped up to do anything about the firestorm created by Cesar Conde and others.
Why did Conde hire McDaniel? There are lots of good theories, and the hosts at MSNBC went through them all yesterday on air. The most “logical” one postulated was this is what some organizations do as a form of appeasement for an incoming fascist dictator who has assumed power.
The problem is that the dictator will take the appeasement and demand more. And given that one of the enemies to a dictator is a free press, NBC News is high on Trump’s list of enemies to be dealt with, if he returns to power. Unfortunately, NBC News feels that Trump WILL RETURN to power (not might), and Conde is trying to appease Trump. And it won’t matter to Trump.