The Republican National Committee told NBC News earlier today that it will not continue with plans for a scheduled February 26 debate on NBC because Republican leaders didn’t like the way CNBC handled this week’s debate.
This is big political news, so how did NBC, MSNBC and CNBC cover the awkward situation?
MSNBC mentioned it at 1:43 p.m. ET when Erica Hill said, “We are covering breaking news in 2016 politics. A short time ago, the chairman of the republican national committee announced he would suspend NBC News from participating in a republican debate scheduled for February. The reason? Criticism of the most recent debate on cnbc. This network, NBC news and CNBC share the same parent company.”
Hill then posted the statement by RNC chairman Reince Priebus before airing NBC’s response and an older statement from CNBC pertaining to the criticism. Hill then moved on to a taped interview with GOP candidate Lindsey Graham about the situation. MSNBC then went live to Hallie Jackson for more coverage of the debate about the debates. It’s safe to say MSNBC was not avoiding the topic whatsoever.
CNBC mentioned the controversy at 1:51 p.m. ET, when Sue Herera broke into Power Lunch and read Priebus’ statement and followed it up with NBC’s rebuttal. Less than two minutes later, the network was discussing rising interest rates.
NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt mentioned a “new debate controversy” during the show’s intro at 6:31 p.m. ET. Holt opened the broadcast with news about U.S. troops in Syria and followed it with news of the Texas flood emergency. By 6:37 p.m. ET, Holt was discussing the winners and losers of CNBC’s debate but still hadn’t mentioned the NBC drama.
Holt then threw it to Hallie Jackson, the same reporter who discussed the situation on MSNBC, who finally mentioned the Republican party suspending the NBC debate. Jackson mentioned both the NBC and CNBC statements and quickly moved on to other political news, such as how Jeb Bush plans to improve. Nightly News did show video of Bush saying, “hopefully the debate moderators will ask more substantive questions.”
Holt followed up Jackson’s report with a programing note that Bush would be on Meet the Press this week and quickly changed the topic to an airport fire.
NBC issued the following statement shortly after the news broke:
This is a disappointing development. However, along with our debate broadcast partners at Telemundo we will work in good faith to resolve this matter with the Republican Party.